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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 :)

Cyclone 600-2707

That sucks. My Rocket is not in my system right now, but when I did a little testing with it, I did not notice much speed difference. I'll see if I have time to put my Rocket back in this system this week and see if I can figure anything out.

If you remove the Cyclone and put the rocket in the x16 slot in your system, how fast does it do the same render?


Dusty

Dusty
 
Hi Dusty,

I will have to perform a comparison test, as you describe. I haven't had a chance to do so yet. This particular transcode is a little unusual. It's a 2.40:1 Anamorphic shot (2112x1728) converting to 2592x1080 ProRes422 HQ. I'm "hoping" that the extra math involved is what's causing the slow down. I'm also reading and writing to the same drive, which I know causes a slowdown as well. Neverthless, I do expect to be getting much closer to realtime than this (~10:1). I don't recall my REDRocket ever working this slow when it was in the MacPro tower directly

- Jordan
 
The "proper" Anamorphic pipeline is somewhat nebulous. This client wants a 1920x1080 'pan and scan' version, which is why we are transcoding in this manner.

But is it really considered "upscaling" if the vertical pixel resolution is decreasing (1728 down to 1080)?

- Jordan
 
So, I just finished a decent size batch; ~2 hours of material took ~3.5 hours to transcode. Not too bad actually. Much better than I thought in my previous post... For some reason, however, the last few clips saw a dramatic slowdown (about ~10:1). I wonder if the 2707 starts out at top speed and then progressively slows down? Or is that just crazy talk?

- Jordan
 
Dustin Cross said:
Vertical is downscaling (1728 to 1080)
Horizontal is upscaling (2112 to 2592)
Not sure if that has anything to do with your slowness, just thinking outloud.
Click to expand...

My understanding was that the vertical resolution was what "counts" when it comes to processing / scaling Anamorphic footage with the REDRocket. Would love it if somebody at RED could weigh in and let us know definitively.

The job in question only has the budget to generate one set of "universal master" dailies. Both versions of the project will online in ProRes HQ. So, the same files that will become a 2.40:1 deliverable also need to work in a 1920x1080 'pan-and-scan' deliverable.

My solution was to deliver 1080 vertical height files which can be both 2.40:1 as well as 16x9 (with the sides chopped off) with no further downscaling required.

So now, the question that remains, is my REDRocket slow because I picked a bad 'upscaling' resolution... or is my REDRocket slow because it's in the Cyclone 2707. OR... maybe it's working just fine and Anamorphic footage just takes longer?

- Jordan
 
A lot depends on what format you're transcoding to and what storage you're writing to. The Rocket can de-bayer the R3D in re-scale in real-time. Beyond that, it's entirely up to the rest of your system to be able to feed the Rocket and keep up with its output.

Even though the Cyclone technically has 4x the bandwidth that a single Rocket card could potentially use, I still have not received a direct answer as to how that bandwidth is distributed. Is the full PCIe 2.0 bandwidth re-allocated so multiple v1.x cards in the expander can capitalize on it? There is also the inherent latency associated with the expander and there will be a performance penalty with any device that is inside it... Or at least that shall be the case until someone invents a PCIe transport that can defy the physical laws of our universe.

I would be very curious in some actual benchmark testing with the Cyclone unit. As of right now, I'm still on the fence. And I'm still holding out to see if more info comes out regarding the ATTO 6Gbps adapters and compatibility in the same system, either in or out of the Cyclone expander.
 
Are those Shock absorbers?

Are those Shock absorbers?

Dustin Cross said:
I posted updated pics of my DIT cart with the 600-2707 here:

http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=658572&postcount=113


Dusty
Click to expand...

Hey Dustin. that is one sweet setup. but I have one question. are the golden metal things the shock absorbers? if so di you get them with the case? if not where did you get them? and what are they called?. I Need to put some of my equipment on something specially my Computer to avoid killing hard drives.
Thanks.
 
ATTO 6G issue FIX

ATTO 6G issue FIX

There is a solution to the ATTO 6G card issue with the Cyclone system. You may contact Cyclone if you require an update to your expander system.
 
Hmm. I just got my Cyclone 600-2707 yesterday and I seem to be having the exact same problem Jordan was having. My early-2008 Mac Pro does not even see the Cyclone HBA card in slot 2. And the only light or activity that happens on the chassis itself is the red LED on the back of the power supply. Dead as a doorknob.

I do have to say though that Cyclone techsupport is nothing short of amazing. Eric Breeden just responded to my support email which I sent an hour ago (9:45PM EST)! I hope he can figure out what's going on :(
 
Mel Matsuoka said:
Hmm. I just got my Cyclone 600-2707 yesterday and I seem to be having the exact same problem Jordan was having. My early-2008 Mac Pro does not even see the Cyclone HBA card in slot 2. And the only light or activity that happens on the chassis itself is the red LED on the back of the power supply. Dead as a doorknob.

I do have to say though that Cyclone techsupport is nothing short of amazing. Eric Breeden just responded to my support email which I sent an hour ago (9:45PM EST)! I hope he can figure out what's going on :(
Click to expand...

Hi Mel,

My Cyclone was dead on arrival, most likely due to damage during shipping. After speaking with Eric at Cyclone tech support, they promptly replaced my unit with an entirely new one. I'm sure Eric will take good care of you.

Good luck,

- Jordan
 
We have a Cyclone 2707. It didn't work with the Mac Pro 3,1 but works fine on Mac Pro 4,1. Something to do with PCI-e slot compatibility...
 
Chris Bouchard said:
We have a Cyclone 2707. It didn't work with the Mac Pro 3,1 but works fine on Mac Pro 4,1. Something to do with PCI-e slot compatibility...
Click to expand...

Mine is indeed the MacPro 4,1. It's not the very latest iteration, but the second-from-the-latest (8-Core). Since they replaced the initial defective unit I've had no issues. I was unaware that certain MacPros have a fundamental PCIe slot incompatibility... Does this hold true for other Expansion Chassis products as well?

Best,

- Jordan
 
Last edited:
Just following up with my Cyclone issues for the sake of anyone else wanting to use it with a 2008 Mac Pro.

Eric from Cyclone was amazing in following through trying to get my problems solved, and he even sent me a new version of the PCIe interface card which they just made which improves channel switching problems etc etc. No amount of hardware or software tweaking (including a fresh OSX/Resolve reinstall) would allow the Cyclone to reliably work with Resolve. It would either freeze up or randomly Kernel Panic whenever you played back the Resolve timeline. Oddly enough, the instability only happened when I used Resolve. When I used the Cyclone with After Effects, RCX (which properly used the Rocket board I had put in the Cyclone) or other apps that didnt access the GTX 285 GPU, everything worked smoothly.

I just gave up and ordered a 2010 Mac Pro, and now everything works perfectly.

So bottom line here is: The Cyclone PCI chassis DOES NOT WORK with the 2008 Mac Pro, if you want to use it to house GPUs for DaVinci Resolve. Buyer beware!
 
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