Light Iron Outpost

[Von Thomas]

I'm proud to have worked with Michael Cioni and his amazing crew at Light Iron Digital Post. I recently finished a 3D feature shot on both Si2K's and RED MX's on a PFX 3D rig.

I had my hands full, but because I'm working with amazing gear, software, and the backing of LI, it allows me to have flow in my work. I backedup, archived, exposure adjusted, first light color graded, and made iPad dailies with Light Iron's Stitch program delivered each day at wrap.

If you are planning a large shoot (feature, episodic or commercial), I totally recommend the Outpost Cart, it makes short time of your work , and since you'll need a talented DIT, you might consider calling me as well.

Von

 

[Steve Johnson]

Hey Von

Great to hear your working with LI and that the Outpost is working great.

Two questions. WhT monitor is that your using? It looks like a DELL to me? Also, what's the XServe for? I have wondered every since I started to see photos of the cart.

Keep up the great work my friends.

Steve

 

[Von Thomas]

Steve,

The monitor was a DELL 27". The show was shoot in 3D, and having two processors (XServe and MacPro) with Rocket cards enabled me to so all the required work in short time.

Von

 

[Steve Johnson]

Cheers Von.

Take it the DELL is a 2k res monitor.

I suppose the extra processor power of the Xserve and MacPro will help when processing 2 streams for 3D.

What sort of storage are you going through.

Steve

 

[Von Thomas]

Light Iron has been using Maxx Digital for storage. In this case their Evo 4K, 32TB SAS RAID, and for client (studio) master copy their EvoVR 8TB unit.

Von

 

[Ron Amborn]

Maxx Digital Storage

Maxx Digital Storage

Thanks for the kind words Von. The guys at LI are also using the Maxx Digital Evo-Mini and our custom dailies kit. just mention LI,Von or being a Red User and you will get special pricing. You can reach me or one of our crew by calling 714-374-4944 or info@maxxdigital.com. We also have an Evo 4K 32Tb Raid at RED studios in Hollywood for their 4K theater. New Evo 6G series is doing over 1600 read and 1400 write. Happy film making.:yesnod:

 

[Raphael Varandas]

Thanks Von...
The OUTPOST is great in fact.
Great job.
cheers,

 

[Steve Johnson]

Ron

Anything being worked on with Thunderbolt support?

Steve

 

[Steve Johnson]

Von
So let me get this straight so I understand. Your powering everything from the MacPro with the Xserve as extra processing power. All SSD are offloaded from REDStation to the EVO 4K for main storage and client copy checksummed and copied to the EvoVR for the client - FCP / Avid files plus r3ds? MacBookPro for LIveplay control to iPads?
LTO backups onset?

If above correct, then sounds like the setup I would do, except does the Xserve give much more performance even if you have a 12 core MacPro?

 

[Von Thomas]

Von
So let me get this straight so I understand. Your powering everything from the MacPro with the Xserve as extra processing power. All SSD are offloaded from REDStation to the EVO 4K for main storage and client copy checksummed and copied to the EvoVR for the client - FCP / Avid files plus r3ds? MacBookPro for LIveplay control to iPads?
LTO backups onset?

If above correct, then sounds like the setup I would do, except does the Xserve give much more performance even if you have a 12 core MacPro?

Ok, yes. Every job is different, so LI has a way to tailor their carts to a specific need, in this case 3D with 2 rigs (4 cameras). MacPro served two functions, first served as boot machine, which I ran RCX and Cineform, for corrected exposure, one light color, and transcode all Avid files, plus it houses an internal RAID (# 2 backup). The amazing Maxx Digital Evo 4k was my # 1 backup. The Xserve ran identical software, but it mainly handled all ProRes and H264 transcoding for iPads. The EvoVR was # 3 backup, and the client master copy. Liveplay was not used on this shoot.

Von

 

[Steve Johnson]

Ok, yes. Every job is different, so LI has a way to tailor their carts to a specific need, in this case 3D with 2 rigs (4 cameras). MacPro served two functions, first served as boot machine, which I ran RCX and Cineform, for corrected exposure, one light color, and transcode all Avid files, plus it houses an internal RAID (# 2 backup). The amazing Maxx Digital Evo 4k was my # 1 backup. The Xserve ran identical software, but it mainly handled all ProRes and H264 transcoding for iPads. The EvoVR was # 3 backup, and the client master copy. Liveplay was not used on this shoot.

Okay , that makes sense. If the MacPro is dealing as your main boot machine running software then that's cool. Backup #1 to Evo4K, backup #2 to MacPro Raid, backup #3 to EvoVR. Then using the Xserve to code the ProRes and h.264 separate to the the other coding makes sense to relieve pressure on the processors.

Take it the Xserve is a G5 with internal HDD - so could you use that as backup#4 if you wanted? Any spec for the Xserve that you would recommend? Or could you use an old G5 MacPro instead of the Xserve?