[Eric Lalicata]

Finally found a solution to this issue. After upgrading to Resolve 12.1 this problem persisted. We have finally slowed down a little in preparation for the holidays, so I had a chance to do some investigation. I did not want to mess with a server upgrade while we were grading four projects.

After upgrading the Mac Server app to ver 3.2.2 Resolve began remembering the cache files and optimized media.

I wish I could give a more specific solution, but I’m not sure what the actual issue was or why it is fixed now.

These are the types of things that can drive a person nuts.

Eric Lalicata
Owner
Anarchy Post
1811 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
818-334-3300

[Eric Lalicata]

Some further testing done today with no solution.

Trying to take the Mac Server out of the equation, I changed the cache clip location to a ReadyNAS Pro that we use for basic file serving. It runs a variant of Linux and is connected over 1Gig ethernet using both AFP and SMB. At first, the render files stayed linked upon restart. So, now I’m thinking it’s a server config problem with my Mac Server. Thinking I have isolated the issue and feeling adventurous, I optimized the three Red Dragon clips to ProRes 4444 using the same cache location. Everything worked until I toggled the “play optimized media if available” off then on again. After the toggle, the clips turned red and went offline even though they were still in the media page. Toggle back to Red Source clips and the media goes online. Clips are not red in color and they showed the correct image. Toggle optimized back on, clips go red and offline. Stays this way after multiple restarts. Then I tried to render the clips as before, and the render files do not stay persistent after restarts.

For fun, I mount the other rooms internal RAID volume via bonjour over our 1 Gig network. I set that as the cache clip location. Same problem with my main Mac Server RAID. Not persistent after restart. So I think I have ruled out a config issue with just the Mac Server. To be sure I double check permissions, propogate these down the directory of the cache location and recheck. Everything is coming up Read/Write for all users/groups.

I do not know what else to try as a test. Some help from BM would be great if possible.

Oh, and btw, the show is grading now and the render cache is set to an internal RAID in the Mac Pro. After a save and restart, all the render files that had been generated this morning were red again. Started the process over, and stopped for the day. Saved, quit and relaunched and all the render files come back blue this time. So, at this point, all I can say is I can’t depend on the new render engine for real world work with clients in the room. Luckily they were very understanding today. We will see how their patience holds up if it happens again.

Eric Lalicata
Owner
Anarchy Post
1811 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
818-334-3300

[Eric Lalicata]

Hi Robbie.

Thanks for the info. Could you elaborate a little regarding which protocols you connect to the TZ8 with? The cache clip is definitely located on this volume? I know that unit is a Linux box using the ZFS file system.

My RAID is connected to a Mac Pro running Mavericks server software. AFP and SMB. Using Small Tree 10G cards. Maybe my problem lies within the Mac Server software. But like I posted earlier, there are no problems with Resolve 11 or any other video software. Only Resolve 12.

I will test further on Monday using a different NAS for the cache location and see if the results are the same.

Thanks.

Eric Lalicata
Owner
Anarchy Post
1811 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
818-334-3300

[Eric Lalicata]

Render cache stays linked in Resolve 11. Just tested it again by rolling back one of our systems and duplicating the same timeline as in 12.

Of course you are right Mark. We could manually make transcodes and relink. But that is not the only reason to render a timeline. Often we are laying over vfx with built in alpha channels that need to be rendered for real time playback. Also we would not be able to access the raw settings of the clip without relinking to the raw clip, then re-transcoding. That could get tiresome pretty quickly. We would rather set the debayer settings to full and then lower on playback to achieve real time. But again, this only addresses source related render caching.

I don’t believe it is a permissions issue as the render files lose the link on the same system after restarting Resolve. Not a computer restart with a remount of the RAID, just simply quitting Resolve and then relaunching the app with everything else staying the same. I don’t know much about symbolic vs hard links.

If it is a config issue on our end I would love to know the fix. I can’t imagine we are the only facility using shared storage and trying to share render files. Resolve 11, FCP 7, Premiere 2015 and After Effects 2015 all have dedicated media cache folders on our shared RAID, and all of them remember the render files between rooms. Resolve 12 is the only one that does not.

I hope this is fixed in the next update.

Eric Lalicata
Owner
Anarchy Post
1811 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
818-334-3300

[Eric Lalicata]

I am also seeing this error message on my Full version of Resolve. Can not play back Pro Res 4444 files. Same QT Decoder error. “Error occurred while trying to read frame from clip ‘xxxx’ using QTDecoder.”

We were also getting really poor audio playback via any QT Engine Application when using Desktop Video 9.7.5.

I downgraded back to 9.7.3 and the audio issues went away, but Resolve is still not working at all.

I am about to go back in time with Resolve as well.

Eric Lalicata
Owner
Anarchy Post
1811 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
818-334-3300

[Eric Lalicata]

We get real time playback with zero nodes at 23.98 at Half Res Premium.
We get about 18-20 frames per second at Full Res Premium.

We have one Red Rocket and two GTX 580 gpus.

This is 4800×2700 r3d.

Eric Lalicata
Owner
Anarchy Post
1811 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
818-334-3300

[Eric Lalicata]

I have also run into this problem with a 100% 23.98 fps Red footage timeline but the media pool had some 30 frame Pro Res files in it.

I enabled the mixed frame rate feature because we we’re informed that they may be using 30fps shots for security camera shots. They ended up not using any of these shots in the first reel. When the XML was imported and the timeline checked against the offline ref video, lots of shots were out by one frame. Sometimes late, sometimes early. The timing position of the clip was accurate, but the media was slipped by one frame.

Since I could not disable this feature with all the clips in the media pool (why is that btw?) I had to blow out all the footage, turn off mixed frame rate and then reimport the footage back into the project. Re-import the same xml as before and all clips are in sync. Every shot is Red footage at 23.98 except for the leader which is Pro Res 422 23.98.

The Mixed frame rate option seems to have a major bug.

Eric Lalicata
Owner
Anarchy Post
1811 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
818-334-3300

[Eric Lalicata]

So after much troubleshooting, the solution appears to be more GPU Ram as initially recommended by a few of you.

We took out the Red Rocket card and did a render, and we still had errors. So I bought two GTX580 cards from MacVidCards and he delivered them next day.

After installing an OS upgrade, GPU drivers, CUDA drivers, Desktop video and Resolve 8.2.1 beta3 we were back in business. Until RedCineXPro told me the Red Rocket Card needed to be in a 8 lane PCI bus. So out it came and back into the Cubix Expander. Red Cine liked this new arrangement, but Resolve said it could not initialize the Red Rocket card. Ugh.

New driver and firmware upgrade later and we were back in business. No render errors. Immediate play of 4.5k files. Full Res Premium decode with 21fps renders to 1080. 26fps at Half Res Premium.

Thanks to you all for your help. I really appreciate it.

Eric Lalicata
Owner
Anarchy Post
1811 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
818-334-3300

[Eric Lalicata]

For those still reading…

I tried moving the Red Rocket Card back into the tower and put the Decklink card in the Cubix. That did not work at all. Couldn’t get a signal out of the BM card to the display.

So then I put the Decklink card back in the MacPro and put the eSata HBA in the Cubix. This worked.

An unexpected result, is that Resolve now plays back instantly instead of the one second ramp up to speed start that we used to have. So having the Red Rocket card in the MacPro seems to make playback smoother.

The rendering issue appeared to go away as well, until we tried to render another reel with more blur effects on clips. The errors came back on the same shots as before. So we dropped the render speed from maximum to 10 frames per second. This also appeared to work. We got passed the problem clips, only to find a couple glitches later in the reel. I have installed SMC fan control and will experiment with settings to see if a cooler PCI card will solve this. I’m not confident it will. It may still be GPU related and I may need to try a GTX 580 3GB in place of my 470s.

I’ll post updates for those who care to follow this sad story. Thanks for all the help as usual.

Eric Lalicata
Owner
Anarchy Post
1811 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
818-334-3300

[Eric Lalicata]

So after some experimentation, it appears the Red Rocket Card is the culprit. We tried the DXP render that Sascha recommended, and we we able to render to 4k and 1080 without any glitches. Obviously the 4k did not playback in real time, but we stepped through the frames and saw no errors.

So I tried the easiest move first, I put the Rocket card in slot 1 of the Cubix and moved the GTX470s to slot 3 and 4 trying to get a little distance. Didn’t matter, still throwing render errors when using the Rocket Card.

So my next step, is to try what Matthew suggested and move the Rocket card into the Mac Pro and increase the speed of the fans. Anyone have a suggestion of which card I should swap? The esata HBA or the BM Decklink?

If that does not work, then I guess we can always software debayer on another machine, still using the Red Rocket card for real time grading on the main machine. After doing some reading about the differences between hardware and software debayer, there seems to be a split decision on which one looks “better”. As most things, it appears to be a subjective choice. I still think it is weird that we can see it playback with nodes without errors, but the render is error prone.

Thanks again for your opinions.

Eric Lalicata
Owner
Anarchy Post
1811 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
818-334-3300