Suggestions for a computer build for Red Weapon 8k?

[Bo Kostelac]

My budget is between 5-8k. Editing Platform is Premiere cc. I was considering a turnkey Mac Pro but I also know building a computer could yield better results for less money. However, I don't have too much time for trouble shooting since I'm crammed with projects and deadlines so that's why I was leaning towards a Mac Pro.

Any suggestions and sharing of wisdom would be highly appreciated! =)

 

[Michael Tiemann]

I'm thinking about the same question, but I also know that my 8K upgrade is a ways off, and that the answer is going to get a lot better when we get a lot closer to the 8K shipping date. I know that 6GB of GPU RAM is barely enough for 6K, and I suspect that 16GB of GPU RAM will barely be enough for 8K. I have my eyes on the nVidea PASCAL CPU, which will sport up to 32GB of 3D GPU memory.

Again, since many will have their 8K sensor before I do, I will learn from their coattails and configure accordingly.

 

[Dunkan Wolf]

dual 28 core Skylake Xeons and a bunch of Nvidia PASCAL gpus should do the trick

 

[Brian Merlen]

isn't a major weapon incentive the offline/online in camera proxies? couldn't you use the prores to offline/online a workflow then on dated hardware? another consideration is keeping your current machine and adding a rocket x, either used or new even? id say it kind of depends on your workflow, cutting raw vs offline, full res playback vs reduced, what kind of storage you use. technically Adobe wants a huge amount of r/w speed which is why it wants different discs for different material in the tech specs since like cs5 or before... so i think one thing people overlook is trying to figure out where the current bottlenecks are on their hardware and how to optimize them. for instance my rMBP really isn't that bad when you account for raid 5 thunder bay drives from OWC, plus rocket x. more so if i added a trash can or something i could increase performance I'm sure, but as is kind of hauls compared to everything I'm used to before this.. i think a lot of you guys focusing on building super computers are looking at it wrong if the price comes out above a rocket x, unless you deal with arri raw or some other formats to justify super computers i think the proprietary turn key hardware solution wins out at a certain point cost wise is all... theres plenty of post houses using worse stuff than you, offline online works well for even big entities. but to each their own...

 

[Sergei Franklin]

Skylake will use Thunderbolt 3. Thunderbolt 3 may support external GPU cards.

 

[Brian Merlen]

but will osx? pc supports it already with tb2

 

[PatrickFaith]

I have a mac pro that does ok on 6k, but 8k ... hmmm. Since adobe has that built in "proxies" mode to raid i think a mac pro would do fine if you had something like two pegagus2 R8 raid drives.

I'll be using a fully blown out z840 with a nice raid system, but even with that i'm pondering a pure transcoding subsystem that has a rocket-x card in it(i'm holding off on the rocket-x card purchase until I see some test results of it on 8k). If a rocket-x card works nicely with weapon 8k, I might get a t2 enclosure for the rocket-x to hook to one of my mac pro's that handles my raid system.

 

[Kalulu Ngilo]

Skylake will use Thunderbolt 3. Thunderbolt 3 may support external GPU cards.

It will indeed support external cards but it will also limit them. PCIe x16 maxes out at 128Gbit/s while TB3 maxes out at 40G. A newer card(Titan X 12GB) would require more bandwidth to get performance going, its possible even with TB3 but I would expect it to be limited still.

 

[Kalulu Ngilo]

My budget is between 5-8k. Editing Platform is Premiere cc. I was considering a turnkey Mac Pro but I also know building a computer could yield better results for less money. However, I don't have too much time for trouble shooting since I'm crammed with projects and deadlines so that's why I was leaning towards a Mac Pro.

Any suggestions and sharing of wisdom would be highly appreciated! =)

What about cutting in 4K ProRes HQ or 6K proxies? Those are still good resolutions to cut at and maybe get at least 1/2 or even Full quality with a rocket or gfx card. Last time I checked Premiere CC 2015 was limited on multi gpu setups. Final Cut just recently added multi-GPU support too. Either way, the system you build will need some serious muscle to pull a Full res. edit.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Here's a suggestion for the major NLEs that support R3Ds:
Offer a proxy workflow where the "default" scaling from the original capture format is to fit the sequence/timeline settings, but as long as the original R3Ds with matching metadata are in the same folder (alias link OK) - then as soon as you start scaling/reframing/stabilizing/etc it accesses the full capture resolution in the R3D. Once you have it how you want it, then hit "done" or "OK" and in the background it builds a new proxy with the necessary metadata for conform.

If FCPX, PremiereCC or AVID MC already has this feature please post it here!

Staying in 6K, someday 8K, just to keep re-framing on the table is a lot of data weight to carry. Making every re-frame a VFX pull is another approach, but hardly without it's own overhead - especially if you are relying on XML translations between programs. If an offline/online (proxy/hero if you prefer) strategy is employed, which still has significant merits, then it sure would make sense if there was a simple way to give the editor re-framing capability without: A) full online media assets used throughout editorial, or , B) making every re-frame a VFX pull. Yes, you can bake out ProResLT 6K first - but that creates another chunk of data to manage, and, for the majority of shots that don't get altered in editorial, a waste of storage space.

If this capability already exists in an NLE I haven't worked with lately, please let me know. At the moment, I'm right behind Toia in hoping that the editor in Resolve will get good enough to just stay in Resolve throughout.

Cheers - #19

 

[Craig Parkes]

Avid kind of offers that sort of functionality through frameflex, but it's not as tightly integrated as one would like if you were to conform/grade elsewhere.

 

[Michael Lindsay]

With rocksolid ofline/online ,DNxHR and frame flex Avid is pretty strong for Red workflow....

I have a z840 with 24 real cores and a Quadra 5200 that is pretty slick with 4k... Need to sort out the HDSDI/HDMI 4k output with a new I/O box and hope it stays stable...

I personally recomend HP boxes and the best CPU's you can buy... HP boxes give 3+ solid years and have great support

PS my box does 6k to HD rendereing in Redcine faster then RT... for 8k maybe add 4 cores, more memory and the M5000 or M6000 GPU?