Is my configuration adequate? (4K R3D)

[Al Arnold]

You won’t get realtime 4K debayer. Are you providing a 4K delivery? Play around with a source file as a test and lower the debayer to half or quarter res with your timeline set to HD to see where you cap out. The quadro 4000 will be a rather weak link the the chain when it comes to how much color you can throw at the picture too.

[Justin Crowell]

I’m not sure about delivery, but I’m assuming it’s HD. Is the only way to get the RT 4K Debayer a Red Rocket?

Video editor, animator, composer, producer
JustinCrowell.com

[Al Arnold]

Yep (As far as I know), but if you’re only delivering HD, it shouldn’t be necessary. You could always render out log HD dpx’s to grade off of, but you’ll loose raw controls…

[Justin Crowell]

I was considering that approach. Haven’t done any work in raw. If I’m working with a log format, is there any real advantage to raw anyway?

Video editor, animator, composer, producer
JustinCrowell.com

[Al Arnold]

There are definitely advantages to working raw, but in your case I doubt it would be that beneficial. Unless you’re willing to invest money in new hardware, you should gear your approach to the hardware you do have. Assuming you have a disk array capable of storing and playing back uncompressed HD, dpx’s may be the more workable solution. Definitely do some testing to see what kind of performance you get with each option and gear your approach accordingly.

Here’s a great article for you:

https://provideocoalition.com/aadams/story/log-vs.-raw-the-simple-version

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

You can get real-time debayering+decompression with high end dual Xeons.

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[Eric Hansen]

Thanks for the link. But the writer left one of the biggest caveats for the last sentence:

“There are certain requirements to recording log that are different to recording in raw: for example, you must white balance the camera in log whereas in raw the white balance is encoded in metadata as a changeable option… but any competent cinematographer should be able to white balance a camera.”

as my facility has shifted from Varicams to Red Epics, fewer and fewer cines are white balancing because they know (correctly or not) that raw recording doesn’t require white balancing. So this requires a one-light color balance in Redcine-X because the cine didn’t take a few seconds to white balance. instead of an assistant editor just cranking out some proxy files for editing, I now have to sit in and grade before the edit. if an AE just went ahead and made ProRes4444 exports from Redcine-X without a basic balance, then there’s more work in grading because I need to work off the raw because the ProRes4444 files look like junk. It doesn’t matter if they’re 4444 log if the transcode was handled poorly. this happens A LOT.

back to Justin’s original post:

i just recently got a Red Rocket, but I’ve been using Resolve for awhile without it. set resolution to 1/4 for playback. if they shot 4kHD or better, you will see full 1920×1080 on your monitor. Enable the Render Cache if your storage is fast enough (i have a 4 drive internal RAID-0 just for this). This will create DPX files on the fly, which means your first playback of the footage might only be 14fps, but your second will be full fps. that Q4000 might be a bit weak. i would switch it to GUI and get a GTX680 or similar for GPU. check “optimized playback” in the preferences.

on the Delivery page, make sure you check “force highest quality de-bayer” or whatever it says (i don’t have Resolve open). so you can grade at 1/4, but export at Full.

a Red Rocket can definitely help. but if its only a portion of your work, your money is better spent on a Cubix with four 680 cards in it for the same price. even though my work system just got a Rocket, i’m still gonna push for a Cubix with more GPUs

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Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Rajat Seth]

Hi ,

My machine configuration is –
Win7 PC, Intel core i7 920 2.67GHz, 12 GB with ati radeon HD4870 graphic card (old).

Anybody can suggest me which GFX card supports (low cost) for resolve 9 lite versions?

Just for home purpose….

Thanks

Rajat

[Justin Crowell]

Really excellent advice from everyone, thank you! I’ve decided that in some way or another, my machine will be adequate to do what I need. I have a 2x2TB RAID0, so I’m not certain whether I’ll have the io speed/storage adequate to do the caching approach. I’m more or less convinced that for this job, given the short turnaround time, it makes the most sense to go to uncompressed HD DPX files (the destination is only HD).

The question is, how do I make those? In Redcine X? The editor is handing me off an FCP7 file edit from Prores transcodes. Given that, here is what I’m thinking for a workflow (and please correct me, as I’ve only just started using Redcine X and am not quite sure this is the way to do it).

1) EDL from FCP
2) Open EDL in Redcine X, relink to raw R3D files. Transcode to DPX HD.
3) Add DPX HD files to media pool in resolve, open EDL.
4) Grade and export to HD DPX with XML.
5) Fix transitions and FX in FCP.

Questions: I’m still unsure about the whole transitions and FX stuff. Can anybody direct me to a tute on that part of the workflow?

Thanks~!
-Justin

Video editor, animator, composer, producer
JustinCrowell.com

[Joseph Owens]

[rajat seth] “Anybody can suggest me which GFX card supports (low cost) for resolve 9 lite versions? “

DaVinci Resolve 9 Configuration for Windows
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/detail?sid=3948&pid=11735&leg=false&os=win

jPo

“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.