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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

AJA card and Red

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Henk van den Doel

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Hi,

By now I am really looking forward to Red and I am quite sure we will pick one up soon after it's release.

We just purchased a Mac Pro, but we still have to add a card for SDI output, like an AJA or Black Magic card. Since we would really like this Mac Pro setup to be ready to work with Red when it arrives, could you please give us advice on which card to get? I noticed on Red.com that AJA was in a list of gear you use, but can we simply get any card of them and have it work properly? We will now only use it for SD output, but it has to be ready for Red...How does the transfer of data work in the Red workflow?

Cheers for any suggestions/information, we are completely in the dark here :)
All the best with Red!
--
yohenk
 
Hi Yohenk

Red have said repeatedly that they will not give exact specifications of what gear is needed until nearer delivery, when they can be more precise. The list on red.com of "gear we use" is just that, and not a definitive list of what is required.

For what it's worth, here are my thoughts:

I currently use a Decklink card for HD and SD work, and am very happy with it. For Red, however I am considering getting an AJA Kona 3 (or whatever AJA's top card is at the time) to go with the Mac Pro that I will buy. I am not 100% convinced by the quality of the down-conversion in the Decklink cards, and the options for up/down/cross conversion are greater (I believe) in the AJA products, although I have not used one.

Blackmagic Design have recently released a software update for their HD cards which alows 2k media to be played out (with some cropping) through the HD-SDI output of their cards, which was previously something only the Kona 3 could do. That closes one gap. At the moment nothing can play out from 4k media, but time and REDCODE may change that.

AJA products are more expensive, and part of the reason may be that they have more memory in them (this is speculation). Cineform have said that their wavelet compression format only works with AJA cards, not Decklink ones because of this memory limitation. Red have of course said nothing about whether this will be the case with REDCODE, but it's worth considering.

Also since Ted from Red used to work at AJA, I suspect there may be slightly closer communication for developing compatibility.

All this is of course just speculation, but I thought I'd put my 2 penneth out there. Hope it helps. Generally I would say wait as long as you can before purchasing. New and better products may come out. If you need a stop gap for SD work, Decklink SD cards are very affordable and very good. You might be better buying one of them now, and replacing it when Red ships.

Nick

EDIT
PS you asked about the transfer of data in the Red workflow. The data is just that, data, and is transferred as you would transfer data from any hard drive to a computer. You do not need a capture card to do it. Strictily if your workflow is entirely data-driven (ie your deliver format is not tape) you do not need a card at all, but I would suggest you did get one anyway for monitoring.
 
Excellent! Thanks for all your input guys! I think we'll wait a bit longer until more specific information from the Red team becomes available.

Cheers
 
AjA Card

AjA Card

I have an AJA LH card for use with our HVXs. We deliver mostly HD downconverted to Beata SP.

There is not a day that goes by that I'm not excited with my Kona. The downconversion is pristine and it just opens up alot of possibilities.

I have never used a Blackmagic, but I've heard enough marginally dissatisfied people talking about them and enough Kona users raving about their stuff to know I made the right decision.

We will definitely use whatever the top of the line Kona is (probably Kona 3) with the RED.

Cheers,

Dave
 
Just so you know why Kona3 is on the list of gear we used. At IBC we were playing out 2k downconverts of our footage from the FCP timeline. We were using the Kona3 card to do this.

If you're at all dealing with HD resolution while you're working with RED footage, a Kona3 would be a great addition to your workflow. Personally, I always wait until NAB before buying anything though....

Graeme
 
Graeme beat me to the wait for NAB comment.

I am planning on using Redcine on an intel-based PC to do the output and moving the footage over to FCP on my decklink equipped G5.

Hopefully, later on those 8-core Pro Macs will show up to the party and I can get that and a newer post-NAB output card.

Don't the new decklink drivers support 2k now anyway? Mebbe it's only on intel.
 
Guess you guys don't use the Multibridge extreme from BMD. It blows the socks off of the Kona Card and is not seated in the system. We are running it for finishing HD 10 bit and HDCAM SR right now. A full FCP system with 6 terrabytes of HD space in one room and the second room is running 4 terrabytes of HD Space. no issues on either system. (the 4 terrabyte is a PPC G5 dual 2.7 and the 6 terrabyte is a new Mac Pro Quad with 8 gigs of ram. The up and downconversions are flawless and the system works with almost no down time. We were using AVID symphony until this and find it as good for 1/8 the cost of the upgrade to the DS.
 
lordnumberzero - that works, so long as the codec you are cooking to for the Mac is available on the PC. Hopefully, no gamma shifts cross platforms as well.

One other note - BMD updated their drivers to include 2K output to HD-SDI and HD component analog - but AFAIK it doesn't let you adjust the crop, just center cuts (AJA lets you pick where you bias the cut). Haven't tried it yet, but looks interesting.
 
Just thought I'd throw in...

SCRATCH will support REDCODE RAW natively.

SCRATCH can currently output (via the NVidia QuadroFX 4500-SDI) from 2K to any SMPTE format in realtime... NTSC, PAL, 1080i, 1080p, 720p, etc, etc.

Ergo...

As long as the decode of REDCODE RAW is realtime (which I believe it will be!) then you will be able to output - with no rendering - a realtime video deliverable with optional burn-in to NTSC, PAL, or HD-flavor-du-jour from REDCODE RAW.

Best,

Lucas Wilson
------------
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
Los Angeles
lucas*at*assimilateinc*dot*com
 
Performance of REDCODE RAW/RGB is highly depended of the number of processors and the speed of them. We're not ready to give numbers or guarantees yet for real time performance and so on (depends on a lot of variables). We're still busy with coding, optimizing, testing and profiling.
 
I'm with Evan. What is it gonna take to get our own Scratch system up and running. I really want to learn Scratch to use alongside my Red. I'm hoping under $10k
 
As long as we are talking cards

As long as we are talking cards

I was looking into using a Black Magic Intensity set of cards to switch/overlay graphics over a RED converted to HDMI and a MacPro converted to HDMI to drive a set of 1080P Projectors.

Any thoughts on how to get easily to HDMI with a RED and what live HD graphics software solution is best to supply the second HDMI source from a Mac. I guess it could be anything tied to another Intensity card for output.

Has anyone here used Isadora? http://www.troikatronix.com/isadora.html

Thanks for any input or ideas,

Rosco
 
Limited to 1080i/720P

Limited to 1080i/720P

It looks like the Intensity "only" does 1080i and 720p so maybe I don't have any easy way to overlay graphics on a RED output yet.

Hoping for the moon for $500, but it is still a cool HDMI solution pre NAB.

Rosco
 
opcode said:
What is it gonna take to get our own Scratch system up and running. I really want to learn Scratch to use alongside my Red. I'm hoping under $10k
Click to expand...

Evin Grant said:
Luki, any chance of a Reduser discount or maybe a "Indie" version of scratch designed for desktop computers priced in the $2K range for us mortals?
Click to expand...

Guys,

Much like buying a RED ONE, there is a lot more to think about than just the "purchase of the camera" in setting up a SCRATCH system. Many times, the software is the least of your financial worries.

Computer
What CPU and config? Realtime playback (potential) of REDCODE RAW, or certainly realtime RGB at high resolutions requires a top-performance dual-CPU single- or multi-core Intel Mac or Intel/AMD WinXP tower. Those start at several thousand dollars.

Graphics Card
There are a lot of great graphics card. But, realtime performance for color correction at high resolutions must be a Quadro-level card from NVidia. Cannot be ATI, and cannot be mobo-integrated graphics. Must be a separate PCI-e graphics card. Another thousand or two.

For realtime video output that I mentioned in this thread, must be a QuadroFX 4500-SDI. Those are about $6K list price. And they are not certified by NVidia or Apple for Intel Macs. They probably will be eventually... and it probably will work now... but you should intimately familiarize yourself with how Apple feels about supporting non-certified configurations before you take that chance. Caveat Emptor. WinXP - no problem.

Of course - this is for realtime, no-render performance. There are great solutions from AJA, Blackmagic, and Bluefish444 that do high-quality video I/O, but (at least for SCRATCH) will require a render. For most people though, this is perfectly acceptable!

Storage
Buying storage is like buying a car. It can be a high-capacity USB stick, or a multi-terabyte clustered Bright Systems SAN with Isilon NAS backup. One is about 100 - 200 bucks. One is about 100,000 - 200,000 bucks.

If realtime RGB performance at 4K is a requirement, that means storage with sustained reads at about 1.2GB/s. (that's gigaBYTES, folks...) This is a non-trivial setup, and it's damned expensive. Realtime RGB at 2K requires about 300MB/s sustained. That's not too hard to do, but it's at least $8 - 10K for starters.

----

So... by the time you've configured a system with enough storage to hold a reasonable amount of work at 2K RGB with realtime video output and conversion... you've dropped about $20K.

Keep in mind that I'm talking about realtime performance. Can you spec a system for much cheaper that will do 2K and output to video? Absolutely... it will just be slower and take longer to work with.

As far as SCRATCH prices... well... as Jim says, "we're learning every day and reconfiguring our strategy and options on a regular basis..."

Cheers,

Lucas Wilson
------------
Kids in Bed, Martini in Hand.
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
Los Angeles
 
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