4K raw files to 2K DPX [Archive]

Marcus Vasques Osorio

10-05-2007, 08:40 AM

Does converting 4K raw files to 2K DPX files take a very long time? I know this relative due to hardware...but a idea would be nice?

What formats can REDCINE output too?

MikeCurtis

10-06-2007, 04:14 AM

Red has stated that they want to hold off on publishing times until Redcine is released, which will use both the CPU and GPU to assist the conversion. Red Alert is CPU only AFAIK and have heard. But it will be contingent upon many factors - # & speed of CPU cores, bus speed, storage speed, etc.

More is better.

This has been discussed elsewhere on the board at length, BTW

Mark L. Pederson

10-06-2007, 04:23 AM

Does converting 4K raw files to 2K DPX files take a very long time? I know this relative due to hardware...but a idea would be nice?

What formats can REDCINE output too?

hardware AND software.

Lots of stuff is still being optimized, and more than one way to convert 4K to 2K - RedAlert, Redcine, Scratch -

disc-array WRITE speed will also improve performance.

Justin Kirchhoff

10-06-2007, 05:19 AM

It'll be interesting to see an 8-core mac with 4 gigs of ram and the Radeon card to pull off some speed. Can't wait...mines on order!

Rocco Schult

10-06-2007, 05:33 AM

everybody is dieing to know, but no estimates here on the forum.
See HERE (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4458&page=9), that was the last thread I spoke about it and Robs answer. Hardware, Software, whatever, we will know sooner or later.

EDIT: Just found THAT (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=94599&postcount=2). First post I remember about times... took long time.... we have an estimate. Yoohoo.

Gavin Greenwalt

10-06-2007, 01:23 PM

It'll be fun to see the Mac vs PC debate heat up when REDCine comes out and we can run some comparison benchmarks.

Floris Liesker

10-06-2007, 01:43 PM

Red Alert 1.2 exports 78 frames per minute at 2k DPX on my machine (8 core 3 ghz mac pro)
It uses just 4 of the 8 cores, Graeme says going to 8 cores didn't up the speed.
I suspect Redcine to be much faster though, being GPU based.

David Battistella

10-06-2007, 02:50 PM

It'll be interesting to see an 8-core mac with 4 gigs of ram and the Radeon card to pull off some speed. Can't wait...mines on order!

I would say that drive speed and GPU speed are going to be a bigger or equal factor to processing power. CPU speed does not mean it will write to the disk faster. What makes my FCP system so fast isa 4GIG fiber connection to a HUGE 4gigabit drive array. NOt the CPU.

David

Gavin Greenwalt

10-06-2007, 05:09 PM

Except your FCP system is really just a super fancy frame playback machine.

REDCine has to do complex debayer processing.

Drives could very easily become a bottleneck (2k DPX is a lot of bandwidth) but CPUs I think will be the limiting factor for at least the next 2-3 years.

Antoine Baumann

10-06-2007, 05:38 PM

Even if it is only REDAlert, and different computer will have different process time, I think very interesting to see process time numbers, as we haven't got a lot of them yet.
Floris did you make different conversion, like DVCPRO HD or even SD? Do you have others numbers?

thanks a lot,
antoine

MikeCurtis

10-07-2007, 05:21 PM

It'll happen. I just so happen to have an 8 core Mac Pro, 5 GB RAM, top end Radeon card, and a SATA RAID good for over 400 MB/sec....gee, who is good at controlled benchmarking and reporting?

: )

But not until an appropriate time...don't want people to see preliminary numbers and think that is gospel.

Antoine Baumann

10-08-2007, 03:52 AM

Yeah I understand Mike, but the only two numbers for REDAlert processing time I have heard of, are quite opposite. So we need more numbers to try understand. Please post your test on processing time asap.

Lucas Wilson post on CML the first september that:
"pulling 2K from the wavelet and rendering 2K DPX files to fast storage is currently about 3:1 in my tests"

Now 78 frames per minutes is more or less a 20:1 ratio, very different isn't it?!
So what to think about this?

antoine.

Mark L. Pederson

10-08-2007, 04:00 AM

Yeah I understand Mike, but the only two numbers for REDAlert processing time I have heard of, are quite opposite. So we need more numbers to try understand. Please post your test on processing time asap.

Lucas Wilson post on CML the first september that:
"pulling 2K from the wavelet and rendering 2K DPX files to fast storage is currently about 3:1 in my tests"

Now 78 frames per minutes is more or less a 20:1 ratio, very different isn't it?!
So what to think about this?

antoine.

Four words.

DISC ARRAY WRITE SPEED.

Whoever said 78 fpm ain't writing to our array.

And no, we won't publish benchmarks YET, because so much is being optimized AND we are still testing some theories of our own.

But we'll tell you how fast we are processing by the end of October.

Antoine Baumann

10-08-2007, 04:33 AM

Thanks Mark.

antoine.

David Battistella

10-08-2007, 07:38 AM

Will red alert or REDCINE be able to tap into the Qmaster engine to create a sort of batching processing render farm? (I am thinking a compressor REDINE Hybrid here)

How much of this be automated (a one light on RED footage and walk away) or shot for shot?

David

Mark L. Pederson

10-08-2007, 07:52 AM

Will red alert or REDCINE be able to tap into the Qmaster engine to create a sort of batching processing render farm? (I am thinking a compressor REDINE Hybrid here)

How much of this be automated (a one light on RED footage and walk away) or shot for shot?

David

nope.

however, if and when Red delivers a QT component that will give FULL quality debayer - even if it is not realtime - one could then use a full QT based render farm solution such as Qmaster.

In REDCINE you will be able to adjust "looks" on shots and lay them out in a "timeline" and "walk away" ...

Floris Liesker

10-08-2007, 02:24 PM

Four words.

DISC ARRAY WRITE SPEED.

Whoever said 78 fpm ain't writing to our array.

I am indeed writing 78 fpm to the system drive, I hope the arrival of my RAID this week will speed things up.

I just did a copy and paste test of 78 2K DPX frames, it takes the machine 25 seconds to do that. So about half of the rendering time is disk time.
But even if the disk time would be zero, it would increase the total renderspeed by no more than 200 percent, about 156 frames per minute (2 x 78). Better, but still nowhere near 3:1, which would be 480 frames per minute...
Is there something else one can do to up the speed? Maybe to read the R3D from one RAID and writing DPX to another?

(My machine is an 8-core 3 Ghz Mac Pro with 16 GB of ram and an X1900X video card.)