(Relatively) Mobile Grading Suite – thoughts and critique please!

[Steve Kennedy]

Hi,

I'm putting together a recipe for a relatively mobile grading workstation, and would really appreciate any thoughts/critique from you excellent folks:

Workstation:
New Mac Pro
8-core
2 x D700
64GB RAM
1TB SSD

Monitor:
Sony PVM (either 2541A or A250)

Tangent Element control surface

UltraStudio Express (for outputting 10bit to the monitor)

Will either use Macbook Pro and/or other portable screen for GUI/scopes

G-RAID 8TB Thunderbolt drives x 2

The beauty is that most of this will fit inside a Pelican 1640 case for travelling.

Am I missing anything out?

 

[Marc Wielage]

I'm nervous about dragging the new Mac Pros around because of the delicacy of the Thunderbolt connections. But as long as you had a secure surface and weren't banging it around with everything attached, it "should" theoretically work. I would also build in some facility for UPS power backup. I believe the 444 is more a question of the interface than the Mac Pro itself. The UltraStudio Express seems to be spec'd out at 422 10-bit, so you'd have to spring for the (larger and more costly) UltraStudio 4K for 444.


The 8-core Macs will not be enough for processing R3D files at anything but 1/4-res, but I think they will work OK with ProRes 444 and other HD sources. Note that the software and hardware options will most likely change in 6 weeks at NAB.

 

[Shiblon Wixom]

My Retina MBP does 5k full debayer at 10 fps, the x6 core Mac Pro will do close to 18 fps full debayer 5k, so it's more than workable on a single camera shoot. I definitely agree on using a UPC/APC battery backup.

Even the old Retina MBP will transcode 5k full debayer at 6 fps.

 

[Jason Osterday]

Id suggest getting a 4 to 6 RU rack mount SKB or Pelican and upgrading to the Ultra 4K TB2. UPS is not an option in my opinion its a must. There's some nice 1000W+ rack mountable options for $150 to 200. The GRaid is fine if you don't need speed but with only 2 disks you'll only see maybe 175-250MB/s which is not enough outside of client USB drives. I'd suggest a rack mounted 1RU 4 Drive SATA chassis so you can at least consider redundancy and better speed. You won't be able to do hardware Raid 5 or 6 but you'll have the parts to grow into it.

If it were me I'd just go for a 4 or 8 drive SAS chassis and get a used R380 or 680 SAS host to put in a Sonnet box. I would suggest the Promise J4 but it doesn't support Raids beyond 0 or 1. I'd love for someone to create a 5.25" 4 drive TB Raid or a 4 (3.5") / 8 (2.5") 1RU rack mount TB Raid. If you want to rack mount the mac pro (which is key if you want to move your cart around) then I'd suggest getting 2 large diameter Bracketed TBolt Clamps and drilling to match the rack holes. Just line them with soft rubber and the Mac won't see a scratch.

 

[Steve Kennedy]

Thanks for the responses.

I hadn't factored in a UPS system, that's sage advice indeed.

I'm definitely going to go for the Ultrastudio 4K.

Where I'm now confused is regarding storage, particularly the whole question of whether I need a RAID or not for what I'm doing. I don't need redundancy built into the system – all the data is triple backed up elsewhere – so it's just a question of speed I guess.

Is editing/grading 4K footage held back significantly by G-Tech Thunderbolt drives?
I'm editing with around 16TB of footage, so having that amount of space, portably, in RAID seems like it could get pretty expensive, no?

When I come to grading, it will be considerably less, and might even fit on the nMP internal 1TB SSD, or else perhaps the Promise J4 could be a good/necessary solution at that point?

Thanks for all your help.

S

 

[Shiblon Wixom]

An HBA controller (Areca or Atto) and SAS or enterprise SATA 2.5" drives in a raid5 works well, several TB chassis (Sonnet or Magma) support that setup with a 4 or 8 drive configuration. Typically you only need to hold a few days worth of material at a time. Your job is to offload material quickly and reliably, and then offload to redundant backup drives/raids and/or transcode the R3D files. Long term backup is the clients responsibility.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Is editing/grading 4K footage held back significantly by G-Tech Thunderbolt drives? I'm editing with around 16TB of footage, so having that amount of space, portably, in RAID seems like it could get pretty expensive, no?

The Promise Pegasus RAIDs are quite a bit faster, if you look at the various specs. Even if you're sourcing from 16TB of material, it might not be necessary to have this much storage if you narrow everything down and temporarily park the unused takes on a library drive somewhere. Realistically, you might actually need less than half this much storage just to edit the various scenes and reels together. If you can edit with proxies, it'll be a fraction of this space and the system will run considerably faster.

I agree that the total conformed footage for final color correction might be less than 1TB, but I would strongly warn against putting it on the boot drive, since this will take up a lot of space and will affect system performance. You really need to have the footage and scratch drives separately from the actual show.

 

[John_F]

Hi,

I'm putting together a recipe for a relatively mobile grading workstation, and would really appreciate any thoughts/critique from you excellent folks:

Am I missing anything out?

Steve, you mention relatively mobile system. is that mobile for flight or mobile for location work or both?

#1 get the Sony A250. The weight and depth differential is definitely a plus.
#2 Plan to have some kind of cart to set this kit on. If you are here in North America I'd strongly suggest http://www.inovativcarts.com/

This is fully tricked out but these can be broken down for travel and have many accessories available to customize to almost any situation. Raid is important. If you do have any kind of failure I don't think you want to have to go back to archives if you can help it. UPS is imperative but get one that has electrical spike protections and a longer battery life "ie. don't go to the computer store and get some cheap unit for your home computer". If you are using this on any production where location work is being done having the ability to keep your cart powered while you push the cart around to different set ups means you don't have to wait for the sparks to get you power right away. The DP's etc. will appreciate you for it all the more.

 

[joe hedge]

If you are using this on any production where location work is being done having the ability to keep your cart powered while you push the cart around to different set ups means you don't have to wait for the sparks to get you power right away. The DP's etc. will appreciate you for it all the more.

Maybe if all you're doing is moving the cart a few feet across a flat surface, but spinning hard drives will crash pretty easily when subjected to sudden movement. I would never push the cart around with the drives running while subjecting it to any kind of bumpiness. You could seriously damage the drives that way.

Also a Mac Pro tower with 4-5 hard drives inside of it, plus the client's drives, plus the monitors, will drain the battery of an APC UPS 1500a in about 20 minutes when the battery is new. And if you drain the battery to almost dead, it takes an hour or so to charge back up, meaning you don't have more than a few minutes backup while it's recharging.

A UPS isn't really for powering the cart for more than a few minutes, it's more for keeping powered up while repatching, or to give you time to shut down if they temporarily lose power.

 

[Shiblon Wixom]

You can also carry or mount a sealed gel or marine battery with a 1200W inverter if you need mobile power for longer durations, but even this configuration won't power a full system for more than a few hours.

 

[Steve Kennedy]

Steve, you mention relatively mobile system. is that mobile for flight or mobile for location work or both?

Actually, it's just for flight at the moment. I'll be setting up a mobile studio and need to be able to easily fly from location to location. I don't yet need to be able to operate on location using a cart with backup power etc. That comes later perhaps...

Thanks for all the help again everyone.

 

[Eric Emerick]

Is the Blackmagic Ultrastudio compatible with RED Cine-X Pro?

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/xmacproserver.html