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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 :)

Mac Pro Configuration - suggestions please

Jeff Kilgroe said:
Personally, I would recommend NOT BUYING a Kona3 or similar card unless you actually have a need for it as it exists right now. Because I think once RED releases that SDK in the coming months and more open support is announced for other platforms, we will see companies like AJA step up with more solutions. And existing products like the Kona3 may not be the right solution.
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Thats something to consider... If you need it, but for Red there may be a better option in the coming months.
 
Kona 3 can do SD said:
Are you sure about this? AJA support told me no you can't plug component SD Betcam inputs into the card. You have to buy their analog to digital converter and go through that first...more $$$$.

If they are wrong then I'll definitely take a second look at the Kona 3. Everyone seems to have a different opinion about what this card will and will not do. I have the brochure and specs in front of me but they are vague on this. They say the card will input 525i 29.7 but don't say whether that has to be digital or analog. Can anyone clear this up?
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I agree with Jeff to a point. Kona 3 might be overkill for some right now. Perhaps you don't need hardware up and down conversion. But for those who are working with broadcast and 2K, I think the card offers quite a bit. I had a Black magic Decklink Extreme which was a great deal, but their drivers were all over the place and tech support often didn't know what their own drivers could or could not do, so I gave up and decided to step up to the Kona 3. Haven't regretted it so far. Sure, something else may come along, but we'll all be playing that game for years to come. New stuff is always right around the corner. That's why you have to assess what it is you need, think ahead a little in terms of what you might need, and then look at the financial aspect of it. Then you come to a conclusion as to what product will work for you.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Unfortunately that's not what it means... Version 6 will have expanded support for RED frame sizes, not support for REDCODE or acceleration of R3D material. There are ways to accelerate ProRes though, if that is your workflow.

Personally, I would recommend NOT BUYING a Kona3 or similar card unless you actually have a need for it as it exists right now. Because I think once RED releases that SDK in the coming months and more open support is announced for other platforms, we will see companies like AJA step up with more solutions. And existing products like the Kona3 may not be the right solution.
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that is exactly one reason why I'm trying to wait
for a cost effective 4k monitoring solution. After the
SDK is released im sure more cost effective innovative
4k solutions will be release. Hopefully around the same
time apple starts shipping MacPros with dual 6-core xeons
 
Yeah, don't get me wrong... I'm not telling people not to buy a Kona3. I was just saying don't buy it unless you need it for what it is right now. As in don't buy it thinking that it will eventually help you process, monitor, etc.. with native R3D footage.

As for 4K monitoring, I think we're still a ways off on that... All capable displays are in the US $50K+ range at the moment and there's only a handful of them on the market. I think the RED RAY will be a huge step in the right direction with this -- especially if RED comes forward with their own 4K projector(s) and display(s). It's all happening very fast, but sometimes it seems like it's taking forever.
 
For me, so far Im using nothing more than a dell 2408 24", connected to the mac's gfx card via HDMI and running digital cinema desktop in FCP. This gives me full screen 1080p playback directly from the red proxies at whatever frame rate my mac can play back. A very cheap way to get 1080p playback form your red footage. It looks great too.

Sure, if you need to capture or lay off you will need a card. For the moment this does me fine as I dont need to capture and I'm only making DVD or mov files for output.

If that's your situation right now I wouldn't invest in an I/O card at all until you really do need one, the market changes so quickly.
 
darkline said:
For me, so far Im using nothing more than a dell 2408 24", connected to the mac's gfx card via HDMI and running digital cinema desktop in FCP. This gives me full screen 1080p playback directly from the red proxies at whatever frame rate my mac can play back. A very cheap way to get 1080p playback form your red footage. It looks great too.

Sure, if you need to capture or lay off you will need a card. For the moment this does me fine as I dont need to capture and I'm only making DVD or mov files for output.

If that's your situation right now I wouldn't invest in an I/O card at all until you really do need one, the market changes so quickly.
Click to expand...

Problem with cinema desktop is that its not very accurate. Graeme Natress did a comparison a while back between ACD and BM HDLink and you could clearly see a difference. But as a free utility its fine.
 
well i bought the intensity card recently but I havent installed it yet. I thought it would be good to have output from color and it might also take the strain off my GPU? But at the same time i hear it only supports 720p, so thats a bit of a bummer.
 
I read at barefeats and cnet that the 3870 x2 is not as good as the 8800gt. THey said their drivers need work and the card is slower. Any final word on this matter?
I wanted to buy my computer TODAY but now, I dont know how to configure it! HELP
 
Getting ready to build 2 new Final Cut suites, what is the consensus TODAY for the best configuration:


From Silverado Site:
Mac Pro 3.0 GHz 8 core tower
8 GB RAM
250 GB boot drive
500 GB data drive
Bluetooth & Airport
Apple Final Cut Studio
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB graphics card
G-Tech 3.0 TB G-Speed RAID with ATTO 4 Gb Fibre Channel Card
Apple 23- and 30-inch monitors
AJA Kona 3 Card w/K3-Box
JVC DT-V1710CGU w/Comp. Analog-In HD CRT
AppleCare

How would you spec the ultimate system today?
 
I would go for the 3.2 GHZ tower, add another 8GB ram, 1 TB SATA internal hard drive, ATI 3870. I think the 1900 is outdated. I dont know about G-techs but I think I am getting a caldigit. 2 20" inch apple display. Thats what I am buying tonight!!!! ( I really am, actually)
 
Ok. This is what I bought:
Mac Pro 3.2 from macmall.com
2 23 inch monitors
3870 ati card (drivers not installed had to run software update and reinstall card drivers)
16GB memory from owc looking forward to see if another 16gb are required.
4 1tb seagate internal drives.. looking forward to build an internal RAID.


Thanks everyone for their input.
 
What

What

What's wrong with using Firewire 800 external HDs?
I'm currently using two Lacie Big Disk Extreme with 2TB each.
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10923
Lacie says transfer speed is from 80-90MB/sec
Isn't that fast enough for storing Red Raw and cutting withthe 2k quicktime reference files?
Sorry if this is a lame question, I'm just starting in the Red world.
Previously I've been happy enough with this HDs when editing XDCAM and DVCProHD.
My editing suite is a Mac Pro Dual Quad 2.8ghz with 10gbs RAM.
 
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