[Brandon Kraemer]

Bob,

Thanks for the hard data on bandwidth requirements. So if I am understanding you, assuming we need to work Uncompressed 10-bit, we are definitely looking at a fiber infrastructure?

I certainly realize that no system is fool proof, my goal is to find a system that doesn’t require a full time IT person to administer the SAN, or take too much time away from editors editing to do admin work. I didn’t know if you had an opinion on what setups were easier to maintain that others?

As for dropped frames, I just need to set up a system that can handle the upper limits of our bandwidth requirements, and if say limiting the # of users to achieve higher data rate workflows was an option, vs. setting up a system that reached all our users (6) but had to take a data rate (format) hit to do so. Is there a way to strike that balance?

[Brandon Kraemer]

Eric,

It’s possible that this might work as a solution for us. I am curious to know what kind of ball park cost you are looking at to deploy this and what the biggest ticket hardware items are, if you don’t mind sharing?

Uncompressed 10-bit is our house online standard, and we don’t often enough finish out of just one room, but our best suite for finish work does include a SAS array and a direct attached X-Serve RAID. I am thinking that Fiber is going to have to be the way we go, and from a future proof standpoint, but it’s possible to build a two tier system, or expand to fiber in the future.

Thanks,

bk

[Brandon Kraemer]

Thanks for the information so far… let me follow up with a bit more information.

We finish Uncompressed 10-bit, at resolutions up to 1080p (23.976 fps). We would need bandwidth to support this workflow.

We offline with RED proxies and other media formats, up to 1k in size.

We pipeline 2k DPX sequences and 2k QT media for color corrections, but we would not need to play back at full frame rate.

There is a gigabit network already in place, but there should be a dedicated network devoted to the SAN as the main network is too taxed to support SAN traffic. What are the bandwidth limits of 10gb ethernet compared to Fiberchannel?

Thanks in advance. I will collect more info before contacting anyone directly.

[Brandon Kraemer]

This really does not answer your question, but I though I would mention that I untill recently I was using a MOTU PCI 424 card allong with my Decklink HD PCI-X card. When I went to do a project in HD, the Decklink card would not work propperly because the MOTU card was on the same bus and was clocking down the Decklink card too slow for HD. Since I also had an ATTO card which needed a fast bus, the MOTU card had to be sacrificed.

I would think that decklink’s RS 422 interface could be accessed by Pro Tools for syncronizing to a tape source but not sure how.

bk

[Brandon Kraemer]

Sean,

Are your deck control settings set to match to the frame rate you are using on that deck? In other words, if you are using say 23.98 PfS as your source material, your deck control settings need to match that or it will try to digitize with a different time base. Do your clips have audio? If not, it may be tough to tell what frame rate the clips were shot at unless you know for sure. This can also cause problems, if the footage was shot at 29.97, or 24p, or 60i, unless there is audio you can not easily tell what frame rate the deck should be in. If there is audio on the tapes and you hear it, you know your in the correct frame rate mode.

brandon.

[Brandon Kraemer]

My comp settings are set to 23.976 in adobe AE. The image looks the same if I am just previewing a single frame or doing a RAM cache. And the hardware downconvert vs. software downconvert… will my computer/ Decklink Hd card only support software?

Thanks,

Brandon.

[Brandon Kraemer]

I am using FCP. I am working with 23.98 PsF clips in a timeline of the same setting, then my playback settings are 23.98 -> 59.94. I have the original Decklink HD card, on a G5 dual 2 Ghz with 2 GB ram.

The footage looping through the HDCAM deck and comming out its downconvert looks rock solid. But comming right out of the deck link card looks quite soft in down convert mode. Also, If I am using AfterEffects and previewing with the decklink card images seem soft, but not as soft as from FCP, but this could be my imagination.

Thanks in advance,

Brandon Kraemer

[Brandon Kraemer]

Fixed Issue, MOTU PCI-424 card not compatible with the Decklink HD card while in HD mode and will not display video or capture any frames. MOTU card was clocking down the bus to 64 MhZ! Also swapped ATTO UL4D card for Decklink HD, putting HD card in 133 slot. Everything in and out of the machine appears to be working fine now.