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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 :)

Rocket-X Thoughts?

D

Dustin Cross

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My number just got called for my Dragon upgrade.

I signed up to get a Rocket-X with my upgrade.

I have heard some mixed reports about Rocket-X and I have had TERRIBLE experiences with my numerous original Rockets.

If Rocket-X is as fragile as original Rocket I do not want to deal with it.

If a couple top end GPUs are just as fast as Rocket-X, why get it?

For those who have experience with Rocket-X, do you recommend getting it?

Thanks for your input.



Thanks,
Dusty
 
If you can recoup the cost in the first year...

If you can recoup the cost in the first year...

RR-X is a significant upgrade from the original Rocket in terms of build quality and sports a much better warrantee. If you need to transcode significant amounts of R3Ds and/or have short deadlines this probably is the droid you're looking for. In my world, 90% of the footage I deal with is R3Ds, which makes it an easy ROI - if you're world is more of a mixed bag of sources/file types, the equation changes quickly.

If you do serious DIT days with a list of "dailies" deliverables or have a multi-seat post facility that does a decent amount of RED, its a no brainer.

All that said, for a lot of people, especially those who do wide variety of image related tasks on their primary workstation, bomber GPUs that speed up key tasks would be a better ROI path.

Hopefully, over time (driver optimization, etc) , RR-X in external enclosures over TB2 will reach decent performance levels. Once that hurdle is cleared, the choice gets easier - go with the hot GPU solution and if you book a job that supports it, rent a RR-X in a box. Yes, I'm sure a few people will rent RR-Xs as bare PCIe cards - but even with the new casework that seems pretty dicey, its just too easy to damage a PCIe card and I doubt the ZIF contacts are rated for hundreds of mating cycles.

Bottom line: if you genuinely need it, I think you'll really like it - especially if there is as much untapped power in the card as has been suggested. That said, my crystal ball sees a future where multi-GPU solutions make single application accelerator cards irrelevant.

Cheers - #19
 
I've got two RRX cards on order with my Dragon upgrades and will probably just take one to start, but may take both if I have to for the special pricing. I think once they have the cards fully enabled, it will become apparent that they're quite a bit faster that multiple GPU cards. For me, I'm 75% R3D, 20% GoPro and about 5% randomized whatever in terms of the footage I deal with. While the newer systems are doing well in handling R3D's, even the sampling of Dragon clips I have in my collection, if I can drop a card into a single PCIe slot and greatly accelerate that, it will be worth it to me.

I'm not using as many computers in my workflows as I have been over the past few years as hardware becomes more powerful. I'll put a RRX in one of my Xeon workstations, doubt I'll put one in a TB enclosure on a Mac Pro or for mobile use.

However, I'm kinda with Dusty on this one... We don't really know what to fully expect here. Not too many RRX cards in the wild, or at least not that people are really talking about. Software support for apps like Resolve and Premiere is just starting to happen now. So there are lots of unknowns.
 
Blair,

Thanks for the input!

I personally only work on Alexa these days, but I own four Epic's and several DIT carts I rent out. The carts work on lots of non-Red jobs.

My original Rocket goes out in a tower we install it in or in an enclosure we install it in. Clients never get to touch the original Rocket and it still died several times. I spent enough money replacing original Rockets to buy a couple Rocket X's. I do not want to keep dealing with that kind of stuff.

I know my clients are going to be asking for Rocket-X, but I do not want another tool I send on a job and it dies on day 2 of 5 and I end up having to pay extra to get them a different Rocket.

I can fill one of my PCI-e expanders with GPUs and know it will be stable. I am pretty sure Rocket-X will be faster, but I trust GPU solution will be stable.

If Rocket-X works and is not super fragile, I want it. If it is a nightmare like the current Rocket, I have no interest.



Thanks,
Dusty
 
The RR-X is as tough as any non mil-spec PCI card I've ever seen - but that's not a high bar. In terms of reliability in the field, only time will tell - so I'm thinking 3 years of Red Armor ;-)

What we don't know, is how much of the theoretical performance of the RR-X we will be able to utilize 3 months from now - both in a proper X16 PCIe 3/4 slot and in an external TB2 chassis. If it's all its cracked up to be and chews 6K Dragon frames like Chicklets I doubt you'll regret the purchase.

Cheers - #19
 
The RRX is so blazing fast and everything Blair has said I agree with.

So basically if you have lots of footage to turn around its AWESOME. I love it love using it and am in full amazement of how well it performs with Dragon footage.

In the future I intend to post some real world results and experience.
Luis
 
Thanks for the feedback guys.

I have no questions that the RR-X is fast.

I just hope it is not fragile like the original Red Rocket. If you look at the original Red Rocket hard it will break. It would be stronger if it was made of eggs shells.



Thanks,
Dusty
 
I'm with Dustin.

Rocket craptitude has been an Achilles heel for RED products. Paying thousands for a product that melts down in a year, sometimes less....

It would be nice to have some reassurance from RED that they acknowledge this problem and are working to improve the next generation of the product. But so far, what I hear is blaming the customer. I had to send in a one year old Rocket which melted down after being installed and used in a Sonnet box for one year. The diagnosis, which I had to pay an additional $160 to hear was "user mishandled" it.

This is BS. It was dropped in an enclosure and left there for its entire short lifespan. But this seems to be the default explanation, when in fact, the cards have a well documented history of suckage.

It's tough to swallowing throwing down for an even more expensive product, without some acknowledgement from RED that these problems are being addressed in the next iteration.

Of course, I'm just blowing off steam, and of course, I'll buy one...because fast workflows demand it. But the radio silence on the high percentage of Rocket failures is discouraging.
 
Red Mithril (Tolkien reference)

Red Mithril (Tolkien reference)

For at least the 3rd time I am going to suggest that RED offer a 3 year, immediate replacement service contract on the RedRocket-X for a premium ($1-2K…) over the list price of the card. Maybe call it Red Mithril.

If you have issues with the card you just contact RED, give them an address, and they FedEx a replacement card no later than the next day (in packaging that you can use to send the problematic card back to RED). Yes, by the time you buy the card and the RED Mithril no questions asked swap service contract you'll probably have $8K+ invested, but at least you'll have a 99% uptime situation with no out of pocket for 3 years. An even more popular option might be a $300/mo contract ($1,000 deposit, 12 month minimum) as a 3 year lease to own - make 36 payments on time ($10,800 total) and the card is yours. If the RR-X is fairly bulletproof then RED makes even more money, if its not then they eat the extra overhead. Seems fair.

Maybe its just me, but I'd rather spend a bit more for the assurance that I'll get to enjoy the benefits of the product 99% of the time I'm making payments.

Cheers - #19
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
For at least the 3rd time I am going to suggest that RED offer a 3 year, immediate replacement service contract on the RedRocket-X for a premium ($1-2K…) over the list price of the card. Maybe call it Red Mithril.

If you have issues with the card you just contact RED, give them an address, and they FedEx a replacement card no later than the next day (in packaging that you can use to send the problematic card back to RED). Yes, by the time you buy the card and the RED Mithril no questions asked swap service contract you'll probably have $8K+ invested, but at least you'll have a 99% uptime situation with no out of pocket for 3 years. An even more popular option might be a $300/mo contract ($1,000 deposit, 12 month minimum) as a 3 year lease to own - make 36 payments on time ($10,800 total) and the card is yours. If the RR-X is fairly bulletproof then RED makes even more money, if its not then they eat the extra overhead. Seems fair.

Maybe its just me, but I'd rather spend a bit more for the assurance that I'll get to enjoy the benefits of the product 99% of the time I'm making payments.

Cheers - #19
Click to expand...

At the price tag of the RR-X one would assume that free replacement and a extended warrantee should be standard.
After all the big price tag is mostly associated with the R&D of the cards in my humble assumption,
I can't imagine that the plastic, the few chips and a fan that the card consist of, to be of such a high material value.

I personally would love to see a upgrade program from RR ro RR-X.

///
 
Dustin Cross said:
My number just got called for my Dragon upgrade.

I signed up to get a Rocket-X with my upgrade.

I have heard some mixed reports about Rocket-X and I have had TERRIBLE experiences with my numerous original Rockets.

If Rocket-X is as fragile as original Rocket I do not want to deal with it.

If a couple top end GPUs are just as fast as Rocket-X, why get it?

For those who have experience with Rocket-X, do you recommend getting it?

Thanks for your input.



Thanks,
Dusty
Click to expand...

2 Titans are faster, and rendering quality is better. 2 Titans are cheaper. Maybe even one Titan is faster (not sure, but certainly 2 are).
 
hey guys anyone using with the nmp with sonnet tb2?
Thinking about it...
What do you think?
Cheers
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
2 Titans are faster, and rendering quality is better. 2 Titans are cheaper. Maybe even one Titan is faster (not sure, but certainly 2 are).
Click to expand...

2 Titans are NOT faster than the Rocket. Titans are awesome, titans are great, but one thing to consider with them is that GPU debayer IS still dependent on CPU speed to a degree.
 
Any thoughts if this will give increased processing on Davinci? I down convert all my footage in Avid, then relink for the online in Davinci 11. How much benefit will a Re Rocket X be for grading, working and outputting a film all in DR 11? I have fully loaded Mac Pro 8core with Dual 700.

Thx
 
If you're using the Rocket-X in a Thunderbolt chassis, then you're only using a fraction of the card, and unfortunately Apple felt TB2 (x4/x4 gen2) was some how faster than a PCI-e (x8 or x16 gen3) pass through, you'll also need a x6 or x8 core system and PCI-e x16 lane to fully use a Rocket-X, so we'll probably have to wait for the X99 systems.
 
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