RED Rocket TURBO, WHEN?

[Shane Duckworth]

I don't get how you can figure out a way to make EPICs cheaper and not Rockets. If they lowered the cost of Rockets every DIT and RED owner and Post house and Rental house would have them, instead of just RED DITs, RED Post houses and RED owners who care. The sheer volume could make up and over take those thin margins, mentioned earlier in this thread. If everyone could afford a rocket, everyone would have a rocket and more Production Companies that are scared of RED workflows would stop being scared of RED work flow.

 

[Brian Anderson]

A GPU won't speed up debayering R3D footage, but damn that card look awesome! Perfect for CS6 and Resolve!

Will any GPU speed up debayering R3D or is it just the CPU that does the work?

 

[Paul Harb]

Its pretty obvious why Epics became cheaper but nothing else.

I don't get how you can figure out a way to make EPICs cheaper and not Rockets. If they lowered the cost of Rockets every DIT and RED owner and Post house and Rental house would have them, instead of just RED DITs, RED Post houses and RED owners who care. The sheer volume could make up and over take those thin margins, mentioned earlier in this thread. If everyone could afford a rocket, everyone would have a rocket and more Production Companies that are scared of RED workflows would stop being scared of RED work flow.

 

[M Most]

I don't get how you can figure out a way to make EPICs cheaper and not Rockets. If they lowered the cost of Rockets every DIT and RED owner and Post house and Rental house would have them, instead of just RED DITs, RED Post houses and RED owners who care. The sheer volume could make up and over take those thin margins, mentioned earlier in this thread. If everyone could afford a rocket, everyone would have a rocket and more Production Companies that are scared of RED workflows would stop being scared of RED work flow.

Getting rid of the need for the Rocket in the first place would accomplish a lot more and a lot quicker. The cost is only one factor. There is also the need to take up a slot (in a tower configuration), always at a premium in Macs, which a lot of people in the post industry use. There is also the reliability record, which has not been great. And above all, there is the fact that even with one or sometimes even two Rockets, the transcoding speed is still considerably slower than some competing formats (ArriRaw comes to mind). And all of this to accommodate ONE format, when in our industry most projects inevitably involve more than one format, at least in features and television work. Those arguing for a cheaper Rocket are missing the point. The proprietary card approach needs to be rethought and replaced if wider acceptance is the goal.

 

[Shane Duckworth]

Getting rid of the need for the Rocket in the first place would accomplish a lot more and a lot quicker. The cost is only one factor. There is also the need to take up a slot (in a tower configuration), always at a premium in Macs, which a lot of people in the post industry use. There is also the reliability record, which has not been great. And above all, there is the fact that even with one or sometimes even two Rockets, the transcoding speed is still considerably slower than some competing formats (ArriRaw comes to mind). And all of this to accommodate ONE format, when in our industry most projects inevitably involve more than one format, at least in features and television work. Those arguing for a cheaper Rocket are missing the point. The proprietary card approach needs to be rethought and replaced if wider acceptance is the goal.

I certainly agree with that, but what would you propose? Waiting till computers catch up the R3D files isn't the answer. And I don't RED will change their whole codec.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

Hey Apple and PC... when are you bringing out a computer where we dont need a RED ROCKET to render. ))))

Dont hold your breath on Apple.

 

[mikeburton]

Getting rid of the need for the Rocket in the first place would accomplish a lot more and a lot quicker. The cost is only one factor. There is also the need to take up a slot (in a tower configuration), always at a premium in Macs, which a lot of people in the post industry use. There is also the reliability record, which has not been great. And above all, there is the fact that even with one or sometimes even two Rockets, the transcoding speed is still considerably slower than some competing formats (ArriRaw comes to mind). And all of this to accommodate ONE format, when in our industry most projects inevitably involve more than one format, at least in features and television work. Those arguing for a cheaper Rocket are missing the point. The proprietary card approach needs to be rethought and replaced if wider acceptance is the goal.

Yes, yes and yes. It frightens me when I hear Jarred say that the cost of the Rocket should be "way higher" than what it currently is for what it does. It's backwards thinking IMO and obviously out of touch with today's post world needs.

 

[M Most]

I certainly agree with that, but what would you propose? Waiting till computers catch up the R3D files isn't the answer. And I don't RED will change their whole codec.

No, I would propose a GPU enabled SDK like every other digital camera manufacturer has. Sony uses wavelet compression on both the F65 and the F55, yet somehow manages to get better than real time transcoding performance on multiple platforms from multiple software vendors, using commodity GPUs. Arri doesn't use compression, which makes for larger files but allows much faster than real time performance from transcoding software such as Colorfront and DaVinci. The same choices have been made by Canon for the C500, and Blackmagic for their Cinema Camera. And needless to say, Cineform Raw has had excellent performance on commodity hardware for a number of years now. All of these vendors benefit directly from continuing GPU development for our own and other industries (the gaming industry being a major patron). As advancements are made, performance increases. That is not the case with a proprietary approach. Nothing on the Red Rocket has gotten any faster since it was released, even though GPU development has advanced by leaps and bounds since then. If you want to talk about taking advantage of Moore's Law - as Red often has in its arguments for digital formats in relation to film - you should set up a post path that can do just that. A proprietary card is not that path.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

No, I would propose a GPU enabled SDK like every other digital camera manufacturer has. Sony uses wavelet compression on both the F65 and the F55, yet somehow manages to get better than real time transcoding performance on multiple platforms from multiple software vendors, using commodity GPUs. Arri doesn't use compression, which makes for larger files but allows much faster than real time performance from transcoding software such as Colorfront and DaVinci. The same choices have been made by Canon for the C500, and Blackmagic for their Cinema Camera. And needless to say, Cineform Raw has had excellent performance on commodity hardware for a number of years now. All of these vendors benefit directly from continuing GPU development for our own and other industries (the gaming industry being a major patron). As advancements are made, performance increases. That is not the case with a proprietary approach. Nothing on the Red Rocket has gotten any faster since it was released, even though GPU development has advanced by leaps and bounds since then. If you want to talk about taking advantage of Moore's Law - as Red often has in its arguments for digital formats in relation to film - you should set up a post path that can do just that. A proprietary card is not that path.

Amen!

 

[Mike P.]

No, I would propose a GPU enabled SDK like every other digital camera manufacturer has. Sony uses wavelet compression on both the F65 and the F55, yet somehow manages to get better than real time transcoding performance on multiple platforms from multiple software vendors, using commodity GPUs.

I brought this up in the "suing" thread; did anyone figure out how Sony is able to do this but .r3d can't? I thought I heard that it was because Sony's compression isn't as aggressive, but that still doesn't explain how they're able to tap into GPUs. That has continually been purported as not possible according to RED... Conversely, even in REDCODE, I didn't think 3:1 rendered any faster than 12:1.

 

[jake blackstone]

I brought this up in the "suing" thread; did anyone figure out how Sony is able to do this but .r3d can't? I thought I heard that it was because Sony's compression isn't as aggressive, but that still doesn't explain how they're able to tap into GPUs. That has continually been purported as not possible according to RED... Conversely, even in REDCODE, I didn't think 3:1 rendered any faster than 12:1.

Here is something I posted a couple of days ago. Although, majority of my post is pure conjecture, nevertheless , if true, it will explain why Sony does GPU decompression/debayer and Red does not or can not. Also, it may explain the high price as well.
"Something, that pretty much everyone is missing. Red Rocket is NOT Red technology. It is designed and built by DVS http://www.dvs.de/products/video-boards/atomix-lt.html.
That's a fact. That's why Red doesn't offer RR repairs. They just re-sell Atomix card re-badged for Red.
And now comes the conjecture
At the time RR was originally offered, Red was desperate to offer something, that would process R3D in real time at full resolution. The only company at the time, that had the technology was DVS. DVS's Clipster was the first commercial product capable of real time performance without resorting to building massive render farms. So, I suspect Red was forced to sign a long term contract to distribute RR in exchange for exclusive relationship and prohibition of any other methods of decoding, except CPU. And now Red is stuck, until the contract runs out. As I said, I have ZERO information on the contract between Red and DVS, or even it's existence, so take this post for all it's worth"

 

[Will Keir]

Well spoken.

I've been on the fence for two years because of the cost and reliability issues of the RR. With several of our films gearing up to shoot, ultimately, it looks as though I must cave in and buy a RR if I want to use the Epic. Nothing I know of, multiple GPUs, increased SSD RAID 0 speeds (over 300MS/S+ R/W), or more CPU or RAM, will give Full Res smooth playback in Pr or RCX. I got one of the most powerful Mac Pro Towers money can buy and I'm editing in 1/4 playback on a regular basis.

Is full Rez playback even possible with 5KFF in Premiere?

No, I would propose a GPU enabled SDK like every other digital camera manufacturer has. Sony uses wavelet compression on both the F65 and the F55, yet somehow manages to get better than real time transcoding performance on multiple platforms from multiple software vendors, using commodity GPUs. Arri doesn't use compression, which makes for larger files but allows much faster than real time performance from transcoding software such as Colorfront and DaVinci. The same choices have been made by Canon for the C500, and Blackmagic for their Cinema Camera. And needless to say, Cineform Raw has had excellent performance on commodity hardware for a number of years now. All of these vendors benefit directly from continuing GPU development for our own and other industries (the gaming industry being a major patron). As advancements are made, performance increases. That is not the case with a proprietary approach. Nothing on the Red Rocket has gotten any faster since it was released, even though GPU development has advanced by leaps and bounds since then. If you want to talk about taking advantage of Moore's Law - as Red often has in its arguments for digital formats in relation to film - you should set up a post path that can do just that. A proprietary card is not that path.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

No, I would propose a GPU enabled SDK like every other digital camera manufacturer has. Sony uses wavelet compression on both the F65 and the F55, yet somehow manages to get better than real time transcoding performance on multiple platforms from multiple software vendors, using commodity GPUs. Arri doesn't use compression, which makes for larger files but allows much faster than real time performance from transcoding software such as Colorfront and DaVinci. The same choices have been made by Canon for the C500, and Blackmagic for their Cinema Camera. And needless to say, Cineform Raw has had excellent performance on commodity hardware for a number of years now. All of these vendors benefit directly from continuing GPU development for our own and other industries (the gaming industry being a major patron). As advancements are made, performance increases. That is not the case with a proprietary approach. Nothing on the Red Rocket has gotten any faster since it was released, even though GPU development has advanced by leaps and bounds since then. If you want to talk about taking advantage of Moore's Law - as Red often has in its arguments for digital formats in relation to film - you should set up a post path that can do just that. A proprietary card is not that path.

GPU accelleration was the initial selling point of Scratch as well. Working in realtime and having Scratch as a "deck" for the finished RAW timeline.

Then that was changed early on.

Agree with all the above!

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Here is something I posted a couple of days ago. Although, majority of my post is pure conjecture, nevertheless , if true, it will explain why Sony does GPU decompression/debayer and Red does not or can not. Also, it may explain the high price as well.
"Something, that pretty much everyone is missing. Red Rocket is NOT Red technology. It is designed and built by DVS http://www.dvs.de/products/video-boards/atomix-lt.html.
That's a fact. That's why Red doesn't offer RR repairs. They just re-sell Atomix card re-badged for Red.
And now comes the conjecture
At the time RR was originally offered, Red was desperate to offer something, that would process R3D in real time at full resolution. The only company at the time, that had the technology was DVS. DVS's Clipster was the first commercial product capable of real time performance without resorting to building massive render farms. So, I suspect Red was forced to sign a long term contract to distribute RR in exchange for exclusive relationship and prohibition of any other methods of decoding, except CPU. And now Red is stuck, until the contract runs out. As I said, I have ZERO information on the contract between Red and DVS, or even it's existence, so take this post for all it's worth"

RED has never (to my knowledge) acknowledged that RR is indeed the Atomix... And if it is, it probably has a proprietary firmware, but they def look kinda similar, and the Rocket (used to to) have a DVS sticker somewhere.

But as we all Scratch our heads over this, this sounds as likely as anything else.

Cineform (wavelet compressed undebayered RAW) is named in the original R3D patent, and early on they also made an alternate realtime debayer of the R3D's. I can sorta understand why that was shut off... at the time... and RED went the SDK route, but with R3D's creeping out of every window, these days, and directly competing with cams like C300, C500, F5/F55 in addition to Alexa/F65, the environment has changed "slightly", and it might be time to rethink this approach, if at all possible...

 

[Vico Martin]

Here is something I posted a couple of days ago. Although, majority of my post is pure conjecture, nevertheless , if true, it will explain why Sony does GPU decompression/debayer and Red does not or can not. Also, it may explain the high price as well.
"Something, that pretty much everyone is missing. Red Rocket is NOT Red technology. It is designed and built by DVS http://www.dvs.de/products/video-boards/atomix-lt.html.
That's a fact. That's why Red doesn't offer RR repairs. They just re-sell Atomix card re-badged for Red.

And now comes the conjecture
At the time RR was originally offered, Red was desperate to offer something, that would process R3D in real time at full resolution. The only company at the time, that had the technology was DVS. DVS's Clipster was the first commercial product capable of real time performance without resorting to building massive render farms. So, I suspect Red was forced to sign a long term contract to distribute RR in exchange for exclusive relationship and prohibition of any other methods of decoding, except CPU. And now Red is stuck, until the contract runs out. As I said, I have ZERO information on the contract between Red and DVS, or even it's existence, so take this post for all it's worth"

This "conjecture" is a a giant piece of the puzzle.

 

[jake blackstone]

RED has never (to my knowledge) acknowledged that RR is indeed the Atomix... And if it is, it probably has a proprietary firmware, but they def look kinda similar, and the Rocket (used to to) have a DVS sticker somewhere.

They don't have to
Right now Digital Vision FilmMaster system comes with Atomix card installed instead of RedRocket. Nucoda initially had used RR, but they gave up on dealing with Red because of the excidingly high failure rate and inability to get repairs on the card. instead they went directly to DVS and now they can offer replacement of the card to their own customers and probably cheaper as we'll. Problem solved.
And oh yeah, Digital Vision engineer told me couple of years ago, that Atomix IS a RedRocket.
And that is not a conjuncture

 

[Gunleik Groven]

They don't have to
Right now Digital Vision FilmMaster system comes with Atomix card installed instead of RedRocket. Nucoda initially had used RR, but they gave up on dealing with Red because of the excidingly high failure rate and inability to get repairs on the card. instead they went directly to DVS and now they can offer replacement of the card to their own customers and probably cheaper as we'll. Problem solved.
And oh yeah, Digital Vision engineer told me couple of years ago, that Atomix IS a RedRocket.
And that is not a conjuncture

All sounds quite resonable.

I bet an atomix wouldn't work with rcx/resolve, though, even though clipster did its magic with'em.

Orcan one just pop in anatomix and be done with it?

 

[jake blackstone]

GPU accelleration was the initial selling point of Scratch as well. Working in realtime and having Scratch as a "deck" for the finished RAW timeline.

Then that was changed early on.

MTI demoed GPU debayer as well at the same time.

 

[jake blackstone]

All sounds quite resonable.

I bet an atomix wouldn't work with rcx/resolve, though, even though clipster did its magic with'em.

Orcan one just pop in anatomix and be done with it?

Unfortunately, unless you're an OEM, you can't. You have no firmware to run the card on.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

MTI looks like an interesting entity. Wasn't aware of them...

Things were done toavoid alternate debayer methods to REDs own, after the Cineform controversy.
And that's when not even Scratch could do realtime full debayer anymore. Reintroduced with the rocket later on.

But unless there is a third layer (above debayering and wavelets), it is kinda hard to seewhy gpu's now shouldn't cut it.

Afaik that's exactly why we see the different render speeds in Resolve and RCX.