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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 :)

RED Rocket update...

Thank you for sharing the guts Peter. Very interesting piece of equipment! Do they attach to the laptop in some sort of way to carry as one piece?

If it is ok, I would love to also see the non-battery powered version nakid. :arf:

Are you close to being able to set the prices?
 
Peter Majtan said:
Here is the battery-powered "pocket" version:

PocketRocket.jpg


Excuse the rough finish - this is the first working prototype...

:devil: Peter
Click to expand...

Peter,

amazing!!!!!

Price and availability??????????
 
We are tuning some final design adjustments. As it is - the "Pocket Rocket" will require for the RED Rocket to be installed at our end. It requires the slot plates to be removed from both the RED Rocket and the HD-SDI ports, removal of the base PCIe board assembling it together outside of the box and then inserting it in a rather complex way. finally 8 screws hold the RED Rocket in place with base support. This is not a device that will allow easy swapping of the RED Rocket between Mac Pro and this enclosure. It is possible, but very impractical and difficult task. Also the angled wires You see in the bottom left corner (inside) lead to LED's. They will show the battery capacity in a similar way the laptop does, but on a permanent basis. Since there is no other way to tell the battery capacity I believe this is really important to observe. This is why the LED's are on the front face - it will be difficult to ignore them... We are thinking between milling it from aluminum or magnesium. Either way - the unit is going to be really solid and relatively lightweight. The main weight is the 4 batteries - which use the same flat-cell technology as the 17" MBP...

We should have all this sorted out within a week or two. At that point we will be able to announce the availability and pricing...

This first generation is connected to the MBP with Magma Express34 card and cable and the laptop is not attached to the unit. We are working on a slightly larger unit that will get rid off the Express34 slot card poking out and the cables. We have two different design solution for this, but they are rather complex and require custom ECB's to be designed. It will "envelop" the MBP in a way to make it look like a one single unit and there will be no cables. But this version is at least 6 months out. In "Jim's tradition" - we will offer FULL trade-in value for all those who purchase the current unit and want to upgrade to the second generation...

The most important thing is that the "Pocket Rocket" is just the beginning. We are cooking something so exciting that will forever change the DIT work on the location...

Keep tuned...

:devil: Peter
 
Evangelos Achillopoulos said:
I'm testing everything under OSX...

The machine has a lot of free areas, in order user to stick the Apple provided stickers with the Apple label, which included in the OSX retail box in this way he will have his system Apple labeled as EULA is asking... :closedeyes:
Click to expand...

Now we know what those Apple logo stickers are for!

Would they fit on an IBM Bladeserver I wonder?

A full Bladecenter renderfarm running OSX would be sooo niiice...

Would fit just nicely in my rack too :)

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/data/flash/bladecenter/hardware/servers/tour/index.html

Dave
 
Magma Box?

Magma Box?

I cant' seem to find the post where I believe it was written " that the magma box is too hot" or something or the other.

Peter or anyone in the know please comment on why we just can't use a magma 2 Slot PCI Expansion System. I already own one and I am trying to figure out why I might need to purchase another box to run the RED Rocket™?



Respectfully

R. Gonzales
 
R. Gonzales said:
I cant' seem to find the post where I believe it was written " that the magma box is too hot" or something or the other.

Peter or anyone in the know please comment on why we just can't use a magma 2 Slot PCI Expansion System. I already own one and I am trying to figure out why I might need to purchase another box to run the RED Rocket™™?



Respectfully

R. Gonzales
Click to expand...

By all means use the MAGMA. The cooling has much to be desired, but if You are in a A/C environment it should be OK...

The main difference between MAGMA and my chassis is that my chassis is lot more solid (read = ready for field abuse) and more importantly it also operates from internal battery - so You can use it with the laptop when You don't have a access to main power...

There are other things with MAGMA, but this is not for me to comment. After all You will be hearing an "opinion from a competitor"...

:devil: Peter
 
Mathieu Marano said:
Nice work Peter. And what is this AJA usb key? Will it be rack mountable?
Click to expand...

The AJA USB key is just that - a USB memory stick. I was copying sample R3D file on the laptop to show it plays with the RED Rocket...

Yes - it will be rack-mountable...

Peter
 
To further expand on what Curran said... The limiting factor with the mobile RED Rocket solution is bandwidth. It connects via ExpressCard, which provides 2.5Gbps of bandwidth less operational overhead. You get the equivalent of a single PCI Express lane. The RED Rocket is an PCI-E X8 card, so you are effectively limiting the RED Rocket to 1/8th of its potential throughput.

This is still plenty of bandwidth to send R3D data to the Rocket and have it play back 4K to a 4K projector or other display in real time. It's probably still possible to have the Rocket process 4K footage with a full debayer, apply a color "look" and scale it to 2K for sending back to the system all in real-time or very close to real time. The real problem thereafter is also one of bandwidth. With the ExpressCard occupied, you would need a system with another EC slot or eSATA to really connect a decently fast storage system.
 
Built Tough

Built Tough

Peter Majtan said:
By all means use the MAGMA. The cooling has much to be desired, but if You are in a A/C environment it should be OK...

The main difference between MAGMA and my chassis is that my chassis is lot more solid (read = ready for field abuse) and more importantly it also operates from internal battery - so You can use it with the laptop when You don't have a access to main power...

There are other things with MAGMA, but this is not for me to comment. After all You will be hearing an "opinion from a competitor"...

:devil: Peter
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response.

Well your chassis does look like a tank, what might it cost?

Anyone else out there willing to comment about the other failings of the Magma 2 Slot PCI Expansion System. I only ask because I would like to make the best informed decision on a possible purchase. Sanjin Jukic, how about you, any comments?

Respectfully

R. Gonzales
R. Gonzales
 
something that just crossed my mind, sorry if this has been asked before, when i was looking at those pics....

Cooling....Cooling for the MBP...is it all good? Cause i can imagine the two of those things heating up pretty fast, mostly because of the MBP...
 
Imran Farouk said:
something that just crossed my mind, sorry if this has been asked before, when i was looking at those pics....

Cooling....Cooling for the MBP...is it all good? Cause i can imagine the two of those things heating up pretty fast, mostly because of the MBP...
Click to expand...

If heat becomes an issue just place a cooling mat between the two which won't increase the height that much but will keep the laptop cool.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
To further expand on what Curran said... The limiting factor with the mobile RED Rocket™ solution is bandwidth. It connects via ExpressCard, which provides 2.5Gbps of bandwidth less operational overhead. You get the equivalent of a single PCI Express lane. The RED Rocket™ is an PCI-E X8 card, so you are effectively limiting the RED Rocket™ to 1/8th of its potential throughput.

This is still plenty of bandwidth to send R3D data to the Rocket and have it play back 4K to a 4K projector or other display in real time. It's probably still possible to have the Rocket process 4K footage with a full debayer, apply a color "look" and scale it to 2K for sending back to the system all in real-time or very close to real time. The real problem thereafter is also one of bandwidth. With the ExpressCard occupied, you would need a system with another EC slot or eSATA to really connect a decently fast storage system.
Click to expand...

I had the same question and wondered about the limitation of 1 lane for use with the Rocket.
The only immediate solution I can think of is getting the biggest possible local HDD inside the MBP. Storing only the print takes of the day for playback or compression then copy the rest over once finished.

With the new MBP of the late 08 manufacture line (i.e the ones with the Express card slot) there should be a nice amount of Front side bus band width 1067MHZ not sure if the CPUs will be used or not. Either way they all have E-sata local HDD with 3GB band width which less operational used band width will be enough to match the Express lane of 2.5 of the Express card slot.
 
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