Rocket support for Color - please help us test

[Ben Brainerd]

So I deleted the older QT clip in the Color render folder and tried to bring in
the newer graded clip while there's no other clips FCP could refer to. Ouch,
the newer clip would still show up with the older grade.

Like Nick said, this isn't a RR/Color issue but an existing FCP issue. Though it's theoretically possible (Though not likely) that the RR plugin is exacerbating the problem.

I had a similar issue when I reinstalled FCS and forgot to turn off Auto-Render/Background Render/Whatever they call it. FCP would render stuff out in the background while I was in Color and then lock onto the render file. Clearing the render and preview caches should clear it up.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

My bad on the cache...

Sorry for any confusion.

I usually empty all caches and if needed, use something like this:
http://www.digitalrebellion.com/pref_man.htm

when needing to reset odd FCS behaviour.

That is not a preview cache, though.

Again.

My bad.

Sorry.

G

 

[Nook Kim]

Thanks to all for your suggestions. I will try all of the methods provided and
see how it does. Re-starting the workstation was the first thing I did, but
it didn't help by the way.

 

[Gavin Stokes]

Thanks for helping Nook out, guys. Nook, let us know how it goes.

 

[sander kamp]

I installed this yesterday evening just out of curiosity. Seems to work well, although can't get real-time playback over AJA, which is just the same as before.

What is more disturbing though is that since then I had two full system crashes, the kind where the screen turns dark and a message comes up that asks you to hold the power button. If this happens a third time any time soon I am going to officially call it related to the Color-Rocket update and uninstall it.

I could send a system log but where to find it?

 

[Alexander Alexandrov]

i had similar issue (power button message) in color on renders. RAM (not made by apple, and i guess thus overheating) was my problem

 

[Nook Kim]

Thanks for helping Nook out, guys. Nook, let us know how it goes.

As suggested, I cleared the renders for the project in render manager, and
it seems to fix the problem. Thanks everyone.

Gavin, do you have an ETA for the next update to the plug-in?

 

[Ross Birkbeck]

With the dropped frame issue I reported before, I was installing and removing
the RR as needed. However, I started to notice gamma shift in between Color
and FCP. More importantly, FCP somehow doesn't show any re-rendered QT's
correctly.

For example, when I want to change my grade on a clip sent from Color in FCP,
I'd just go to the Color project, re-grade the shot, and switch over to FCP.
Normally, the clip would be automatically updated with the newer rendered
clip, but it just wouldn't work that way anymore. Found it very odd, so I just
wanted to import the newer rendered clip manually into FCP. The newer QT
clip reflects the change in grade in QT player, but when I import it into FCP,
it somehow shows up as the older clip without any change in grading.

So I deleted the older QT clip in the Color render folder and tried to bring in
the newer graded clip while there's no other clips FCP could refer to. Ouch,
the newer clip would still show up with the older grade.

I decided to downgrade the Redcode plug in, and it seemed to be down-
graded although that didn't fix the problem. Now I see the removal
instruction from Gavin, I will try that. If that doesn't work, I will just have
some fun time re-intalling everything from scratch upgrading my OSX
finally to Snow Leopard (now running Leopard).

Anyone experiencing this weird issue?

LESSON LEARNED AGAIN: Never ever try any beta software on a paid project!

Try quitting and restarting FCP. I get that problem and it works for me.

 

[Nook Kim]

Try quitting and restarting FCP. I get that problem and it works for me.

Hi Ross,

Restarting FCP wouldn't fix the problem for me, so I had to trash the pref's as others suggested. Now I'm just waiting on the hardware-level RR on/off switch
to solve the dropped frame issue in FCP. I wonder if downgrading the Redcode
plug-in would solve this issue. Time for more testing..

 

[Nook Kim]

Further Findings..

Further Findings..

This is about the dropped frame issue with the RR card installed as I posted
previously. It seems like RR interferes with 1920x1080 playback, thus causing
dropped frames. When I playback 1280x720 with RR installed, FCP plays just fine.
When I playback 1920x1080 with RR installed, FCP drops frames. HOWEVER,
if I set the video playback setting to 720p for my 1080 sequence, FCP plays fine!

Without RR, there's no trouble. Also, it doesn't matter which codec I play.

Here's my findings so far:

- 1920x1080 Uncompressed drops frames with RR
- 1920x1080 Prores 444 drops frames with RR
- 1920x1080 Prores HQ drops frames with RR

- 1280x720 Uncompressed plays fine with RR

- 1920x1080 Prores HQ print out to Digibeta via Kona-3 drops frames with RR
- 1920x1080 Prores HQ print out to Digibeta with the video playback set to
720p 59.98 via Kona-3 plays fine with RR

With these tests, now my workaround for using RR with Color is something
like this...

1. Enjoy accelerated playback and render in Color with RR installed.
2. Render out 1080 clips and send my sequence to FCP.
3. Once in FCP, I set the video playback setting to 720p 59.94 and
up-convert it to 1080i 29.97 via Kona-3 for monitor out. This doesn't look
that bad at all for client viewing.
4. For Digibeta print-out, I set the video playback setting to 720p 59.94 and
down-convert it to 525i 29.97 via Kona-3.
5. For HDCAM print-out, I pull out the RR from my Mac Pro.

Instead of pulling out the RR, I tried to downgrade the Redcode plug-in
carefully following Gavin's instruction, but neither 1080 playback or print-
out was possible.

This is not that bad for my current workflow since about 95% of my work
goes onto Digibeta tapes, so I won't pull out the RR that often.

Hope this will be solved sometime in the near future though :willy_nilly:

 

[Deanan]

This is about the dropped frame issue with the RR card installed as I posted
previously. It seems like RR interferes with 1920x1080 playback, thus causing
dropped frames. When I playback 1280x720 with RR installed, FCP plays just fine.
When I playback 1920x1080 with RR installed, FCP drops frames. HOWEVER,
if I set the video playback setting to 720p for my 1080 sequence, FCP plays fine!

Without RR, there's no trouble. Also, it doesn't matter which codec I play.

Here's my findings so far:

- 1920x1080 Uncompressed drops frames with RR
- 1920x1080 Prores 444 drops frames with RR
- 1920x1080 Prores HQ drops frames with RR

- 1280x720 Uncompressed plays fine with RR

- 1920x1080 Prores HQ print out to Digibeta via Kona-3 drops frames with RR
- 1920x1080 Prores HQ print out to Digibeta with the video playback set to
720p 59.98 via Kona-3 plays fine with RR

With these tests, now my workaround for using RR with Color is something
like this...

1. Enjoy accelerated playback and render in Color with RR installed.
2. Render out 1080 clips and send my sequence to FCP.
3. Once in FCP, I set the video playback setting to 720p 59.94 and
up-convert it to 1080i 29.97 via Kona-3 for monitor out. This doesn't look
that bad at all for client viewing.
4. For Digibeta print-out, I set the video playback setting to 720p 59.94 and
down-convert it to 525i 29.97 via Kona-3.
5. For HDCAM print-out, I pull out the RR from my Mac Pro.

Instead of pulling out the RR, I tried to downgrade the Redcode plug-in
carefully following Gavin's instruction, but neither 1080 playback or print-
out was possible.

This is not that bad for my current workflow since about 95% of my work
goes onto Digibeta tapes, so I won't pull out the RR that often.

Hope this will be solved sometime in the near future though :willy_nilly:

Can you try unloading the driver for the print out?
sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext

To reload try:
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext

 

[Nook Kim]

Can you try unloading the driver for the print out?
sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext

To reload try:
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext

Hi Deanan,

Thanks for your help, but how do I go about performing these tasks?
Looks like Terminal thingies, and I'm blind in it :closedeyes:

 

[Deanan]

Hi Deanan,

Thanks for your help, but how do I go about performing these tasks?
Looks like Terminal thingies, and I'm blind in it :closedeyes:

Correct, it needs to be done in terminal.

You can also try uninstalling the driver.

 

[Uli Plank]

The Terminal doesn't bite ;-)

Just open and type those lines, finish with "Enter" key.

 

[Nook Kim]

Report on the Terminal commands

Report on the Terminal commands

Deanan,

I tried the Terminal commands, but still FCP drops frames when playing/outputting 1080 materials. If I set the video playback to 720p,
it has no problem.

Thanks for your time supporting me though.

 

[Deanan]

Deanan,

I tried the Terminal commands, but still FCP drops frames when playing/outputting 1080 materials. If I set the video playback to 720p,
it has no problem.

Thanks for your time supporting me though.

Can you outline what steps you did?

thx.

 

[Nook Kim]

Can you outline what steps you did?

thx.

Okay, here's it goes:

1. Open Terminal

2. Type in "sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext"

3. Terminal asks me my password, so I type that in

4. Terminal reports that it was successful

5. Type in "sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext"

6. Terminal reports that it was successful

 

[Nook Kim]

Deanan,

Could you be so kind to tell me how to uninstall the RR driver from
my Mac Pro? I'd like to try that instead of pulling out the card when
I need HDCAM print out.

Strange enough, my need for HD print out has increased quite a bit
ever since I installed the new color plug-in :-\

 

[Deanan]

Deanan,

Could you be so kind to tell me how to uninstall the RR driver from
my Mac Pro? I'd like to try that instead of pulling out the card when
I need HDCAM print out.

Strange enough, my need for HD print out has increased quite a bit
ever since I installed the new color plug-in :-\

do this:
sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext
sudo rm /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext


BTW, I just saw your other post. In that one, after you unloaded, did you try to do the hdcam print before you did the driver load?
For example:
1. Open Terminal
2. Type in "sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext"
3. Terminal asks me my password, so I type that in
4. Do HDcam print
5. Type in "sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext"

 

[Nook Kim]

do this:
sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext
sudo rm /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext


BTW, I just saw your other post. In that one, after you unloaded, did you try to do the hdcam print before you did the driver load?
For example:
1. Open Terminal
2. Type in "sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext"
3. Terminal asks me my password, so I type that in
4. Do HDcam print
5. Type in "sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/redrocket.kext"

I've just tried to print to tape after kextunloading, but FCP would still drop frames. As before, it's fine if video playback setting is set to 720p.

Thanks for your help, though.