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8K at 60p, and the future of post?
Quantel’s Pablo Rio is doing realtime 8K at 60p.
https://library.creativecow.net/wall_kylee/Quantel-Pablo-Workflow/1
That’s 7860×4320, 59.94 times a second. Quad UHD. Quad-quad HD.
Pablo Rio uses 16 3G SDI pipes to monitor, from multiple AJA Corvid 88 cards. The system needs 5 GB/s of system throughput to play/process/record in real-time. It uses three NVIDIA Tesla K80s, so the system has 72 GB of RAM on the GPUs alone. Its three RAID 60 arrays store 166 minutes of footage.
I couldn’t find the Quantel or Not forum (Ha! That one’s for you, Scott!), so I’ll ask here.
While we’re debating here whether we should buy Mac Pros or if iMacs will do — is the processing power arms race still relevant in editorial? What does the next generation of post look like to you? Is there any value for you in being out in front or the market, even if just a little bit?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
43 Replies
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[Walter Soyka] “Is there any value for you in being out in front or the market, even if just a little bit?”
In my market, just being 4K is way in front!
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In my opinion a good story gets you in front.
I have seen so much 4K trash in the theatre by now that I would trade those experiences for a great film on VHS any time.
8K sounds nice but Resolution follows content. At least in my book.
In Touch Media GmbH
Germany -
It’s a response to different market needs. Japan has been big on their 8K efforts and of course need tools to get them there in post. Whether everyone needs it? Up to the individual, but the side-effect of 8K performance at 60p is that it should do 4K and 2K at 23.976, 24, 25, and 29.97 very well. 🙂
Michael
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Those cards individually can run into the low to mid 4 figures.
Anyone want to ballpark the investment required to get a Rio system running with this type of performance?
As a technology demo it’s really cool.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] “Anyone want to ballpark the investment required to get a Rio system running with this type of performance?”
I’d guess somewhere between a car and a house.
Unless it’s a really nice car and a not-so-nice house. Then I’d guess somewhere between a house and a car.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “While we’re debating here whether we should buy Mac Pros or if iMacs will do — is the processing power arms race still relevant in editorial? What does the next generation of post look like to you? Is there any value for you in being out in front or the market, even if just a little bit?”
Like most questions, the answer is, “It depends.” 😉
For editors that wear many hats (GFX, finishing, etc.,) I think the processing power arms race is still a factor (assuming they have clients that often push the envelope on the tech side). For editors that mainly edit (GFX, finishing, etc., are other done by others) I don’t think you need the latest and greatest hardware any more. It’s a far cry from 15 years ago when many people (including myself) had DV accelerator cards in our machines in order to get reliable DV playback (and some real time effects like dissolves).
Lots of people are still running the older Mac Towers (which are at least 5 years old) and doing okay with it as they contemplate getting a MacPro Tube, iMac or switching platforms to an HP tower. I’m still working on a lot of shows that offline in SD (mainly for storage reasons) and 10:1 or 14:1 Avid media isn’t gonna stress anything these days. 😉
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I went to go see Interstellar last weekend. It was very ambitious in terms of content, it had a lot of heady science without being over scienced, it dealt with a wide range of topics, including a new definition of what a “ghost” can be, it was also very human. I loved it. “We are explorers.”
I look at this QQHD system and wonder what they can do with it besides push more pixels, and is that enough? What does QQHD do for me as a viewer? What do I need to explore?
Does this mean we can drive a more immersive theater? Can we change the shape of the screen? Is there a way to make me feel like we are doing new things instead of quadrupling the quadrupled? At what price?
[Walter Soyka] “is the processing power arms race still relevant in editorial?”
4k ProRes in FCPX is a breeze. It really is. What I like about 4k is that it makes for more creative HD in that I can do more with the 4k resolution in 1080, than I can with 1080 in 1080. With 8k, it seems like you’d need to shoot 16k (QQQHD) to have the same freedoms. That seems like an obscene amount of detail that borders on the limits of the physics of in camera technology and lenses that are currently manufactured, and not to mention, display.
For editorial, it just doesn’t seem like you’d need 5GB/s, but perhaps I’m a ninny.
[Walter Soyka] “What does the next generation of post look like to you? I”
I don’t think it’s about the hardware, I think it will be about how the viewer interacts with the footage. It will require a tremendous amount of content, which may or may not be good for us as content creators. Again, my ninniness might be showing.
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If by the next generation you mean 10-20 years from now, maybe. I can see 8K taking over the feature market sooner than that, maybe. But it has taken many years just for the HD home TV market to reach close to 80% penetration. 4K (or UHD as they so cleverly label it) is a long way off from home adoption, in my opinion. People won’t even buy blu ray players. Not to mention that the broken down and hobbled internet service we have in this country can barely deliver HD at this point.
Tim
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[Walter Soyka] “I’d guess somewhere between a car and a house.
Unless it’s a really nice car and a not-so-nice house. Then I’d guess somewhere between a house and a car.”
Hands down the best answer I’ve read here this year.
Walter, but for a quirk of fate, you may well have become a famous writer.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[TImothy Auld] “But it has taken many years just for the HD home TV market to reach close to 80% penetration.”
HD in the home was a cluster because it was a tech headache for all involved (broadcasters and home viewers) for a number of reasons. Internet delivery is a significantly smoother ride (at least from the user perspective). I mean, YouTube went from sub-SD streaming quality to 1080p in about 5 years and it was all pretty much invisible to end uses. Same with Netflix going from SD to HD (and now 4k) streaming.
Broadband in the US is certainly less than stellar (compared to many other industrialized nations) but the major ISPs in the US are all looking to launch (or have launched) their own IPTV/VOD services so I see them rolling out services fast enough to stream the content they are offering… for a price of course.
Sony, Samsung), Comcast, Netflix, Microsoft, Verizon, Amazon (streaming), etc., have all hopped on the 4k delivery bandwagon (not to mention a variety of consumer electronics shooting 4k) so I see the adoption of 4k happening because it will just become ubiquitous. HD-only TVs, cameras / camera phones, will start being phased out the same way SD-only gear was phased out. Not because people necessarily demand it, but because it’s and easy upgrade to market and many people like to ‘keep up win the Joneses’.
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