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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 :)

URGENT: Can the RED CINE file locking be removed, please?

A

Axel Mertes

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Hi RED SWAT,

we are currently encountering problems of decoding footage quickly enough using RED CINE. As we shot in 16:9 mode (not knowing that it doesn't open in RED ALERT and QT CODEC by now) we are now forced to decode everything with RED CINE.

So we wait dreamingly for the bug fix for QT and RED ALERT.

It appears to us that in RED CINE all opened .r3d files get locked, ie. no other system is allowed to open / read the files.

As RED CINE is review & transcoding only tool it makes really NO SENSE AT ALL to have the files locked (except to prevent their deleteing while they are opened for reading).

So could you do us a big favor and remove that lock (or at least give us an option to lock or not lock the opened footage).

We have enough machines to spread the decoding process (which otherwise will take calculated 5 days alone on a single system...).

Please drop us a line so we can better decide on how to proceed from here.

Is is urgent.

Thanks listening,
Axel
 
It may be a better to file a report with RED Technical Support...

http://www.red.com/support

You get a direct response from the technical team..

When you hit the “Send” button, an Incident Ticket will be generated and a RED technical support representative will be notified. The representative will contact you within 4 hours via email or phone to discuss the incident.
 
Axel Mertes said:
Hi RED SWAT,

we are currently encountering problems of decoding footage quickly enough using RED CINE. As we shot in 16:9 mode (not knowing that it doesn't open in RED ALERT and QT CODEC by now) we are now forced to decode everything with RED CINE.

So we wait dreamingly for the bug fix for QT and RED ALERT.

It appears to us that in RED CINE all opened .r3d files get locked, ie. no other system is allowed to open / read the files.

As RED CINE is review & transcoding only tool it makes really NO SENSE AT ALL to have the files locked (except to prevent their deleteing while they are opened for reading).

So could you do us a big favor and remove that lock (or at least give us an option to lock or not lock the opened footage).

We have enough machines to spread the decoding process (which otherwise will take calculated 5 days alone on a single system...).

Please drop us a line so we can better decide on how to proceed from here.

Is is urgent.

Thanks listening,
Axel
Click to expand...

Hey Axel - can you be more specific? I don't know what you mean "locked" - we process 16x9 4K in REDCINE all the time without issue. I assume you understand there is no distributed rendering - so, you need to manually split up the media over multiple machines. Obviously faster with a SAN. Also, make sure your destination has a fast WRITE speed. If you can explain your problem a bit more clearly maybe I can help -
 
Hi Mark,

we have the footage on a SAN and we have about 50 machines connected to it. The SAN is fast enough to do a near realtime decode in terms of uncompressed bandwidth, but surely fast enough from computing side.

We can manually open only a single file at a time, but typically someone will put in a bunch of files. As soon as another machine has the same .r3d files already opened, the file is "locked" and no one else can open it.

What I am pointing to is that it just don't make any sense to lock the files, as they are opened ONLY FOR READING them, so the software has no need to lock the file access for any other app.

Imagine one is editing with the files, while someone else tries to do bulk decoding to e.g. uncompressed TIFF or DPX files for post processing. In such a situation, editing must be stopped for as long as the decoding will take. Thats a useless performance bottle neck.

If one needs to lock the files for security reasons, RED SWAT can surely modify the software to have a switch to do this (or not do this).

That is what I want them to understand and build into the next release.

Axel
 
Axel Mertes said:
Hi Mark,

we have the footage on a SAN and we have about 50 machines connected to it. The SAN is fast enough to do a near realtime decode in terms of uncompressed bandwidth, but surely fast enough from computing side.

We can manually open only a single file at a time, but typically someone will put in a bunch of files. As soon as another machine has the same .r3d files already opened, the file is "locked" and no one else can open it.

What I am pointing to is that it just don't make any sense to lock the files, as they are opened ONLY FOR READING them, so the software has no need to lock the file access for any other app.

Imagine one is editing with the files, while someone else tries to do bulk decoding to e.g. uncompressed TIFF or DPX files for post processing. In such a situation, editing must be stopped for as long as the decoding will take. Thats a useless performance bottle neck.

If one needs to lock the files for security reasons, RED SWAT can surely modify the software to have a switch to do this (or not do this).

That is what I want them to understand and build into the next release.

Axel
Click to expand...


Are you referring to being able to use the Quicktime wrappers for editing while transcoding in RC at the same time? If you shot in 16x9 then the wrappers dont work anyway.

As Mark pointed out, there is no distributed rendering so If you want to split things up then just split things up manually. Everything can still live on the SAN but each RC project should pull different files.
 
Hmmmmm .... so, what you are saying is that TWO seats can not open the same .r3d files at the same time on your SAN?

That is a bit curious - Tony, Lucas want to chime in here?
 
Why not segregate your files into several folders, and then load only one folder-full of files into each of your machines that you'll be using to transcode? That should avoid any locking problems. You'll just need one folder for each machine you'll be pressing into service.
 
Still ... there is no reason I can think of off the top of my head why two separate workstations on a SAN could not access the same .r3d file at the same time ... if in fact, that is what is happening here.
 
Offhollywood said:
Still ... there is no reason I can think of off the top of my head why two separate workstations on a SAN could not access the same .r3d file at the same time ... if in fact, that is what is happening here.
Click to expand...

I am sure it is the way it is right now, locking the files - so any other app isn't able to open the files.

I am working on some scripts to run it on the render farm in future, beasty conversion... If going for 2K output we'll be surely several times faster than realtime.

Anyhow, not everybody has this much CPU performance nor system setup, so I'd like that RED is correcting this issue. Should be a minor thing. I suspect its a inheritage maybe of some of the Shake source in there. For whatever reason, I really don't need it to lock the files. And the SAN by itself is out of question, we have file level sharing in action over here...


Thanks,
Axel
 
Sounds like redundant files with slightly different file names would be a quick fix, but not an ultimate solution?
 
RedCine doesn't open the files with write access. I've checked. So they shouldn't be locked for other processes. It's possible to open and play an R3D file in RedAlert and RedCine at the same time.

Edit: I've just seen that you're working on PCs. I've tested it on a Mac - no problem here.
 
Offhollywood said:
Hmmmmm .... so, what you are saying is that TWO seats can not open the same .r3d files at the same time on your SAN?

That is a bit curious - Tony, Lucas want to chime in here?
Click to expand...

Yes, I have the same issue, which I had already pointed out a few weeks ago. Since then, I have done additionnal testing, and still getting with REDCINE 1.02 (build 74), on windows xp, the same issue.

antoine.
 
big lebowski said:
RedCine doesn't open the files with write access. I've checked. So they shouldn't be locked for other processes. It's possible to open and play an R3D file in RedAlert and RedCine at the same time.

Edit: I've just seen that you're working on PCs. I've tested it on a Mac - no problem here.
Click to expand...

Good point!

So we need to push them to make it right on the PC as well. Should be a really minor thing to happen!

Having a duplicate set of files is not likely the preferred method, as this is not what a SAN is made for. We want to have consolidated not multiplied data :) But as long as its RED CODE its at least small so this would not hurt to much...

Cheers,
Axel
 
REDcine is derived from Scratch - a pure PC app as everybody knows.
Curious. At least it should be able to fix it sooner as if it were a Mac version only.
 
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