mac pro and macbook pro

[hans de vries]

Hi all,

I do all my editing on a macpro two 3GHz Quadcore with 8gb ram, 4 tb and an nvidia geforce 8800.

I travel a lot so I'm gone for days and therefore I don't like to have my computer working when I leave. Yesterday I was doing some chroma keying at the studio and I had only a few hours so I got next to nothing done by the time I had to leave. Suddenly I got terribly frustrated by the desktop, and I wished that I had a macbookpro that at least you can take anywhere and have it working constantly.

I am suddenly wondering: there is now a 17" macbookpro, 3,06 GHz, 500gb at 7200rpm with 8gb ram. Can anyone tell me whether this is still significantly slower than the macpro? Because if it isn't I'm going to change my whole setup.

Best regards,
Hans

 

[Rainer Fritz]

do a small math:

8 cores with 3,0 GHz and then compare 2 cores with 3,06 GHz. Do you think a small computer which is nearly 1 centimeter in height could do the same performance as a mac pro?
It depends on what you want to do and what performance you need to do it, so then you should know if it fits your needs or not...

regards
rainer

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

You can't work with REDCODE footage effectively on a MacBook Pro. (MBP)

Maybe when they finally introduce quad-core MBP's, but until then, you are kind of out of luck.

Unless you invest in a RED Rocket and some kind of external cage- although I don't know of any that are available for sale right now. Here is one to see what I am talking about.

http://maxxdigital.com/shop/index.php?cPath=147&osCsid=59dd717d603c19cad655367b8817e91e

Even once you have a Rocket for MBP, performance will be worse for the forseeable future models than a current model Mac Pro with a Rocket.

Leaving conjectural hardware aside, if your objective is being able to work on a mobile platform then what can you do right now?

Get out of REDCODE.

Once you are out of REDCODE into ProRes, as an example, then you can do a very reasonable amount of work on a MBP. Couple your MBP with a Matrox MXO2 and an external monitor and you have a VERY solid mobile editing platform for 2K video and below.

The workflow I've seen others use is a RED Rocket in their Mac Pro for transcoding, then porting the footage around on an external FW800 drive to use on an MBP, or other Mac w/o a RED Rocket.

Either way I suggest you become accustomed to letting your Mac Pro work all day and all night. Trust me it can handle it. I only turn mine off when I am out of town for extended periods.

 

[Colin Hubick]

I did a presentation to a group of producers earlier this month, and much of what you are talking about was asked of me while I was there. I decided that instead of trying to explain a process or say that it is doable on a notebook, that I would actually do something right in front of them. So here are the timelines of the process.

Day 1 - Wednesday

Met all the producers in a conference room with Ted S. on Skype, we had shown the 2009 reel from NAB from a ProRES HQ quicktime, then followed that up with a special promo piece that Ted provided. We then had a Q/A session where all the producers were able to ask direct questions to Ted about the development of RED, and the financial implications of shooting on RED. We had some great spreadsheets that Ted prepared that we also had shown comparing 35mm/HD/RED.

After the presentation many of the producers approached me, with more or less the same comment. "Yes we all know the footage looks great, but the post processes kill us everytime" So I boldly stated, I can shoot for an entire day, and will turn around an edit in a 12hr timeframe from the end of shooting only using my laptop. After a few "prove it" and "ya right" comments, they concluded with "fine, see you on Friday morning."

Day 2 - Thursday

8:30am - Elliot and I met in the morning, and were off to tour Maui with Red in hand and a bag full of Canon lenses, and a crap load of CF Cards (love shooting on CF, reminds me of a 400ft mag We shot approx 2.5hrs of material in our 12hr day.

8:30pm - We got back to my hotel, and proceeded to load all the footage into Rushes on my laptop (specs below) and started running out 1k (1024x512) 1/8 res ProRes SQ quicktimes. This took almost 2hrs so off I went for supper and drinks.

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B00
SMC Version (system): 1.27f2

10:30pm - back at the hotel room, and started my edit. I spent about an hour going through selecting footage, laying some music, creating a graphic etc.

12:00pm - done the quicky edit (about 4.5min), output an XML and loaded the XML and footage into Monkey Exract, hit GO, and went to bed.

Day 3 - Friday morning

6:00am - got up and relinked the full res 2k footage from the night before, and output a single ProRes (HQ) file

8:30am - Met in the conference room with the producers, plugged my laptop via DVI to HDMI into the HD projector, audio through mini-jack to the sound system, and rolled the QT full screen to the projector.

link to the edit - http://web.me.com/colinhubick/Maui-IQ-Reel/IQ.html

8:35am - talked about the process I used.

8:45am - I got handed a boat full of cards from all over the world.

It's one thing to talk about the methodology, it's entirely a different story to actually do it in front of people. Just doing it, made it a reality right in front of their eyes.

 

[James Press]

Helpful and informative post--thanks Col.

 

[Imran Farouk]

That's brilliant...that reel is...still can't believe...4.5hrs of footage...and you pulled it all together in so little time...its crazy to imagine the power that you can get outa a laptop like the Macbook Pro if you just know your way around it and the workflow your going to take before you start...I guess same goes with any machine really...

Truly brilliant work there! thanks for sharing,gonna stick with my laptop for a little longer now

 

[Colin Hubick]

Thanks Imran, it just goes to show that a bit of planning can save a lot of grief down the road. 1k 1/8 res (1024x512) quicktimes are quick to transcode on a laptop, but still maintain the RT functions of FCP. And actually they don't look half bad on the small window sizes on the laptop.

One thing that I forgot to mention is in the morning, when I re-linked all the media, I was able to take the same DVI to HDMI cable plug it into my 42" Plasma in my room and do some color tweaking. Far from color accurate, but at least it gave me a sense of what the 2k looked like. (I used the Digital Cinema Desktop Preview option to use the external monitor)

cheers
Colin

 

[sergio arguello]

another option...http://www.casesbypelican.com/apple-g5-1690.htm

 

[Mike Smith]

...8:30pm - We got back to my hotel, and proceeded to load all the footage into Rushes on my laptop (specs below) and started running out 1k (1024x512) 1/8 res ProRes SQ quicktimes. This took almost 2hrs so off I went for supper and drinks...

Hi Colin,

Couldn't you also just use the Quicktimes generated by the camera on the CF cards - ie no transcoding - saving those two hours? What advantage does transcoding to ProRes give you for proxy work? Just curious. Really liked what you did here and want to learn.

Cheers - Mike.

 

[M Most]

Hi Colin,

Couldn't you also just use the Quicktimes generated by the camera on the CF cards - ie no transcoding - saving those two hours? What advantage does transcoding to ProRes give you for proxy work? Just curious.

I can immediately come up with at least three things:

1. Editing is a lot more fluid, especially on a laptop, with self contained files as there is no stuttering or frame skipping, as well as the ability to add transitions and other effects without rendering and without a speed and image quality hit.

2. You can see the image a lot clearer, allowing you to judge final quality with many fewer surprises on the final result (like soft focus).

3. You can generate a Quicktime file for either client approval or director approval very, very quickly.

 

[Mike Smith]

Three very good reasons. Thank you M. Most.

 

[Colin Hubick]

exactly what M Most said (if that is your real name?) plus that's a lot of data to lug around if you were to, let's say pass along the footage to another editor.

As well I like to cut in real time, with real time effects, I guess you could use the _M proxies, but not nearly as elegant as using small ProRes files.

I'm not saying that my methodology is the best for all situations, but in this situation it worked. Getting the project done is one thing, getting it done on time so I live up to my word is another.

Of course as a user above noted you could hump a Mac Pro all the way there to aid in the process, but sometimes that isn't practical.

BTW, using the above method I shot a commercial for a client the day before I left on this trip. The night before I output proRes files, and cut the spots on the plane, then conformed the project by uploading the FCP project file to my big machine back at the office, and started the conform remotely. When I got home, the project was all ready to go ;-)

cheers
Colin

 

[Mike Smith]

...BTW, using the above method I shot a commercial for a client the day before I left on this trip. The night before I output proRes files, and cut the spots on the plane, then conformed the project by uploading the FCP project file to my big machine back at the office, and started the conform remotely. When I got home, the project was all ready to go ;-)

cheers
Colin

Wow! Very impressive. Thank you for your very helpful feedback. This is a great place to learn!

 

[hans de vries]

Thanks for your replies, people, I'm going to contemplate this

 

[Filip Vandoorne]

Colin: what was your software - setting to transcode to the 1K files

Colin: what was your software - setting to transcode to the 1K files

Colin Hubick wrote:
......
We shot approx 4.5hrs of material in our 12hr day.

8:30pm - We got back to my hotel, and proceeded to load all the footage into Rushes on my laptop (specs below) and started running out 1k (1024x512) 1/8 res ProRes SQ quicktimes. This took almost 2hrs so off I went for supper and drinks.

Model Name: MacBook Pro
......

This would give you more than 50frames/s ...
was you RAW material 4K ?
because with 4K 2:1, i cannot get my macbookpro 2,93Ghz any faster than approx 9-10frames/second for a 1024x512 prores 1/8 debayer. If i set it up for 1/8res, but no scaling = 512x256, then the max is approx 25frames/second,
Still far from your performance...
Can you enlight me how to get this performance - software - settings?

txs

Filip

 

[Colin Hubick]

Colin Hubick wrote:
......
We shot approx 4.5hrs of material in our 12hr day.

8:30pm - We got back to my hotel, and proceeded to load all the footage into Rushes on my laptop (specs below) and started running out 1k (1024x512) 1/8 res ProRes SQ quicktimes. This took almost 2hrs so off I went for supper and drinks.

Model Name: MacBook Pro
......

This would give you more than 50frames/s ...
was you RAW material 4K ?
because with 4K 2:1, i cannot get my macbookpro 2,93Ghz any faster than approx 9-10frames/second for a 1024x512 prores 1/8 debayer. If i set it up for 1/8res, but no scaling = 512x256, then the max is approx 25frames/second,
Still far from your performance...
Can you enlight me how to get this performance - software - settings?

txs

Filip

we shot many different formats, about half were 2k, another 1/4 were 3k, and the last 1/4 would be 4k. All at a project frame rate of 23.976. Some were 2:1 some were 2.33:1 some 16:9 all rendering at 1/8 res regardless of shot resolution.

what software are you using to do your rushes?

 

[XiaoSu Han]

4.5 hours of material transcoded in 2 hours. wow, who still needs red rocket?

 

[Colin Hubick]

I am just confirming my numbers, and I humbly acknowledge that I also counted footage from another project...I'll take the heat for this. I counted closer to 2.5 hours of footage. Mostly 2k and 3k.

running the footage again on my note book, the 2 - 2.5hrs of transcode was correct.

I apologize, wasn't trying to fake anybody out. It was more of the process I was trying to describe..

In my haste to post I gave wrong data, let the slamming of me begin.

quite embarrassed right now...

 

[Colin Hubick]

4.5 hours of material transcoded in 2 hours. wow, who still needs RED Rocket™?

1/8 res decodes. Not full res

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I am just confirming my numbers, and I humbly acknowledge that I also counted footage from another project...I'll take the heat for this. I counted closer to 2.5 hours of footage. Mostly 2k and 3k.

running the footage again on my note book, the 2 - 2.5hrs of transcode was correct.

I apologize, wasn't trying to fake anybody out. It was more of the process I was trying to describe..

In my haste to post I gave wrong data, let the slamming of me begin.

quite embarrassed right now...

Although your numbers were off, the process was not. It's important to be able to point out to producers that a RED project is like any other project. You have to start at the end and work backwards. In other words, figure out your deliverable and deadline and then implement the right process for getting it done. I have literally cut a project right from the RED drive using proxies just to demonstrate a point that in theory you can begin editing immediately. But that doesn't mean this is a method that should be used unless it was determined to be appropriate for a given project.

Colin's method of transcoding the footage to ProRes at a quality level that was suitable for his offline editing is an often used method and one that is not such a big deal for those who are used to offline/online editing procedures. There are times when it just doesn't make sense or is not feasible to transcode everything to 2K ProRes at full debayer.

But often times, there are post houses that have not adapted to RED workflow yet and are using inefficient methods for editing/onlining their projects. As time goes on, this will change. More and more places will be up to speed. Also, as Red Rocket gets integrated into more applications and more support for R3D native editing increases then this could change the strategy of working with Red files.

In the meantime, best bet is to continue to educate producers and post production supervisors about workflow options that suit their needs.