Important: all scratch/redboxx users

[Emery Wells]

We had to find this out the hard way and I wanted to make sure no one else figures this out while in the trenches.

Realtime playback in Scratch on a RedBoxx will not work if you shoot 4k 16:9 in Build 15. So if you are planning to layoff realtime HD dailies spread the word that you must shoot 2:1 until this is resolved. Everyone at Red, Boxx, and Assimilate is already aware of the problem but this is for everyone else.

You can buy me a beer for this nugget of information if you are so inclined. :)

[Bang WOW Bang]

We had to find this out the hard way and I wanted to make sure no one else figures this out while in the trenches.

Realtime playback in Scratch on a RedBoxx will not work if you shoot 4k 16:9 in Build 15. So if you are planning to layoff realtime HD dailies spread the word that you must shoot 2:1 until this is resolved. Everyone at Red, Boxx, and Assimilate is already aware of the problem but this is for everyone else.

You can buy me a beer for this nugget of information if you are so inclined. :)

Can HP 8600WS ( by Quad-Core ) 2 x Intel Xeon E5460 3.16Ghz can play 2K REDCODE files on Scratch in Full Res ?

What about the performance of Extreme Store - DI REDe ? 2K REDCODE Files real time playback with no drop frames ?

Please correct me if I am wrong that " NO products can playback 4K REDCODE files ( R3D ) at the moment " .

DPX files are another ball games...

Cheers,

Stewart

[Jerome Thelia]

Hi Emory, we spoke on the phone about an R/GA job you did for us. As it happens, I'm about to get my Scratch system and a big Red project in 4K 16x9. Has this situation evolved? Any good work arounds you've tried? Thanks- Jerome

[M Most]

Hi Emory, we spoke on the phone about an R/GA job you did for us. As it happens, I'm about to get my Scratch system and a big Red project in 4K 16x9. Has this situation evolved? Any good work arounds you've tried? Thanks- Jerome

I really don't know why anyone would choose to shoot 16x9 with Red right now. It is unsupported by nearly every post method, unsupported by some of Red's own tools, and unnecessary since almost nobody is actually finishing in 4K anyway.

[Mark L. Pederson]

I really don't know why anyone would choose to shoot 16x9 with Red right now. It is unsupported by nearly every post method, unsupported by some of Red's own tools, and unnecessary since almost nobody is actually finishing in 4K anyway.
more pixels.

[cinepost35]

Hope they support it soon...not everyone is delivering HD many are only doing 4K projects for 4K delivery and it's a real pain since they seem to mainly support projects that are headed to HD or 2K.

[Emery Wells]

I really don't know why anyone would choose to shoot 16x9 with Red right now. It is unsupported by nearly every post method, unsupported by some of Red's own tools, and unnecessary since almost nobody is actually finishing in 4K anyway.

If you need to deliver 16:9 and you shoot 2:1 and reframe for 16:9 you are losing some serious res. Do we have res to spare? Absolutely but some DPs insist on shooting 16:9.

Many facilities have been forcing clients to shoot 2:1 and I think we are one fo the few that has been supporting 16:9 from the beginning. If you want to shoot 16:9 we advise that it will take longer and cost more money but other than that... we deal with it.

[Emery Wells]

Hi Emory, we spoke on the phone about an R/GA job you did for us. As it happens, I'm about to get my Scratch system and a big Red project in 4K 16x9. Has this situation evolved? Any good work arounds you've tried? Thanks- Jerome

Hey Jerome. Just had Tony from Assimilate stop by the office yesterday and he said they are working hard on it. The problem was with a change in B15 of the camera firmware. 16x9 footage shot on previous builds works realtime in Scratch but I believe Assimilate is skipping over B15 and waiting to fix it for the upcoming B16. It doesn't really make sense for them to spend any resources on a B15 fix being that B16 is around the corner.

[M Most]

Hope they support it soon...not everyone is delivering HD many are only doing 4K projects for 4K delivery and it's a real pain since they seem to mainly support projects that are headed to HD or 2K.

Really?

Who here is actually doing 4K delivery? And in what form? Or are we just talking about people who **think** they'll be able to do a 4K delivery of..... well....... something.

[M Most]

more pixels.

Yes, I understand. But the truth is that we've already handled 16x9 files in Scratch, and someone would have to show me real, tangible evidence that there's any serious difference between 2:1 cropped and output to HD and 16:9 reduced and output to HD. I've done both and really haven't seen such evidence.

BTW, my experience has been that Scratch format support is basically identical to Redcine format support, since much of that is governed by Red's software anyway (in the case of Red, the Red Node that is supplied by Red). If 16x9 is broken in Scratch, it's more likely due to a change in Red's firmware on more recent builds.

[Emery Wells]

Yes, I understand. But the truth is that we've already handled 16x9 files in Scratch, and someone would have to show me real, tangible evidence that there's any serious difference between 2:1 cropped and output to HD and 16:9 reduced and output to HD. I've done both and really haven't seen such evidence.

BTW, my experience has been that Scratch format support is basically identical to Redcine format support, since much of that is governed by Red's software anyway (in the case of Red, the Red Node that is supplied by Red). If 16x9 is broken in Scratch, it's more likely due to a change in Red's firmware on more recent builds.

To be clear, 16x9 is not broken in Scratch. You just don't get realtime performance on a RedBoxx like you are supposed to. It was working prior to B15 in all formats and now we are limited to 2:1 for layoff to tape in realtime.

[Lucas Wilson]

Emery... even at 24fps?

[Emery Wells]

Emery... even at 24fps?

Yep, even at 24.

[Richard Lackey]

I've got Scratch ver3.9 (build 0462) with Rednode on a dual quad core (2.3GHz) Intel machine running WinXPx64, 8GB RAM, Nvidia QuadroFX 3500.

I didn't know this was a problem with build 15 and have been trying to tweak graphics card and system settings to get better performance.

We just shot a promo with build 15, 16:9 and I'm getting 25fps playback in half res high for about the first four seconds of playback after which it settles to 16fps. Is this the kind of behaviour you are talking about?

4K full res high: 6fps
4K half res high: 25fps, settles to 16fps after 4 secs
4K quarter res high: 25fps, stable

I have been tweaking everything I can think of to try and get half res high playing 25fps reliably. Is this a build 15 16:9 thing?

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Richard, do you have any of the "2K approved" SCRATCH boxes? There are only two or three certified systems that will play back half res high at 25 fps. They are all Skulltrail based and overclocked. You are getting what seems to be to be normal frame rates on a "regular" 8 core system.

[Richard Lackey]

Richard, do you have any of the "2K approved" SCRATCH boxes? There are only two or three certified systems that will play back half res high at 25 fps. They are all Skulltrail based and overclocked. You are getting what seems to be to be normal frame rates on a "regular" 8 core system.

Hi Fredrik, no, my system was built by the South African Assimilate reseller for 2K DPX based work. So do you think it's a processor bottleneck, GPU bottleneck, both?

[Richard Lackey]

Any idea why half res high starts to play at 25 (it actually reaches 40fps for 1 sec or so, then 25fps for three secs), then slows down to 16fps and stays there? For some reason this is making me think since it starts at a higher frame rate, I should be able to get 25fps stable somehow. It seems like something must be cached for the first few secs for fast playback?

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Hi Fredrik, no, my system was built by the South African Assimilate reseller for 2K DPX based work. So do you think it's a processor bottleneck, GPU bottleneck, both?

Your GPU isn't the latest and greatest, but that's not your main "problem".

It's CPU/memory/motherboard bandwidth related. The systems I mentioned are running 8 core procs at around 4 ghz on a 1600 mhz bus:

http://www.globalstor.com/Products/ProfessionalVideo/ExtremeStorREDe/tabid/334/Default.aspx
http://silverado.cc/shop/home.php?cat=8
http://www.boxxtech.com/products/redBOXX/redBOXX.asp
http://www.systems4u.com/fe/index.php?id=143&topmenuid=20

I think the reason for the few seconds of realtime is because SCRATCH is caching the debayered files in RAM.

Cheers!

[Richard Lackey]

Ok, so new motherboard and processors should do the trick. Thanks.

[Lucas Wilson]

Any idea why half res high starts to play at 25 (it actually reaches 40fps for 1 sec or so, then 25fps for three secs), then slows down to 16fps and stays there? For some reason this is making me think since it starts at a higher frame rate, I should be able to get 25fps stable somehow. It seems like something must be cached for the first few secs for fast playback?

Hi Richard,

It's fine that you're asking here... but by far the best place to ask these questions is on the support alias for ASSIMILATE, or on the SCRATCH Users' Forum. Just fyi.

Fredrik is correct about all he says here.

And it is playing realtime for a few seconds because SCRATCH is *always* caching ahead. As soon as you enter the Player from the Construct, SCRATCH will immediately cache as much material as is possible into RAM for playback.

Do this to demonstrate (and this works in REDCINE too)

1) Set a loop for a relatively short time
2) Hit CTRL+F1 to bring up the playback meter
3) Hit play.
4) See the IO xx/xx numbers going down and the TX xx number going up?

The IO xx/xx numbers are disk reads / writes in MB/sec. The TX xx number is transfer out of main memory in MB/sec. When the IO numbers are zero, and the TX number is greater than zero, then that means that SCRATCH (and REDCINE) are playing back entirely from memory.

That behaviour is also what allows my laptop to playback a short burst of realtime 2K DPX in realtime. :)

Cheers,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Ok, so new motherboard and processors should do the trick. Thanks.

Well, your graphics aren't directly supported anymore. Which means that there might show up features in SCRATCH that your card won't handle. The QuadroFX 4600 SDI is the sweet spot right now.

http://assimilateinc.com/graphicscards.html

[Adam Glick]

any Scaffolds/Layers or masks (especially with edge softness dialed in) on top of r3d playback will definitely risk degraded frame rate performance on Q4500/Q5500 cards.

The newer Q4600/Q5600 cards can support multiple Scaffolds/layers along with primary & secondary CC without affecting frame rate.

Adam

[Richard Lackey]

Cool, I'm getting costing on the Skulltrail m/board and processors plus cooling system for the overclock and a upgrade to the Q5600 card on Tuesday. I'll send the machine back to the system builder for the changes and hopefully it will do the trick.

[Adam Glick]

I don't mind playing devil's advocate here...

I'm not gonna suggest any particular vendor here, but you should think very carefully about this.

I don't mean to scare you, but The Skulltrail platform is *extremely* temperamental and requires a firm understanding of system power balancing, active cooling and hardware/firmware tuning.

You had better be sure that the builder you choose has significant experience with Skulltrail systems -and will guarantee reliability and performance IN SCRATCH.

You may be able to save a few bucks up front by buying a non-assimilate-certified system, but the headaches (and lost revenue opportunity) you are opening yourself up to could drastically outweigh any cost savings if you end up unable to book Scratch sessions or crank out deliverables because your system is on the fritz.

We've had a few "black eyes" getting our heads around Skulltrail ourselves -and you should have all the proper information regarding this before you make a decision.


In any case, Good luck!


Adam
BOXXlabs

[Richard Lackey]

Hi Adam,

I totally understand your concern. The vendor I use is the only vendor in South Africa that builds Scratch systems here. He actually spends most of his time building 32 core AMD systems and render farms for architectural visualizations and 3D rendering as well as VFX systems. I trust him 110% as he is very specific about what he will let me do and what he won't. He builds with reliability in mind over performance.

He's the closest there is in South Africa to Assimilate certified, we have one Assimilate reseller, and they use him exclusively. Unfortunately I have too much money invested in this particular box to buy another complete system and import it from the U.S.

Will let you know how it goes, but when it comes to cooling, vibration, selecting enclosures and overclocking reliably, I don't expect to have a problem. Still, the proof is in having a reliable system at the end of it, and I'll know before too long.

[Johann Schulz]

I have no actual experience in editing but I've got a bit in reduser surfing and it seems that this'll be solved with build 16 on RED's part?

[Johann Schulz]

I digress....