Smoke on MAC is here!!

[Andrae Palmer]

I wasnt talking about hardware scaling that happens inside of the Kona. As Vlado mentioned, his own software QTAKE HD is pushing GPU processed frames out of the Kona 3. There *is* a performance hit going through a Kona VS being output "natively" through the Quadro but this myth that GPU accelerated graphics cannot be pushed out via SDI in OSX just isn't true.

Yes... he did mention that Qtake HD is able to do this... what he didn't mention was if he did any special coding to allow this. Also what exactly is the nature of his GPU processing?

My video assist application QTAKE HD is pushing frames to GPU for processing and reading back to play them out through Kona3. And it can do realtime dual stream HD!

"Kona3 SDI Outputs are also enabled, although without processing in LIVE mode." -QTake HD

Vlado why does your site state that you can't do it with live processing to the Kona 3 SDI?

Sheila Santos & Etienne Clement developers of Smoke on Mac has stated that a majority of the porting work was doing efficient coding to allow Real-Time output via SDI.

That was a big chunk of the porting work, getting enough performance for 2 streams HD (disolves) on the preview.

Realtime preview out the the KONA SDI is possible for two main reasons. First, both the Quadro FX 5600 and 4600 are PCI-E second generation cards which give an improved transfer performance. Second, we spent a lot of time improving our code to make sure that we read and write from both the Quadro and KONA cards as efficiently as possible.

http://www.fxguide.com/qt/1717/fxguidetv-smoke-on-mac/comment-page-1#comments


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We are planning on adding video out from R3D and other RGB sources to the R3D/Rocket SDK (targeting early next year).

Great news.

It's been possible well before SL and in 32bit. The main limiting factor is the readback performance on the gfx card although it's still alot of data moving back and forth. It would nice if apple added direct support for the quadro hdsdi also.

Being a software developer can you give us any detail on what technical issues developers face when doing Real-Time preview via SDI on the Mac?

 

[Lucas Wilson]

...but this myth that GPU accelerated graphics cannot be pushed out via SDI in OSX just isn't true.

I don't think anybody has said that, Emery. I and others have always said that the NVidia SDI card is not supported. Not that sending GPU-based stuff out SDI is not possible. Very different things.

Andrae (and others) - supporting another video I/O card means taking data out of the GPU, sending it down the buss, getting it into another Output card, and then controlling that output card. It's do-able - but there are several factors at play here that make it a questionable thing to do, at least for ASSIMILATE:

1) Apple can be a difficult company to work with, because of their extremely tight information security. With Nvidia and most other companies, we can talk about (under heavy NDA) technology roadmaps so we can try and plan accordingly. With Apple, that's basically impossible.

2) As soon as you leave the GPU and send data back down the buss, there is a significant performance hit, and realtime suffers.

3) We make a product that is 100% direct competition to an Apple product. They are not incredibly motivated to help us.

4) All of this would not be an issue if they would write a damned driver for the Nvidia SDI card.

Lucas

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Thanks for further clarifying that Lucas. Emery... we know its possible obviously because Autodesk is doing it. It does not seem like an easy process though for software developers. In the case of autodesk there are limitations such as not having Real-Time Deliverables.

The AJA Kona 3 card is used for both videotape input and output as well as feeding a broadcast monitor which displays a realtime output from the edit timeline and effects modules. This hardware setup differs slightly from the configuration on the Linux platform, where Quadro SDI daughter cards are used to feed the broadcast monitor. The reason for this is that there is no Quadro FX daughter card available on the Mac platform, so Autodesk uses the AJA card for this purpose.

This does have an implication on functionality of the application in comparison to the Linux product: no realtime deliverables are available on Smoke on Mac. What are realtime deliverables? The QuadroFX card is used to do realtime format conversions — say from HD to SD and/or from 24fps to interlaced 60i — and you can record the SDI daughter card output directly to a VTR. This is a significant difference, but we actually don’t use this functionality at Hootenanny and I know many others who don’t use this functionality either.

http://www.fxguide.com/qt/1803/smoke-on-mac-part-1-overview

 

[Fredrik Harreschou]

NVIDIA has taken over official support for Quadro FX drivers on the Mac.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/12/a-second-look-at-the-nvidia-quadro-fx-4800-mac-edition.ars

Will Apple stop them from doing the SDI driver now that Nvidia can do it themselves? That is the 64 dollar question...

 

[Emery Wells]

I don't think anybody has said that, Emery. I and others have always said that the NVidia SDI card is not supported. Not that sending GPU-based stuff out SDI is not possible. Very different things.
Lucas

I know you never stated that and of course there are very valid reasons why you wouldn't want to go through the GPU and then back out to a 3rd party SDI card. It just seemed there was some misinformation on the board about it's possibilities. We're on the same team, id love SDI drivers on the Mac.

I have't seen a SMACK demo yet, so im curious to see what kind of 'realtime' performance it gets.

NVIDIA has taken over official support for Quadro FX drivers on the Mac.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...ac-edition.ars

Will Apple stop them from doing the SDI driver now that Nvidia can do it themselves? That is the 64 dollar question...

Holy smokes now THAT is big news. How did I miss this? Theres no reason Apple would want to stop them, they just didn't want to invest in doing it themselves for the relatively tiny market that would use it.

 

[dekekincaid]

NVIDIA has taken over official support for Quadro FX drivers on the Mac.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/12/a-second-look-at-the-nvidia-quadro-fx-4800-mac-edition.ars

Will Apple stop them from doing the SDI driver now that Nvidia can do it themselves? That is the 64 dollar question...

Quadro SDI card is a very niche product. It costs $5,000-8,000 depending the version of the card(and you guys bitch about paying 2k for the Apple Quadro). I doubt PNY sells more then a couple hundred of them a year. So the question is whether or not Nvidia thinks it is worth paying a developer to make drivers for a product that currently has zero audience. IE the chicken and the egg problem.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Quadro SDI card is a very niche product. It costs $5,000-8,000 depending the version of the card(and you guys bitch about paying 2k for the Apple Quadro). I doubt PNY sells more then a couple hundred of them a year. So the question is whether or not Nvidia thinks it is worth paying a developer to make drivers for a product that currently has zero audience. IE the chicken and the egg problem.

Sorry Deke, but you are dramatically underestimating the SDI market. You need to add a zero or two to your estimate. Our market is a fairly small piece of SDI. Broadcast is huge, and visualization is fairly large as well.

Also, PNY is not the sole Quadro vendor in the world. ELSA in Japan also cranks out an awful lot of SDI cards.

This is not a question of whether they will hire people - there is already a dedicated team within Nvidia focused on SDI. Nvidia has been asking Apple for awhile to support SDI. This has nothing to do with chicken and egg. The team is there and willing. Talk to Apple.

Lucas

 

[roryhinds]

I'm sure its been done before but I guess timing is everything.
Maybe we should start a partition for SDI on Mac, gather enough people and send it to Apple.

Hopefully Jim can pass it onto who ever is the best person in Apple to it gets to the right people, as he and RED seem to have a pretty good rep with Apple

 

[Emery Wells]

This is not a question of whether they will hire people - there is already a dedicated team within Nvidia focused on SDI. Nvidia has been asking Apple for awhile to support SDI. This has nothing to do with chicken and egg. The team is there and willing. Talk to Apple.

Lucas

If Nvidia has taken over writing the drivers what does Apple need to provide to make this happen?

 

[Vlado Struhar]

Yes... he did mention that Qtake HD is able to do this... what he didn't mention was if he did any special coding to allow this. Also what exactly is the nature of his GPU processing?

Simple CC, DVE, MASK, GRID, OSD, 3D LUT.

"Kona3 SDI Outputs are also enabled, although without processing in LIVE mode." -QTake HD

Vlado why does your site state that you can't do it with live processing to the Kona 3 SDI?

Because Kona3 is not a full-duplex card, so you can't have both inputs and outputs active at the same time. You need to use two Kona cards to allow dual hd-sdi processed LIVE output.

Being a software developer can you give us any detail on what technical issues developers face when doing Real-Time preview via SDI on the Mac?

I can't reveal any ingredients from my kitchen but it took me about 2-3 weeks to implement (and I'm a director!)...

 

[dekekincaid]

Sorry Deke, but you are dramatically underestimating the SDI market. You need to add a zero or two to your estimate. Our market is a fairly small piece of SDI. Broadcast is huge, and visualization is fairly large as well.

I know broadcast is huge but who else besides the highend online edting/compositing/finishing/DI apps use the Nvidia SDI card which is a pretty small niche group? I know there are a few live sports video apps and weather apps but anything else?

This is not a question of whether they will hire people - there is already a dedicated team within Nvidia focused on SDI. Nvidia has been asking Apple for awhile to support SDI. This has nothing to do with chicken and egg. The team is there and willing. Talk to Apple.

When did Nvidia start needing Apples permission to produce hardware for the mac? They ship a geforce 285 separate from Apple just fine.

My chicken in the egg comment was brought up because there currently aren't any apps that can use Nvidia SDI on mac so they have to make a financial decision whether it is worth spend money on programmers to develop a driver for a product with zero current audience.

 

[M Most]

I know broadcast is huge but who else besides the highend online edting/compositing/finishing/DI apps use the Nvidia SDI card which is a pretty small niche group? I know there are a few live sports video apps and weather apps but anything else?

Live weather and sports graphics are a very large market, considerably larger than something like digital intermediate finishing. You're also overlooking non-entertainment markets, such as medical imaging and special venues. All of these dwarf the entertainment industry in terms of sheer numbers.

 

[Mark Allen]

One year from now you will have a more powerful tool with more features for a FRACTION of the price of Smoke on a MAC. I PROMISE. That's all I can say without getting sued. But that being said, I think there's lots of folks who can make some good ROI right now with the new SMOKE.

I've heard this not in relation to SMOKE but in relation to anything for the last four years and it always points to the secret Apple product that is always just about to be released, but never is. I'm definitely a mac biased user and I would love it if it were true, but it seems to be perpetual vaporware. I don't know if this is the product your talking about or something new, but it's sort of the Kinetta of the software world.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I've heard this not in relation to SMOKE but in relation to anything for the last four years and it always points to the secret Apple product that is always just about to be released, but never is. I'm definitely a mac biased user and I would love it if it were true, but it seems to be perpetual vaporware. I don't know if this is the product your talking about or something new, but it's sort of the Kinetta of the software world.

I don't think he's talking about an Apple Product I think he's talking about Premiere CS5/AE CS5.

In which case I don't care how much power or speed there is in the software, Adobe evidently designs their software by handing a sketch pad to a 4 year old and asking them for UI and workflow blueprints. I don't think anyone at Adobe actually has ever used one of their applications before.

I've tried contacting their support before to report problems and had to give up after the tech support asked and I quote "Describe the problem to me as if I was an alien from another planet." I'm sorry I expected an alien from another planet to be able to perform simple arithmetic. :mad2:

 

[M Most]

I've heard this not in relation to SMOKE but in relation to anything for the last four years ...

You'll hear it for the next four years too, because it's ALWAYS true. That's the nature of the current pace of technology innovation.

It should also be pointed out that its true meaning is "don't hold your breath," and if you need to do something now, don't worry about what may or may not be available a year from now.

 

[Kris Anderson]

Just work with the tools you have now. Don't whinge or wait until the perfect storm comes along to do your thing. Just get on with it and do it. These are exciting days for any of us in this industry. When I started out the biggest hard drive I could buy for Avid was 9gb and it cost $4,500aud. Now look at it. Things always change and improve. Just keep your head down and do your best. The tools are secondary to the artist.