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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 :)

Everything works...almost

danbrazda

danbrazda

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I love the Red workflow with FCP and Color. I have solved the Gamma shift issue with the help of this board and I'm hoping I can put my remaining 2 issues to rest with all of your help once again.

I have a Dual 3.2 GHZ Eight-Core Mac loaded to the gills with 32 GB of RAM, the NVidia Quadro FX 5600 graphics card and an awesome CalDigit Raid card with 6TB of Raid 0 storage. My read/write speeds are over 400 MB/s consistantly. BUT- I still get stuttering playback from native 2K red clips in my FCP timeline.

On another workstation identical to the one above but with the addition of a Decklink HD Extreme card, in addition to the stuttering problem, I can find no way to use a dual display in Color.

After solving the these two issues I will be set. Any ideas? Workarounds?
 
I have a Dual 3.2 GHz 8 core, too but the native 2k wrapped QT is always skippie.
I just bare with it though. If you want smoother offline editing then ingest with ProRes or use m proxy for the 4k clips and h proxy for the 2K to do the offline editing, then they playback smoothly. You can still use Decklink HD to playback full screen, they will be enlarged automatically.

The video out from Color with Decklink HD should work. It doesn't work if you have the desktop video on in the decklink control panel, so you might want to check with that.
 
Thanks for your reply Kaku. I thought playback was primarily a function of drive speed. That's why I can't understand why at 400 MB/s 2K compressed files won't playback. Are you saying it is more the nature of the native Red files that is the problem?

I've researched the Decklink issue and Blackmagic says that you need to turn off extended desktop in order to work in Color. This does work but then you can't use dual display in Color. I thought maybe someone had figured out a workaround.

Is anyone out there getting real time playback in FCP with native Red files? If so, what is your setup?
 
It's doing a de-bayer in realtime, which is processor intensive. Your drives are more than fast enough, it just seems like your processors aren't. Word is only the fastest processors, overclocked, can do 2k in realtime. Unfortunately, the Mac Pro is a behind a little in processors, and isn't overclocked.

Anyone, feel free to jump in if I'm off base here...
 
Bummer. Are there any third party accelerator cards that can handle 2K real time?
 
THE true RT RAW de-bayer solutions are based on PCs and nVidea's graphics cards. The de-bayering is not happening on the CPU's but in the GPU.

Currently there are no such solutions for the Mac. But Snow-Leopard (next OS) seems very promising.

If the goods aren't delivered there... It's PC

Gunleik
(Mac-dude)
 
Christopher Grant Harvey said:
PC's are real workable solutions too.
Click to expand...

Just being fun :)

However, I have such a huge investment in Apple right now there is no turning back. Hope the rumors of the new MacPros coming out in March are for real.
 
I have Color running with two displays from one ATI 3870 card plus Decklink for video (but not for desktop). No problem here.
 
nomad said:
I have Color running with two displays from one ATI 3870 card plus Decklink for video (but not for desktop). No problem here.
Click to expand...

I just started playing with that option today but haven't had success yet. I ran one of my Graphic card outputs to my 30" Cinema Display, the other graphic card output to my 1920 x 1080 Plasma (DVI-D input) and the HDMI output from the Decklink HD Extreme to an HDMI input on the Plasma. In Display Preferences on my MacPro, 3 monitors show up under 'Arrangement". Regardless of how I arrange them, only the 30" Cinema Display shows anything. How are you hooked up and what are all of your settings? Thanks in advance.
 
Charles Angus said:
It's doing a de-bayer in realtime, which is processor intensive. Your drives are more than fast enough, it just seems like your processors aren't. Word is only the fastest processors, overclocked, can do 2k in realtime. Unfortunately, the Mac Pro is a behind a little in processors, and isn't overclocked.

Anyone, feel free to jump in if I'm off base here...
Click to expand...

It is not the de-bayer that is slowing it down, it is the way it is compressed, and the way FCP plays. A 2K RAW CineForm file will play in real time, decompress and de-bayer under QuickTime on a 2.6GHz Quad code Mac Pro. On the 8 core we can de-bayer, resize to 1920x1080, apply active metadata including a 3-D LUT and play back through a Kona card under FCP without dropping frames.
 
nomad said:
I have Color running with two displays from one ATI 3870 card plus Decklink for video (but not for desktop). No problem here.
Click to expand...

Right, I'm on the same boat here, come to think about it, mine is working dual display with Multibridge Pro, so the cause is the display card difference?
 
flameop said:
if your getting 3 monitors your still using extended desktop.

Set the prefs in sys prefs>blackmagic> output to black.. reboot.

s
Click to expand...

It has to be something else because I did exactly that with no impact. To reiterate- here is my setup- MacPro 3.2 GHZ 8 Core with buttloads of RAM, NVIDIA 5600 Hardcore Grafx card- one output to 30" Apple Cinema Display, 1 output to 50" Pioneer Pro Plasma via DVI-D, Decklink HD Extreme HDMI output to HDMI in on on Plasma.

I've tried it with all three outputs hooked up at the same time, with Apple and DVI-D (NVIDIA 5600 only- no Decklink) and Plasma HDMI and Apple Cinema Display (Decklink and NVIDIA). No luck all the way around.

I know the key lies with the Deckilink setup but I still haven't found the right order of operation yet. Black vs Extended Desktop/ Restart ain't it. What else could it be?
 
What's your selection in the User Prefs/Viedo Output of Color for the Decklink?
 
Kaku Ito said:
What's your selection in the User Prefs/Viedo Output of Color for the Decklink?
Click to expand...

I've tried every option of Decklink out in the Color preferences and none work. Does it have something to do with the fact that I'm using the HDMI output of the decklink card rather than HD-SDI? Extended Desktop is definitely off and Color is definitely in dual display mode but nothing is reaching the Plasma.
 
Hey Dan,

Glad to hear that you acquired a Red!

We're running a Multibridge Pro like Kaku and have used the Blackmagic output as the second display and it works fine, so perhaps you are correct in that Color and the HDMI signal from the Decklink are not talking. Did you also say that you were unable to get dual desktops using the other video card out?

Tim
 
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