Building an Editing System for Dragon 6k

[Jeremy Wiles]

I'm planning to start building a new custom workstation (PC based) within the next week. My goal is to build a system that's capable of handling multiple layers of 6k footage at least at 1/2 resolution. Editing in full res would be great, but I don't want to spend $10k. My budget is $3,000. I'm connected to a server via a 10Gbps ethernet card, so hard drive speed isn't an issue.

Are there recommendations for a system that can handle 6k? What hardware would you recommend?

Thanks,

Jeremy

 

[Jon Jones]

I just built one, but it would blow that budget big time. 2, 8 core xeon's, 128gigs of ram, GTX 4gig video card, with 12TB raid connected through USB 3.0. It plays multiple layers of 5k at half res. I think that the bottle neck is in the USB 3.0 raid array. I think a couple of 6 core xeon's and 128 gigs of Kingston value ram should be fine for you. Your raid array will make that system fly big time!

 

[M Most]

I'm connected to a server via a 10Gbps ethernet card, so hard drive speed isn't an issue.

Yes, it is. A single stream of 4K material maxes out a 10Gb connection (it's 1.2GB per second, or about 9.6Gb). 2 streams of 3K are going to exceed it.

Now, if what you're actually talking about is pulling from compressed R3D files and decompressing only for display purposes, those factors change.

 

[Jeremy Wiles]

I just built one, but it would blow that budget big time. 2, 8 core xeon's, 128gigs of ram, GTX 4gig video card, with 12TB raid connected through USB 3.0. It plays multiple layers of 5k at half res. I think that the bottle neck is in the USB 3.0 raid array. I think a couple of 6 core xeon's and 128 gigs of Kingston value ram should be fine for you. Your raid array will make that system fly big time!

Hey Jon! Thanks for the reply. Do you mind sharing how much your system cost? What type of RAM are you using and which GTX card do you have? Are you using an SSD for your operating drive?

Yes, it is. A single stream of 4K material maxes out a 10Gb connection (it's 1.2GB per second, or about 9.6Gb). 2 streams of 3K are going to exceed it.

Now, if what you're actually talking about is pulling from compressed R3D files and decompressing only for display purposes, those factors change.

Yes, I'm playing from compressed R3D's for display purposes.

 

[M Most]

Yes, I'm playing from compressed R3D's for display purposes.

In that case, what are you monitoring on? If you're not monitoring on some kind of high resolution system, what's the point of trying to play it at that resolution?

 

[Jeremy Wiles]

In that case, what are you monitoring on? If you're not monitoring on some kind of high resolution system, what's the point of trying to play it at that resolution?

With the new system I'm planning to buy either a Sony Oled or Flanders 24".

 

[Jon Jones]

Jeremy, the system I built cost more than $6000 I think, but I went with top of the line everything, including a PCIE SSD for the OS, and the best xeon 8 core processors. here are the links to the gear:

Processors
Mobo
SSD
Case
Video Card

I would def. go with the new GTX 690 for a new system. And also, looking back I would also go with a 512GB Pcie SSD for the OS. The dual CPU's take a lot of power to run but are a beast with Multi Threaded tech that tear up RED footage. That Mobo and dual CPU's is what I would build my system around again if I had the chance for sure.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I'm planning to start building a new custom workstation (PC based) within the next week. My goal is to build a system that's capable of handling multiple layers of 6k footage at least at 1/2 resolution. Editing in full res would be great, but I don't want to spend $10k.

You might do what Peter Jackson did and just edit at normal Avid DNxHD resolution, and once you're done, conform the original files and output the 4K (or 6K) footage at the very end of the workflow.

The real problem is color-correcting files this large and getting the power to move the material through the system. Jackson and Park Road Post chose Mistika, which is an interesting system:

http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/Park-Road-Post-Hobbit

 

[Mark Toia]

Even though the new dragon will shoot 6k... If transcoding takes any longer than it does now, Ill be sticking with 5 & 4k recording... and knowing that we may end up with 5k 150fps I'm more than happy to stay at 5k.

FCPX - Premier CS6 - AVID will all have to get onto the 6k architecture pretty fast if we are to edit 6k. Hopefully RED is already talking to them.

Even though Dragon has officially been talked about by RED, I doubt many of is will get to have it in our cameras for at least another 12 months or more...

An with the current EPIC MX chip still so amazingly advanced, I'm not impatient at all about shipping dates. It's just good to know somethings coming.

 

[Jeremy Wiles]

I would def. go with the new GTX 690 for a new system. And also, looking back I would also go with a 512GB Pcie SSD for the OS. The dual CPU's take a lot of power to run but are a beast with Multi Threaded tech that tear up RED footage. That Mobo and dual CPU's is what I would build my system around again if I had the chance for sure.

Jon, I was looking at the GTX 690 card awhile back, but I remember reading that Premiere doesn't support dual GPU cards. I think it might be better to stick with you 670 card instead, since I'm on Premiere. I wonder if Premiere CS7 will support dual GPU's? I think I might go with the 6-core processor. It's just hard to tell what performance difference there will be in dual 8-core processors, like what you have and dual 6-core processors. Is there a good reason to go with a server processor over a desktop processor, like this one.

You might do what Peter Jackson did and just edit at normal Avid DNxHD resolution, and once you're done, conform the original files and output the 4K (or 6K) footage at the very end of the workflow.

The real problem is color-correcting files this large and getting the power to move the material through the system. Jackson and Park Road Post chose Mistika, which is an interesting system:

http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/Park-Road-Post-Hobbit

Sounds interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Even though the new dragon will shoot 6k... If transcoding takes any longer than it does now, Ill be sticking with 5 & 4k recording... and knowing that we may end up with 5k 150fps I'm more than happy to stay at 5k.

FCPX - Premier CS6 - AVID will all have to get onto the 6k architecture pretty fast if we are to edit 6k. Hopefully RED is already talking to them.

Even though Dragon has officially been talked about by RED, I doubt many of is will get to have it in our cameras for at least another 12 months or more...

An with the current EPIC MX chip still so amazingly advanced, I'm not impatient at all about shipping dates. It's just good to know somethings coming.

I agree. I'll also stick with 5k recording, but I'd just like to build a workstation that can handle more than what I need. Yeah, I hope Adobe is working on 6k architecture right now!

 

[Tom.Wong]

a red rocket card is really what's gonna do most of the work for you. if you don't intend to get one, the multi cpu is really gonna be the thing that helps you the most. the debayer and decompression process of the r3d is handled with all cpu load at that point. a more powerful GPU will only handle effects and layers in premiere, it does not do anything with debayer or decompression of r3d at all.

fast internal or sas based raid will be on key factor
cpu power, ram amount/speed
and a high end motherboard that won't bottleneck all these parts.

and with gpu depends on the kind of effects you do on your timeline. 670 or the 680 is a good choice.

but i don't think with even current processing power you'll be seeing 6k r3d real time with no rocket yet. next gen intel processors have been pushed back to June, next gen 8 cores might be able to do the trick, but I wouldn't count on it. what RED needs to do is to find a way to open up gpu decoding even though it's been said it's not possible, I'm no expert on it, but i guess if it's not it's not. the other solution is a more powerful rocket card. 6k decompress/debayer at 2x real time would be nice.

 

[Richard Tran]

I just built one, but it would blow that budget big time. 2, 8 core xeon's, 128gigs of ram, GTX 4gig video card, with 12TB raid connected through USB 3.0. It plays multiple layers of 5k at half res. I think that the bottle neck is in the USB 3.0 raid array. I think a couple of 6 core xeon's and 128 gigs of Kingston value ram should be fine for you. Your raid array will make that system fly big time!

Do you get enough speed with USB 3.0?
Your case is plenty big, why use USB 3.0 to connect when you could also use a raid card and get more than 400MB/s, (or whatever your USB 3.0 tops out at)

 

[Jon Jones]

I figure it's fine at least until Intel releases thunderbolt PCIE cards, or something else cost effective for an inexpensive but speedy raid config.

Do you get enough speed with USB 3.0?
Your case is plenty big, why use USB 3.0 to connect when you could also use a raid card and get more than 400MB/s, (or whatever your USB 3.0 tops out at)

 

[Jeremy Wiles]

a red rocket card is really what's gonna do most of the work for you. if you don't intend to get one, the multi cpu is really gonna be the thing that helps you the most. the debayer and decompression process of the r3d is handled with all cpu load at that point. a more powerful GPU will only handle effects and layers in premiere, it does not do anything with debayer or decompression of r3d at all.

fast internal or sas based raid will be on key factor
cpu power, ram amount/speed
and a high end motherboard that won't bottleneck all these parts.

and with gpu depends on the kind of effects you do on your timeline. 670 or the 680 is a good choice.

but i don't think with even current processing power you'll be seeing 6k r3d real time with no rocket yet. next gen intel processors have been pushed back to June, next gen 8 cores might be able to do the trick, but I wouldn't count on it. what RED needs to do is to find a way to open up gpu decoding even though it's been said it's not possible, I'm no expert on it, but i guess if it's not it's not. the other solution is a more powerful rocket card. 6k decompress/debayer at 2x real time would be nice.

Yeah, I would really like to have a Rocket card. I just cringe at spending $5k on a video card. Thanks for the good advice.

Would raiding a few SSD's for cache add much to performance while scrubbing?

Here's what I have so far:

EVGA Classified SR-X 270
(2) Intel XEON E5-2630 2.8GHz six-core processor
GTX 570
(4) OCZ Vertex 256GB SSD (1 for boot drive and 3 ssd's raided for cache)
1TB Western Digital 10000 RPM HDD (local storage)
64GB RAM DDR3
Xigmatek Elysium super tower case

 

[Richard Tran]

I figure it's fine at least until Intel releases thunderbolt PCIE cards, or something else cost effective for an inexpensive but speedy raid config.

I don't get it though.
Why are you waiting for thunderbolt?

You could go 10gbe, and share with a switch.

Or since you only have 12TB of data, you could go all internal with a raid card, and get much more superior speeds.

 

[Jon Jones]

Yeah man, you should look into buying a used Red Rocket. You would be surprised at what they will do, for real.

-Jon

Yeah, I would really like to have a Rocket card. I just cringe at spending $5k on a video card. Thanks for the good advice.

Would raiding a few SSD's for cache add much to performance while scrubbing?

Here's what I have so far:

EVGA Classified SR-X 270
(2) Intel XEON E5-2630 2.8GHz six-core processor
GTX 570
(4) OCZ Vertex 256GB SSD (1 for boot drive and 3 ssd's raided for cache)
1TB Western Digital 10000 RPM HDD (local storage)
64GB RAM DDR3
Xigmatek Elysium super tower case

 

[Brian Merlen]

Is there any company building something like StormDragon, but a little higher end with a color grade monitor that can do 6k wrangling/encodes and has fast ports? IE thunderbolt, SAS, USB3, etc? I think a mobile high end setup would be ideal, I want like an edit system/media managing system but mobile and fast set ups, but with processing power to wrangle and rewrap in decent time frames when it comes to 6k. That'd be the ultimate build... I just don't want to invest in a rMBP if everything I am trying to do bogs it down system wise...