Mac Pro configuration for Red camera editing

[Jason Myres]

Hi George,

1) Is it better to buy one ATI Radeon HD 4870 or 2 geforce? I’m planning to edit with 2 Dell hd monitors.

You’ll encounter issues with FCP if you try to use more than one video card.

https://support.apple.com/kb/TS1828

This may change at some point, but for now get the 4870 or buy your Mac Pro with a GT120, and then replace it (do not leave it in) with a Quadro FX4800. The 4800 is $1500 but will help a lot with real-time FX in FCP, Motion, and After Effects.

2) When I called the Apple Store, instead of the Mac pro Raid card they suggested me to buy the Promise SmartStor DS4600 that comes with 4 x 1 Tb hard disk. What do you think about that?

Call Maxx Digital (Evo2) or G-Technology (G-Speed). There may be others, but I can personally vouch for both of them. They configure storage for RED editors all day long.

3) Do I need a matrox MXO2 le for real time editing?

I have heard that Matrox is a good company, but I would take a look at a Kona 3 (2K-Capable) or Kona LHi (80% of a Kona 3 @ 1/2 the cost).

Also, if you are serious about RED now and in the future, I would look into buying or at least renting a RedRocket card. I do know there are people who believe in the proxy workflow, but nearly every RED client we work with is transcoding to ProRes with a RedRocket, then on-lining to 4K later if they need to.

If you do buy a RedRocket…

A) The RedRocket needs a serious RAID array to make the most of it. Tell the company you are buying your storage from. In return you will save weeks of time, and have honest control of your RED media. It’s also the only real way to look at your RED footage at full resolution, but you’ll need a smokin’ ref monitor or projector as well.

B) You will need to buy the Kona 3 if you want to put both the RedRocket and Kona card in one machine. The 4 PCI-E slots in your MacPro will look like this:

Slot 4: RAID Controller
Slot 3: Kona 3
Slot 2: RedRocket
Slot 1: 4870 or FX4800

4) is it enough a 8 gb RAM?

Nehalems use a tri-channel data bus called QuickPath that works optimally when using RAM in sets of six. Your options at the Apple store for this will be 6GB and 12GB. If you occupy ram slots 4 and 8 on your Mac Pro you will loose approximately 15% cpu performance to support that extra ram. See more on that here:

https://www.barefeats.com/nehal02.html

There is a lot of gear mentioned here, and it’s not cheap, but these are all things RED editors are using to get work done. If you need to do this on the “cheap”, and still get the job done..

-Mac Pro 2.93×8/ 12GB RAM/1TB for OS and Apps
-Your (2) Dell Monitors

Then…

For storage, buy (3) 2TB Hitachi Ultrastars online. RAID0 them together using Disk utility. You’ll get about 5TB of internal edit space that will do 250+ MB/s until about half full, then it will start to drop. It will also ~not~ be protected (RAID1 or 5) so you will need to keep good back-ups on external drive (G-tech GRaids are popular). But, Hitachi is the best drive going right now so that’s your best shot.

For transcoding, you can use Red Rushes, which is free, but slow. It will process about 3-4 frames a second on your Mac Pro (versus 20-36 FPS on a RedRocket) so you will be doing A LOT of waiting if you have a decent amount of footage (i.e., days or even weeks…).

For monitoring, you can try to just get away with your dual monitor set-up, but if you want a real ref monitor, you’ll need real video I/O, which means SDI, which means Kona 3. You can try to go cheap and get a Black Magic HD Link or possibly a Matrox, but I can’t say anything other than you get what you pay for. And if you don’t pay in $$$ you inevitably pay in time/ quality.

JM

[George Seven]

Thanks a lot for your clear answer!

[Richard Cooper]

Hi Jason, In your post you say:
B) You will need to buy the Kona 3 if you want to put both the RedRocket and Kona card in one machine. The 4 PCI-E slots in your MacPro will look like this:

Slot 4: RAID Controller
Slot 3: Kona 3
Slot 2: RedRocket
Slot 1: 4870 or FX4800

Everything I have read and every one I have talked with about this say that you can not run a RedRocket and a Kona card in the same system, it is not possible… Has this changed? Is it now possible?

Thanks

Richard Cooper
FrostLine Productions, LLC
Anchorage, Alaska
http://www.frostlineproductions.com

[Jason Myres]

Hi Richard,

I’ve been hearing about this as well. I haven’t had the opportunity yet to read about the issues people are having in depth, but here are some thoughts based on what we are doing for our customers…

“Early 2008” and later Mac Pros have fixed PCI-E lane allocations: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT2838

Slot 4: 4x
Slot 3: 4x
Slot 2: 16x
Slot 1: 16x

The RedRocket functions at full bandwidth in a 8x PCI-E slot. So, in later Mac Pros that would mean it needs to occupy Slot 2, with Slot 1 usually reserved for a graphics card.

Most of the storage controllers (Apple Fibre, SAS RAID, etc) we work with require a 4x slot, so they generally occupy slot 4.

The issue I believe people are running into is with the Kona card. Per AJA’s recommendation, the Kona LHi and LHe need to be installed in Slot 2. I know there are people who might like to debate this, but it has been successful for us.

For the Kona 3, however, AJA recommends that it be installed in Slot 3, which is why I suggested it for George if he decided to install a RedRocket as well. My guess is, the issues people are experiencing are related to PCI-E lane speed conflicts when attempting to use an LHi or LHe together with a RedRocket.

The configuration below, that I suggested to George, has worked very well for us:

Slot 4: Fibre or RAID Controller
Slot 3: Kona 3
Slot 2: RedRocket
Slot 1: Graphics Card

The only other thing to consider would be the Dual SDI breakout plate for the RedRocket. If a client decides they need that functionality, the breakout plate can be installed in Slot 1(b), with a single slot graphics card in Slot 1(a), but that will come at the expense of being able to take advantage of a higher-performing card like the Radeon 4870.

JM