Buying Mac Pro... How to get realtime playback with R3D files?

[Filippo Guerra]

Hi everyone,
I work in a small production company, we have a robust photography background and entering the video world.
We started from Canon 5D, recently we used the C300, but we are starting to look to RED (Scarlet or Epic), a lot of clients "prefers" this camera:laugh:

My main concern is the post production workflow. I'm trying to learn/understand a lot of things and maybe asking for help in this great community will be helpful!

How can we build a robust editing machine??
-12-core?
-A lot of RAM?
-RedRocket?
-RIAD Controller?
-SSD??
-SDI card (btw, what's the real purpose of a SDI output card, like Kona?)?

I know, a lot of confused ideas, but we're trying to enter the video world step-by-step.
We still miss some basics knowledgment, like the real use of SDI cards, we come from web delivery, I'd like to know if there's a book/site/blog/anything to learn all the basic stuff.

Thanks and sorry for all this confusion:banghead:

 

[Rob Ruffo]

With an 8 or 12 core you will get realtime in Davinci and Premiere - no problem, at 1/4 res. You need to consult the config guide in Resolve. We get this even on single Black Diamond drives

 

[Filippo Guerra]

right, I've forgot my workflow.

I'm using PremierePro CS6 + SpeedGrade + AfterEffects
I've just started to dig into REDCINE-X....

 

[Brian Merlen]

Does apple still sell internal raid controllers? I tried configuring a mac pro recently and didn't see the option...

PS if your shooting on redmags you dont need a capture card...just a redmag reader.. and if your looking for quality edit r3d files natively, don't bother transcoding in redcine x (unless you want to do an offline/online reconform edit...thus restoring the quality but editing in proxy files)

 

[Josh Miller]

I was in the market recently too and stumbled upon a company called Smarter Marketing Group. A guy named Jonathan Strauss owns the company and he's configured a kick ass system for me for under $5,000. PM me if you want his contact info. He's out of Cali. He customizes macs for our industry.

 

[Filippo Guerra]

Ok, after some thoughts....
I'm thinking in something like this:

12-Core MacPro (2.4Ghz)
6x8GB RAM
RedRocket
Nvidia Quadro 4000

I'm still looking for a good hard drive solution (eSATA, SAS, SSD, Thunderbolt, Internal RAID...),
please give me some ideas.

 

[Brian Merlen]

Buy your ram/hdds/ssds third party... owc is pretty good prices... macsales.com. never buy stuff at apple prices, only buy bare bones machines there... ps there is no thunderbolt solution for the mac pro. any other option you listed works fine. without knowing your storage needs its hard to guess what would work best for you. ssd for apps is good, storage, not so great...

i remember the apple sold internal raid solution didn't allow you to mix hhd's and ssd's...fyi... as for internal vs external, depends on your mobility factors, speed factors, storage needs, etc

 

[Filippo Guerra]

well, it'll be a studio workstation, so I don't need it to be mobile.
External SAS RAID?

 

[Brian Merlen]

yes that works fine, just need the pci card for the workstation is all... grab an ssd for your apps for a speed boost. either 3g ssd (since the mac pro doesn't have a 6g sata) or use the pci ssd solutions for even more speed, but they cost more...owc makes them as well