What's the fastest/cheapest non RedRocket way/set up to transcode at full debayer?

[Adam Howden]

Hi All,

I'm wondering if there's a sweet spot between price and speed for a set up that can do full quality debayering with R3Ds.

My 2008 Mac Pro, though chunky is taking like 36hrs to chew through a days shoot 6x64gb cards at full debayer at ProRes4444 redlogfilm.

Is is possible to do a PC set up that transcodes to ProRes?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Valentin Paris]

Seriously, ProRes is just absurd today. The process never use multithreading.

I have a mac pro 6 core 3,47ghz monoprocessor with 48gb of ram and a TITAN GEFORCE with 6GB vram and you know what ?

it is not faster than my old config for the export in pro res (with CS6 - with Sorenson Squeeze or any other program). Of course for R3D editing and rendering, it is very amazing in CS6 Premiere and AE. I edit all the time in full quality because the rendering of the timeline is ULTRA fast.

But Pro res is too old and we need now a new uncompressed codec using multithreading to make fast export.

 

[Adam Howden]

Anyone else, have a more constructive response?

 

[Simon Knight]

I just spend $1000 on a Lenovo i7 3.4 with 16gb ram and running 2xGT640 cards. Runs at 1/4 res and 1/2 res. spend another $200 on maxing out 32gb of ram but really its about the gtx680 cards... That's going to put the price upto about $2000 so I suppose its possible, but no guarantees of full debater quality....

 

[Nick Pasquariello]

Valentin's answer is actually pretty accurate. Without a Red Rocket, there isn't an effective way to increase transcodring R3Ds to ProRes. Because that process only uses one core at a time, and it's all CPU, so all you can do is spend a lot more money on a faster processor.

More RAM, Hard Drive, GPU, Power, Bandwidth, etc. is almost all moot. There's no trick or gimmick.

It was mentioned a few days ago that the new Adobe Media Encoder is a faster solution, as it will do multiple clips at once (depending on the amount of CPU cores you have), but I haven't tried it myself yet. If that is the case, then what you will want is a lot of CPU cores (8 or 12 split between two CPUs on one motherboard) but not necessarily the FASTEST in terms of GHz, as that will break the bank.

 

[Ev Shipard]

Hi Adam,
DaVinci Resolve will chew through that on your Mac Pro with a couple of cuda cards. I get transcodes at around 15 frames a second from 4k/5k to HD prores, much quicker than redCine X and the Resolve scaling operation is very nice. That is with a GTX 480 and a Quadro. Lite will do HD, the full version will do 4K prores but I have had some render issues with 4k. Just add your takes to the media pool then output to individual source clips from the deliver panel... easy and fast.

 

[joe hedge]

Hi Adam,
DaVinci Resolve will chew through that on your Mac Pro with a couple of cuda cards. I get transcodes at around 15 frames a second from 4k/5k to HD prores, much quicker than redCine X and the Resolve scaling operation is very nice. That is with a GTX 480 and a Quadro. Lite will do HD, the full version will do 4K prores but I have had some render issues with 4k. Just add your takes to the media pool then output to individual source clips from the deliver panel... easy and fast.

Yeah but that's at half-res debayer. Go into your raw settings in Resolve and switch over to full-res, and you'll drop down to the same fps Adam's getting. Plus he's going out to ProRes 4444.

Also that second CUDA card isn't speeding anything up - you could take the slower one out and you'd get basically the same results. You need 3 or more cards, 2 of them in an expansion box, for any real acceleration to take place. I get the same speed transcodes you're getting with one GTX 680.

Adam, really the only situation you see a noticeable difference in half res vs full res debayer is with noise in footage shot in low light/underexposed/in the shadows. Daylight exteriors and well-lit shots, make the test yourself.

 

[Björn Benckert]

I think the best and cheapest way to render without having a rocket... is simply to get a rocket. In comparison to anything else it's king both on price and performance. They also hold up in price quite much better than normal graphics cards that falls like rocks on the second hand market.... I burned my 7000USD Quadro card the other day... did not feel good, then I realize getting a new one on ebay was like 2500USD... Red rockets on the other hand has been at a quite stable price point. I guess the rocket X will change things a bit but probably not much. People buy the X cards for grading and keep the old rocket for DIT setup or such. So having one makes you want another one sadly...

Know this is not the response you are looking for, but some sometimes it's better to just bite the bullet.

 

[Mike P.]

Yeah, but there are no alternatives. With RED Rocket-X coming out, the price of regular Rockets may drop substantially as people move forward (even RED might sell the regulars at a heavily discounted price.)

 

[joe hedge]

I think the best and cheapest way to render without having a rocket... is simply to get a rocket. In comparison to anything else it's king both on price and performance.

You're probably right, especially when you consider the workflow Adam's using - ProRes 4444 RLF, which means you're (presumably) not going back to the raws for CC, so full-res debayers might be unavoidable, especially in low-light.

 

[Frederick Giles]

Does REDLINE work with multiple threads in REDCINE X? it did a year and half ago, the last time i transcoded full debayer Pro Res 4444 in RED CINE, I think I was able to do 6 clips at a time.

 

[Björn Benckert]

You're probably right, especially when you consider the workflow Adam's using - ProRes 4444 RLF, which means you're (presumably) not going back to the raws for CC, so full-res debayers might be unavoidable, especially in low-light.

Then you also have to consider that your rocket comes with a good dual SDI video out (capable of shooting out 4k even). buying something else, then you have also to add the cost of a video card if you want to view your imagery. So the price for the rocket is not to bad in that regard. But again understandably something you do not want to buy if you only render a batch once in a while or such.

 

[Mike Harrington]

Cineforms command line converter is the fastest non rocket way of transcoding r3d that I have seen...

Uses all CPU's to 100%

Problem is it doesn't respect reds metadata and would require grading in first light (cineforms redcine) and you are going out to cineform instead of prores....

Going to cineform through redcine is hampered by 8bit output, and major drop in performance

A rocket is the fastest way however...

these guys were toying with a cineform converter, that would respect r3d metadata...

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...ort-on-Windows&p=972301&viewfull=1#post972301

the cineform command line r3d converter is definitely the fastest non rocket export possible that I know of....

 

[joe hedge]

Cineforms command line converter is the fastest non rocket way of transcoding r3d that I have seen...

Uses all CPU's to 100%

It can't - the CPU still has to run the OS as well

I get 88%, with 12% to the system, in Resolve, with nothing idle, according to iStat

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

One fix is to have several MacPros splitting the job, operating simultaneously. 6 mags/3 Macs, 2 each (the newer laptops and iMacs are viable options IMO as well) then your 36 hours just became 12 hours. This approach has some downsides, but in situations where having a nice software encode is indicated and ProRes is the target format it's hard to beat. Depending on resources in your area you might even be able to rent an extra tower or two briefly if you have a ton of footy to flip.

This strategy may not suit you, but for less than the price of a RedRocket you should be able to buy two used MacPros, which I would argue are of greater overall value than the RR for most people. YMMV.

Cheers - #19

 

[Adam Howden]

Thanks for your responses guys. I've ordered the Red Rocket-X with my dragon upgrade and would happily accept it ahead of the dragon Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Adam Eden]

Adam you wont regret it. If you need some transcoding done in the meantime look me up im at Lane Cove and i can help you.


adam@edencreative.com.au

 

[Björn Benckert]

I reconsidered, I think the most efficient way to render without having a redrocket is to find a nearby reduser that all ready has one and is also kind enough to give a helping hand...

We will process over night for wine bottles

 

[Nick Pasquariello]

To add a few numbers to the conversation:

A while back I did some testing. Two Mac Pros with the exact same specs, except that one had a rocket.

Without a Rocket took 20 times as long to transcode as with. Using the method in RedCine-X to do multiple clips at once still took 12 times as long as with the Rocket.

Without a rocket the computer used about 25-30% CPU across it's 12 cores. So if you were able to use 100% of each core, you'd chew through the footage in about 1/3rd the time, which still means the Rocket would finish about 6 times faster.

Crazy.

So, current rocket is about the price of a Mac Pro with (what we would consider) mid-level specs. But in terms of transcoding is worth at least 6 Mac Pros that somehow are utilizing their full CPU (and no GPU) for transcoding. So if you are looking for the most cost effective way to transcode, there really is only once answer, until GPU transcoding methods get to be more ubiquitous.

 

[Mike Harrington]

It can't - the CPU still has to run the OS as well

I get 88%, with 12% to the system, in Resolve, with nothing idle, according to iStat

my OS is running between 0-4% with photoshop open a browser...and a ton of little apps running

http://flic.kr/p/ejeH1P


The point being....the cineform encoder will have all your processors pinged up to 100%