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What do I need to handle the scarlet in post

William Scott

William Scott

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What do I need to do to make sure I'm ready to handle the scarlet in post production?

here is the equipment I have...is it ready for the scarlet?

MacPro 3,1

Processor: 2x 2.8 GHz Quad-core Intel Xeon
Memory: 8GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Display: Acer P243W
Resolution: 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz
Depth: 32-Bit Color

Final Cut Suite 2

I don't know what to expect as far as work flow...any suggestions and advice is greatly appreciated.

William
 
The computer will be just fine. What do you have for storage? Reasonably fast storage and a good backup strategy will be very good to have.

You'll want to upgrade your Final Cut Studio to v3.

Workflow is evolving with the cameras. But within FCS3, you can log and transfer your R3D footage into quicktime wrappers. You can bring it in as native R3D and have some access to RAW LUTs (looks) with the ability to send your edit to Color and have full RAW control there. Or you can have the system transcoded the footage into ProRes (4444 preferably) and then edit away. You can also drag the QT proxies into the bin and edit with those, but there's some limitations and quality restrictions there. Editing with the QT-wrapped native files is better, but also has some quirks right now.

Additionally, there will be REDCINE-X from RED. It looks like new versions of REDCINE-X as well as the Apple support, Adobe support, etc.. will be needed to take advantage of Mysterium-X footage, but this should all be cleared up once Scarlet starts shipping. Realistically, Scarlet is 4 to 8 months away.

You may want some more RAM and a second display or grading monitor for your system at some point.
 
William,

What Jeff says above is sound advice. I went to the REDucation #003 course in December, mainly to verify my workflow ready for my S35 Scarlet purchase.

The computer is fine as this is what I have.
I would get some more RAM. Apple have just released an update for Logic making it 64bit so it doesn't top out at 4GB. I would expect that Apple will do the same with Final Cut Studio in the near future.

Final Cut Studio 3 is a must!

I have 2 DELL 23" monitors that are over 2000 lines which are good - so a two system monitor system is advisable.

Reference monitor - I asked Michael Cioni at REDucation and he was advising for my type of output (film festivals, showreels, possibly TV) then you can get away with a Panasonic 11 Series.

So inside your Mac Pro you would have a dual Graphics card (as you have), Kona 3 card for out put to the Panasonic, RED Rocket is a must if you are going to convert your R3D's to ProRes 4444 - RED Rocket is a must full stop. And for me the 4th slot would be a CalDigit card so i can output to 3 x 8TB external drives via eSata set at a RAID 5 config.

As for workflow and backup, I am planning on a MacBook Pro with a FW800 connection to a Lexar card reader so i can get my footage off the CF cards (I prefer working with 16GB CF cards - easy to get stuff off quicker throughout the day!), and a express slot connection to dual eSata connection to 2 x GTECH drives for backups.

I would also consider a Tape backup using LTO 3 for archiving

Jeff - any other thoughts on this?

Hope that helps.

Regards

Steve
 
Budget

Budget

For people on a budget my system can post footage from Scarlet by way of REDCINE. It's a PC system, but DANCAD87.EXE (tm) may run in DOSBOX on a Intel MAC, but slower than on a PC.
 
Steve Johnson said:
Jeff - any other thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

Yeah, depending on your needs for other video I/O, you may not need that Kona3 card. We also don't know yet how far the RED ROCKET will go to let us monitor -- we'll see what features it ends up with and how third-parties integrate it in the coming months as it matures. If you don't need the Kona3 card, you may be able to get away with a Kona LHi or even just a RED ROCKET to drive the monitor. That would let you go to a 12-series consumer panel instead of a pro panel with HD-SDI input as you could drive it solely by HDMI. Kona LHi can output 10bit HDMI and so can the ROCKET via the BOB.

Take a look at LTO-4 instead of LTO-3 for backups.

I would recommend an Areca or ATTO SAS or eSATA HBA over the CalDigit. And the ATTO is pretty much a must right now if you go with an LTO-4 backup solution on the Mac.


Marcus Versén said:
Jesus, so.... my Mac Pro (1,1) 2 x 2,0 Dual-Core Intel Xeon, 9GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT is useless? :/
Click to expand...

Hardly useless at all. It's obviously not as fast as the others, but it will do and will be better suited than a new iMac since you can still add more storage. A nice RAID and a RED ROCKET could make that system scream. The 7300GT is pretty weak, but no sense in upgrading it now. I wouldn't add anything to that system that couldn't be moved to a newer system, since it's already ~3 years old.
 
So what storage exactly would you go for? Have you got a link to anywhere for selling so I can track a reseller in the UK. I was originally going for the Caldigit as it was expandable and you link 24TB together and it linked with eSATA.

Any advise here would be good.

Steve
 
Which CalDigit solution are you looking at? Just consider the limitations of the CalDigit RAID card and being locked into the HDElement RAID boxes before you buy into it. If you don't mind being locked into only using their RAID units, it's not bad. I own one -- Fine hardware, but I have actually disconnected it and tried to sell it last month, I'll have to re-list it. It can be too restrictive and it is not fully compatible with Nehalem Mac systems, otherwise it's a great RAID card and overall solution for affordable and reliable RAID. I'm selling because my Nehalem system can't make proper use of the RAID card and with the SAS LTO-4 attached to the other Mac Pro, there's not enough slots with the other stuff in that system. We only have 4 very precious slots in a Mac Pro, so it's best to install peripherals that will give us the most options. If you want to use LTO for a backup solution, you will want a proper SAS HBA. This will allow connectivity of both SAS and SATA devices onto the same host controller. Controllers can be had with or without onboard RAID functionality.

The CalDigit HDPro RAIDs are excellent, however they have their own proprietary interface. Depending on your overall storage needs, these can could be a really good choice.

The HDOne is similar, but on a smaller scale. Once again it uses a proprietary interface.

Which controller solution and storage options you go with will depend on your needs and budget. It's really hard to recommend here without knowing more. Do you want a bootable storage solution? How do you want to factor in the internal HDD bays? For certain situations, the CalDigit RAID card is actually the best option. It's just very specific in purpose.

I don't have any retailier info for the UK. But if you tell me more about your thoughts on what you would like the system to do, I can probably offer some different suggestions about hardware.
 
Thanks Jeff.

My thoughts where as follows:

Solution I was looking at was a CalDigit HDElement with the RAID Card. I was going to get one of the HDElements and put 8TB in and RAID that into RAID 5. Then as I need, I was going to add a second & third HDElement of 8TB each and again RAID each to a RAID 5. As for LTO, I think my budget will stretch to a LTO3 at the moment - LTO 4 is just out my budget - but thats not to say in the future! I think so long as I have a good Archive process with at least the LTO3 then I will be okay (thoughts!).

If you can recommend a different RAID Card and storage which is more universal / for the same amount (about) then I am open minded about the solution.

I take on board what you say about only having the 4 slots on the Mac pro. As my budget is primary set on the S35 Scarlet initially, then the RED Rocket is a no brainer and it would be good to see what output that does to a Panasonic 12 series consumer - which would save on the Kona3 card!

In terms of edits, I would be editing with FCS3, convert R3D to ProRes4444 - edit that and grade that. Maybe throw some shots to AE CS4. I'll do backups from R3D Data Manager at ingest to GTECH drives but the storage is what I will be doing my main editing on.

Would the RED Rocket, driving a Panasonic 12 consumer series, connected by HDMI be good enough to color grade in color? I thought I would have to use the HD-SDI connection to get the right bit?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Steve
 
I have a caldigit raid wich sounds alot! I wish I could get longer cables for it so I could put it in another room (seams 1.5 is maximum). I certanly hope you could output throw redrocket. I have an kona Lhe wich Im hoping to use but it seams to be a bad choiche. Maby I can use a redrocket with kona Lhe. To buy both redrocket and kona 3 is nothing I hope for.
 
I have a mac pro (2 quad-core) with the newest FCP and only 4GB of RAM at the moment...I better get another 8GB of RAM and another external hard drive and I think I'll be good to go.
 
Current rig is
Intel quad core 2.8Ghz
4GB RAM
Vistiontek ATI 3870x2
1TB drive
Sony Vegas on 32bit Vista

Before scarlet, I plan to
Switch to 64bit Vista and upgrade ram to at least GB
Buy a SSD and load vista and Vegas on to the solid drive for faster read/write speeds
Replace video cards with dual SLI 4870 video cards.

Will that be enough to handle the 3k or will I still need a Rocket? was thinking of getting the rocket anyways....
 
what are prores transcode times without the rocket today? 17 to 1 or something? transcoding a feature could take a month.

i assume it'll be slightly less since 3K is smaller than 4K and they are changing redcode. I'd really, really like to be able to handle Scarlet footage via firewire but I'm doubting it will happen.
 
Ok I'm probably going to sound like a complete idiot here, so please excuse my ignorance as it's been a long time since I've worked with any kind of desktop editing, and even when I did it was on a semi pro level.

I used to edit using a Matrox 10 card and that was it. Obviously using the scarlet needs a lot of serious kit, of which you've been talking about. I've grasped a lot of what you've been talking about, mainly from copying a pasting it into google. But it would be great to hear from one of you pros on how this all fits together.

Basically if I was to buy a scarlet what would I need and why to get it from camera to disc (DVD/blueray). I know you guys have been talking about this but it would be good to know this more in depth.
For example, someone mentioned getting a panasonic 11 monitor for grading. I have a very good NEC monitor that's used by a lot of pro photographers for colour, would this not be good enough?

Peter
 
peteb said:
Ok I'm probably going to sound like a complete idiot here, so please excuse my ignorance as it's been a long time since I've worked with any kind of desktop editing, and even when I did it was on a semi pro level.

I used to edit using a Matrox 10 card and that was it. Obviously using the scarlet needs a lot of serious kit, of which you've been talking about. I've grasped a lot of what you've been talking about, mainly from copying a pasting it into google. But it would be great to hear from one of you pros on how this all fits together.

Basically if I was to buy a scarlet what would I need and why to get it from camera to disc (DVD/blueray). I know you guys have been talking about this but it would be good to know this more in depth.
For example, someone mentioned getting a panasonic 11 monitor for grading. I have a very good NEC monitor that's used by a lot of pro photographers for colour, would this not be good enough?

Peter
Click to expand...

Basically, the latest top end iMac would make a good start... But it depends on your type of budget.
If you want the "ideal" package, I'll go for a Final Cut Pro system with a top end 8 cores Mac pro with at least 12 gb of RAM, 8 Tb HDD and the Ati Card plus a Kona 3 card from AJA. You can add a Red Rocket, but it's $4k nearly so it really depends on your budget and your type of style (if you don't mind waiting for some transcoding or using a proxy you don't need it if you already have the Kona 3).

If you are the Avid kind of editor it's a bit more complicated to me. I'll say the same Mac (take out the Kona 3 for one of Avid's hardware like the Nitris DX or something like that) BUT for using your RED footage you'll need to transcode it into an MXF file with MetaFuze (an avid software allowing to do so) which is only Windows compatible at the time so you'll need a windows emulator like WM Ware or a Windows Partition on your Mac.

If you stay with Avid but wanna try on PC, I'll say some of the Stations they tested (http://cdn.pinnaclesys.com/SupportF...oserv4.0andAvidNewsCutterv8.0December2009.pdf) with some custom adjustments (like for the amount of RAM).
You can build your system yourself but for some reason if you don't have one of those graphics cards (nvidia quadro FX series, expensive and not usable for so much else, like 3D creating and gaming) Avid won't work perfectly and will have some random bugs (and won't let you play full screen).

To get your footage on DVD/bluray, appart the obvious DVD/bluray burner you'll need a good software. I'm only familiar with Adobe Encore (CS4) which is very good. AVid provides something even more pro I think, and I don't know DVD Studio from Apple.

And, last but not the least : in anycase you might use a 64 Bits operating system (Mac OS X Leopard on Mac or on PC Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bits, XP Pro 64 Bits or Vista 64 Bits)
 
what is a Kona 3?
I'm new to all this...

what does it do exactly...I read on the website that it does 2k

the scarlet is 3k so is that all I would need? or am I just confused
 
William Scott said:
what is a Kona 3?
I'm new to all this...

what does it do exactly...I read on the website that it does 2k

the scarlet is 3k so is that all I would need? or am I just confused
Click to expand...

The Kona gives you HD-SDI input and output, which you can use for hooking up a professional monitor. Since there's no 3K distribution format everyone will generally be downscaling to 2K or 1080p so the lower resolution is not a problem.

It's definitely not required for general use Scarlet editing though.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
We only have 4 very precious slots in a Mac Pro, so it's best to install peripherals that will give us the most options. If you want to use LTO for a backup solution, you will want a proper SAS HBA. This will allow connectivity of both SAS and SATA devices onto the same host controller. Controllers can be had with or without onboard RAID functionality.
Click to expand...


Would a Drobo be a good solution for backup?
 
This is a question of serious concern to many looking to get into shooting with RED. I'm projecting to be using Scarlet fairly soon (within a year) and have no usable system right now.

Problematically, while the Scarlet offers a budget solution to excellent footage, there doesn't really seem to be a budget solution for the post. I'm welcome to advice here.
 
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