"Out of Memory" error when making ProRes QT with Rocket - RCX Pro 17

[Eric J Robbins]

I've been experiencing a strange error today when transcoding Red One MX footage to 2K ProRes QT files. Eventually the transcodes slow to a crawl and start throwing errors claiming the system is "Out of Memory". Originally I thought this was an issue with the version of RCX I was running (16) and upgraded to 17.2. The issue wasn't resolved, so I'm drawing a blank now.

In the Activity Monitor, I can see the amount of inactive RAM build steadily; this memory never seems to free up or be reused at any point. I've been able to continue working by just manually executing the "Purge" command in the Terminal, but obviously this isn't ideal. There is 16 gigs on RAM in the system (latest Retina MBP), so I doubt that is the issue. It is fairly new though, so there's probably just a compatibility bug somewhere. Originally it was ProRes 4444, but now I'm doing ProRes 422 HQ. This is the first ProRes gig I've done since getting the laptop.

I've done other large jobs lately without issue with this same setup, but they were all MXFs for Avid.

Any thoughts?

Specs:
RCX Build 17.2
Retina MBP (2.7 i7, 16gigs RAM, OS X 10.8.2)
Red Rocket (Magma 3T box connected through Thunderbolt)
Rocket driver: 1.4.32.0
Rocket firmware: 1.1.16.11

UPDATE: I'm beginning to believe this error stems from OS X not properly freeing memory. I was able to complete the gig by installing Memory Clean from the App Store, which includes an option to automatically purge RAM when it gets below a specified threshold. Hope this helps.

 

[Eric J Robbins]

Another minor issue I've discovered is if you have the status tab open when errors start, you cannot get back to the export tab to cancel the job. You'll see the other tab for a quick flash and then the status tab reappears.

Perhaps being able to pause and cancel jobs through the status tab could be implemented?

 

[Cameron Vokey]

Seemed to solve the problem for us. Just put our RR into a new machine that has insane specifications and was very surprised to see the "Out of Memory" error. This work around seemed to address the issue nicely. Thanks man!