TOOK DELIVERY OF REDROCKET From MAXX DIGITAL

[Matthew Riggieri]

Digital Cave Media took delivery of the REDROCKET an the very end of last year in the brand new MAXX Digital Mobile Rocket Enclousure. It has already gone out on set twice this week and is flying to Alabama for the weekend. Clients love it and DP love being to playback footage to a broadcast monitor. Few questions for the RED team and specifiacly Deanan.


Is the Redrocket a PCI-E 2.0 spec card? More importantly when the next batch of Macbook Pro's come out with Expresscard 2.0 (supported by Intel's new arrandale chipset) will we be able to use the additional bandwidth (as long as the maxx digital case can support it)

Wat is the status of embedding audio over HD-SDI?

How do we get audio/video sync in playback?

I have tried using the BWF sync with TC embedded wav files. The timecode is perfect and can sync in FCP. When i try to do it in RocketCine-X, it is always off, no matter the TC offset.

More questions to come as we hammer out the card on set over the next few weeks.

Cheers
Happy New Year
Matt Riggieri

[Deanan]

Hi Matt,

It's a x8 Gen 1 card.

Audio and embedded timecode is currently high on the list and being worked on. We're about half way done with it.

There's not a way to sync the computers audio with external monitor output yet. The only way to do that is with embedded hdsdi audio (which is why it's a high priority to get done).

If you're playing back to the laptop, the audio will be in sync. There were some hiccups in the released build that will be fixed for the next redcine build.

I'm not sure what you mean by the last one. Can you please email me more details?

Thanks.

[craigjkharris]

I am also curious to know how difficult it is to get audio and picture to sync using RocketCine. I have a card arriving this week and start on a show next week.

If the audio and video have the same timecode, will it sync without any problems?

[Deanan]

I am also curious to know how difficult it is to get audio and picture to sync using RocketCine. I have a card arriving this week and start on a show next week.

If the audio and video have the same timecode, will it sync without any problems?

It's very easy to sync audio(BWF) with picture for transcoding in rocketcine.
First pass it to auto sync and use the timecodes to match.
If yo want to do finer matching, you can set a slate frame in picture, and then mark the slate clap in the wave form and that's it.

[Andrew clemson]

Wow, that enclosure looks great. Im guessing its worth the money?

Does it work with the Breakout Box?

[Deanan]

Wow, that enclosure looks great. Im guessing its worth the money?

Does it work with the Breakout Box?

It works with the break out box also.

[Matthew Riggieri]

Deanan

Thanks for the quick reply.

Any chance we could get a checkbox in the dialog box that opens up at first saying The card is in a 1x Slot telling the program to not remind me. When i am working on the laptop, and fire up with Rocketcinex or Redcinx with the DP/Producer/Exec/Diretor behind me, I don't want to have to explain what that means and that it i just the way it is because they chose to be cheap and put me on the laptop instead of renting my full kit.

Andrew

The Enclosure in great. Very well built and sturdy. My only complaint is the fan noise. I understand the card needs to be cooled and that is ok with me, but you can't be anywhere near set with this thing running or the sound mixer is going to have a fit. He already complains about the fan in the camera and the fan in the chargers. This is just another thing.

Cheers
Matt

[Jason H]

Hey riggieri,

have you done any rendering with this thing? How does it perform (rendering) on a laptop vs hooked up to your tower? I would like to get one for my rocket card if it can do it just as fast as with my tower. B nice to be able to use my rocket in the field and at the office!

Also what are you using it for in the field, besides the obvious. (real time playback). What are you charging and how are you justifying that charge to production companies?

Right now if someone wants to see what a file will look like in the edit vs off the camera I am using a laptop, FCP, an AJA IOHD and red rushes to show them the file on a panasonic 17in HD monitor or a 24in cinetal. I just process out 24-48 frames (as quick as I can....on a laptop) and play it back from FCP to the directors monitor.

thanks

j

[Matthew Riggieri]

Hey Jason

Hows it going man?

I am only getting 18-19 frames a second DPX or Quicktimes on my 1st gen Mac Pro. It is not hard drive limited, i am not sure where the speed issue is coming from. I haven't had a chance to put it our latest generation Nehelem Mac Pro. On the Laptop, I get about 14 frames a second rendering from one FW800 drive to another chained over one bus. Not that bad considering that I probably got less than 2 before and this is full debayer.

In the field, I am using it obviously using it for playback. DP's and Directors love seeing full quality previews. I play back to a JVC 24" 10bit monitor. The big request is for rendering QT's off. The political and commercial clients love the idea of walking away with edit ready material. This way i don't need to bring back the hard drives and transcode them over night and the producers don't need to pay courier fees.

Now that the Rocket is going to eat into my transcoding business, I have to price it accordingly. I was charging the standard $225 per hour of footage to render @ half high. So now I am just charging an extra $300 on top of my normal kit fee, be the card in the enclosure or in my DIT tower. That way they are paying a little more for the transcoding, but I think overall they are saving money because of the courier fees. Plus they have to pay my OT as I'm on the clock until i wrap. This way if they shoot 2 hours or so, either they are paying a lot of OT or it becomes a overnight job. Since this is new, i am still working it out.


Deanan

Any chance of getting that checkbox on that dialog box?

Cheers
Matt Riggieri
Digital Cave Media

[Jason H]

super good info!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks riggieri. I think this is important information for people to know that are thinking of buying this product from maxx digital for field use.

I cant believe it! sick.....


j

[KETCH ROSSi]

Yeah I really like what Ron did with the MAXX Digital Mobile Rocket Enclousure for the Red Rocket, really a kick A$#!$!@ system together, and I think no one serious about their on set workflow should be with out, I'm not a Post or DIT know it all or much of it any ways, but I sure can appreciate what a difference makes having a Red Rocket on set and or any were with you and your Lap Top.

[Ron Amborn]

Digital Cave Media took delivery of the REDROCKET an the very end of last year in the brand new MAXX Digital Mobile Rocket Enclousure. It has already gone out on set twice this week and is flying to Alabama for the weekend. Clients love it and DP love being to playback footage to a broadcast monitor. Few questions for the RED team and specifiacly Deanan.


Is the Redrocket a PCI-E 2.0 spec card? More importantly when the next batch of Macbook Pro's come out with Expresscard 2.0 (supported by Intel's new arrandale chipset) will we be able to use the additional bandwidth (as long as the maxx digital case can support it)

Wat is the status of embedding audio over HD-SDI?

How do we get audio/video sync in playback?

I have tried using the BWF sync with TC embedded wav files. The timecode is perfect and can sync in FCP. When i try to do it in RocketCine-X, it is always off, no matter the TC offset.

More questions to come as we hammer out the card on set over the next few weeks.

Cheers
Happy New Year
Matt Riggieri

Thanks Matt
We will continue to listen to RED users and of course Deanan and the RED Team as we strive to make the Maxx Digital Mobile Rocket and our many other RED focused products better and easier to use as your valuable input comes to us here at Maxx Digital.Anyone with questions or concerns please contact us at REDinfo@maxxdigital.com or ron@maxxdigital.com. Thank you for your continued support.