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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 :)

Sonnet Echo Express III R

Only sticker I have on box is shipping label and a giant BH catalog sticker that covers the Sonnet sticker entirely. Bottom of unit itself is completely blank. Still no response from Sonnet on how to resolve the missing serials.
 
Glad to hear Paul...mine is stuck in limbo...bad weather has slowed down shipping everywhere. Should have it by this wknd though... I went out and picked up a rMBP yesterday with Thunderbolt 2...hopefully this will allow me to get better performance out of the rocket compared to first gen external chassis using TB1 (that should also be here this wknd...hopefully). Did a lot of research on reduser and other sites, and talked to Sonnet techs. From what I've learned (please, feel free to correct me) but the thunderbolt 1 chassis were limited to x4 with multi-lane 10gps speeds...but with TB2, you actually get x8, so I'm hoping that will speed up the RR (which I think is a x16 card...so theoretically, wouldn't I get 2x the performance going from TB1 to TB2?...)

I also read that the RR does better in the middle slot, which is a mechanical x16 for the sonnet Echo Express III R & D version chassis (versus 2 x8 and one x4 for the original Echo Express chassis)...electrical x8 (still haven't grasped totally what that means...mechanical means there are actually 16 points touching the card, but the actual speed is going through a x8 channel??)...either way, my RR will be here along with a ATTO to test a configuration out.

Hate to hear about your problems Jason. Wanted to escape some of those problems so I ordered directly from Sonnet, and they confirmed that they are shipping (when ordered through their site) the new risers and upgraded TB2...hopefully the resellers have worked off old inventory and are only shipping the fixed/updated chassis.
 
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Paul good to hear you're back up and running.

Finally got a hold of Sonnet and worked out the replacement details. It was strange, we had lots of good communication over a few different products and emails exchanged but the RMA on that Echo III seemed to just drag out.

For anyone signing on for upgrades, I filled everything out and RMA'd for new riser and they shipped out the next day, so they seem to really be moving these out quickly. I should see it next week and can begin stress testing RR stuff. I want to see what a pair of RR cards and an Areca in there will do compared to a pair of TB chassis with cards on different busses.

Rome - the RR v1 is an x8 card. Electrical means the card actually utilizes an x8 connection speed. Some cards are x16 "mechanical" but only utilize PCIe x4 or x8 speeds. For example I have Chelsio fiber cards that are 4Gb and have an x8 sized board (mechanical) but actually only connect at x4 speed (or at least only saturate x4 worth).

I only saw a 7-10% change in performance with the rocket in an x16 Mac Pro tower slot vs TB1 but Id imagine a lot of that is due to the latest builds being far more efficient without a RR at all. Prior to B22+ I couldn't play back 5K FF over TB but now it handles 5:1 with ease.
 
I put my rr-x into the middle slot and red cine is still giving me the 4x slot warning still, sonnet claims this is an 8x electrical slot
Anybody else getting this? Other than that seems to work fine
 
Paul, I finally have both the card and express III...firing it up this afternoon. But my question for you is are you using TB1 or TB2?...in other words, are you connecting to a new rMBP with TB2 or were you one of the lucky ones to get a new Mac Pro?...if not, you're still using TB1 and my understanding is that it's limited to x4 vs. TB2 which is x8...so even if the slot is x8, your bottleneck will be TB1.

Again, this is my understanding...I could be wrong...I'm connecting the chassis to a rMBP so everything is TB2 so hopefully I won't get that error...will let you know though.
 
Jason,

Thanks for breaking it down like that- very good and simple explanation!
 
i am on TB2 with my latest rmbp...i am getting the x4 error (and my card is in the middle slot)....but it is definitely faster then TB1...try one of the other slots and see the difference....or connect to TB1....
i will try and talk to red and sonnet about it but i think that the echoIII TB2 is pretty much as fast as the original rocket will go externally....
 
Yep...you're correct...I get the same error.
 

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Question Paul, what type of playback are you getting with the RR, connected via the echo express III and your rMBP...I am only able to get 1/2 res real time in FCPX and about the same in RCX...

I am new to having a RR (first one, and I just got it today) as well as the external chassis (this sonnet is also a first)...I thought that with a RR, even connected externally, you could get full res playback? I don't have a 4k monitor yet, but thats next in the pipeline...am I missing something? I've read lots of older posts, and I thought the consensus was with a RR, and a decent Mac or newer rMBP, you could get full res playback (even though most don't have 4k monitors...yet).

Thx for clarifying this for me. I feel like I'm missing something...maybe people meant you could playback r3d 4k files in 1/2 or 1/4 res with a RR, natively, without having to transcode to ProRes...(again, which one is it?...little confused...as always, your help is much appreciated)
 
Ok...there seems to be a problem (or at lease a problem for me) with the chassis and how it communicates with the original RR.

I cannot get full res 4k playback through Redcine or FCPX...something that on a 2013 rMBP after doing some more digging, should be accomplishable with a RR.

I have made a couple calls and will circle back when I find out more...from what I am hearing, there may need to be a simple firmware patch needed to get the two devices to play nicely...unless again its something I'm doing wrong...either way, for anyone that has the new sonnet chassis (preferably the rack mount option) as well as a RR plugged in (middle slot I assume) to share what type of performance they are getting.

Interestingly enough, I get full res playback using Red Player 22 (the buffer keeps up as soon as I hit play)...but again not in FCPX or Redcine...
 
Rome - you should see full res off the SDI ports but not within the GUI player. I believe you'll only see 1/2 res within RCX on the rMBP screen. I would get realtime full res on anything but 5K FF 3:1 on my rMBP with Rocket (both Magma and Sonnet Chassis) out of the SDI ports. I only get 17-18FPS though on transcode. Have to retest with the latest builds.

I've received my TB2 and riser upgrade kit. I installed them last night but now fail to get any sort of connection with the chassis besides the blue LED lighting up. I'll post some photos of the install for those with older units while I continue troubleshooting.
 
Thanks Jason- really appreciate this!

I am still not getting the results I thought I would with TB2...again, maybe I am missing something and this is all user error!!! I am still working with the reps, but it is getting extremely frustrating...darkest before brightest I guess. The tech I'm talking with a Red is trying to help best he can, but given that these chassis are still relatively new, its hard for anyone to really troubleshoot them. Will try again to reach out to Sonnet again to see if they have any advice...
 
Rome Will said:
Thanks Jason- really appreciate this!

I am still not getting the results I thought I would with TB2...again, maybe I am missing something and this is all user error!!! I am still working with the reps, but it is getting extremely frustrating...darkest before brightest I guess. The tech I'm talking with a Red is trying to help best he can, but given that these chassis are still relatively new, its hard for anyone to really troubleshoot them. Will try again to reach out to Sonnet again to see if they have any advice...
Click to expand...

Any updates?
 
Rome try this:

- Shutdown the system and Chassis and remove all cards
- Boot the MBP with the empty chassis attached (this should flush any temp drivers that may be conflicting)
- Shutdown and Install the rocket
- Boot the MBP and Download a fresh copy of the Rocket Installer Package from RED
- Re-install the rocket firmware (shutdown)
- Re-install the rocket drivers (restart)

Now try RCX again and see. We've sometimes experienced bad driver downloads that caused playback errors.
 
Jason,

Thanks for the help! I've been a little behind on testing the chassis while I tried to find a better storage solution with the chassis. Had an awesome setup using a miniSAS ATTO r680 card along with a 8-bay unit packed with HDDs...but...the speeds and overall performance was a little slower than I thought I'd get with TB2...from talking with a lot of reps over the past couple weeks as we tried to troubleshoot what's going on, I found out I may have been a little misinformed. From what I'm now told, both TB1 and TB2 are x4 channel...where initially I was told that TB2 is x8 channel (again, this is what I was told...lots of info going back and forth so just trying to absorb everything and make sense of it). What's changed is the access of the channels...instead of 2 channels each direction (two 10gb/s up and down) you have one 20gb/s channels going both directions...It's sounds about right and probably why we still see the error that the RR card is in a x4 slot even though in the Sonnet chassis it's in a x8 slot. Also, the RR card is PCIe gen 1, so the connection speed was around a 2.5Gb/s vs. the newer RR card which is PCIe 2.0 (I believe) and at 5gb/s connection speed.

Again, lots if stuff here and I could be feeding bad info...just trying to understand myself so I may make edits as I have more clarity later on... I will continue to work on this...hopefully I'll get to test your suggestions tonight Jason!

Thanks again sir!
 
Paul Hazlett said:
I put my rr-x into the middle slot and red cine is still giving me the 4x slot warning still, sonnet claims this is an 8x electrical slot
Anybody else getting this? Other than that seems to work fine
Click to expand...
Yep, same problem here. And performance with the RR-X in this chassis is terrible. Not even close to the performance you get having an RR-X inside of a PC or (old) Mac Pro tower.
 
Hi Rob,

So what can you report using beta firmware versions, for transcoding, please?

Thank you very much
Fury
 
Nick Fury said:
So what can you report using beta firmware versions, for transcoding, please?
Click to expand...

Driver 2.1.50(b)
Firmware: 1.3.0.4(b)

The RED ROCKET-X absolutely screams when sitting in a 16x slot. So far, we're finding the Thunderbolt 2 Sonnet Echo Express III R (rack mounted) chassis a waste. For Apple workflows, the full-size (old) Mac Pro tower is still the way to go for Dragon footage.
 
There certainly is the 8 slot function, vs. 16 slot, functioning chassis, but IMHO, I see a real value, still in about 6X transcoding speed, vs. no RRX card in external chassis to a MBR, at this point, with promise for better. To me, a 12 hour to a two hour transcode has value, still.

thank you very much

Fury
 
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