Storage for Uncompressed 4k?

[Andrew McCarrick]

How much storage would I need per second for the full rez. 4k output (most likely DPX or Cineon) rendered files, from REDCine?

[Jason Ing]

Got the following from sky1walker in another storage thread. hopefully this helps.

Originally Posted by McCarthyTech

Basically it is all a big math equation. I hear that 4K at 24fps in Redcode is supposed to be 27.5MB/s. That is 1.6GB/min, and 100GB/hr. 20 to 30 hours will require 2 to 3TB of storage space for the source footage.

Then you will have to select an offline format, unless you plan to use the Quicktime reference files, which doesn't seem like the best plan yet. I don't recommend using DV or HDV, but I will use those numbers for the same of estimates. 20 to 30 hours of footage would require 250-360GB at HDV. DVCPro-HD would require four times that much space, 1-1.5TB. ProRes or Cineform would be bit more than that. 1080p doesn't make much sense as an offline for a 2K conform since it is very close. 720p might give you a bit of a performance boost, and SD will work if you already have the tools available. I definitely recommend editing in a native 24p environment, instead of adding and removing 30 frame pullldown. Regardless, budgeting 2TB for the offline gives you the flexibilityto do whatever you need.

Once you have an offline, you will likely want to export uncompressed 2K versions of the shots you used. Uncompressed 2K 10bit RGB at 1.85 aspect ratio is 200MB/s (DPX or Blackmagic 2K) , which is 12GB/min, and 720GB/hr. For a two hour movie, with short handles, you are looking at 2TB. From there, ideally your color system can take those files directly, and export directly to DPX for filmout, which is another 1.5TB. If you need uncompressed versions of a texted and textless, that will be one more set of uncompressed files requiring 1.5TB.

That is 3-5TB for the source and online, and 5TB for the finishing at uncompressed 2K. Note not all of these files need exist at the same time, especially if you have LTO-3 backups. Using a compressed finishing codec for finishing would lower the requirements as well. A 14 disk array with 1TB spindles, split into two 6TB Raid-5 arrays, would give you 12TB. 10TB that we discussed, plus 20% to minimize fragmentation etc. You want to avoid filling any drive to more than 90% of capacity, unless you are just using it to transport data. Working on that data with no free space will cause excessive fragmentation.

The lowere end solution would be a single array of 8 1TB disks, 7TB usable after Raid redundancy. Delete your offline source after you move to 2K, delete your (BACKED UP) source footage after your 2K conform is done, before rendering colored versions.

I make a lot of assumptions, and this is only one of many ways to look at it, but I hope this helps, and gives you a few ideas.

[Andrew McCarrick]

Right I read that.... but that's about 2k not 4k.... would 4k be 2 times more or 4 times more?

[Stephen Gentle]

Right I read that.... but that's about 2k not 4k.... would 4k be 2 times more or 4 times more?

It's twice the length and width (2x2 = 4), so I assume that the data rate would be approximately 4 times.

[Dominic Jones]

4 times.

But obviously offline would stay the same...

EDIT: Doh, you beat me to it Stephen!

[Andrew McCarrick]

4 times.

But obviously offline would stay the same...

EDIT: Doh, you beat me to it Stephen!

Okay, thanks guys. That's what I figured but just wanted to make sure.

So that means I'm looking at about 1.6 PetaBytes for my feature.

[Tom Lowe]

Geez, those numbers are HUGE.

I remember back when The Phantom Menace came out reading an article in Wired that George Lucas and ILM as "terabytes" of storage and it sounded like an unreal number, like something only Lucas and the Pentagon had.

Crazy to think that random people could have 5TBs at their house!

[Andrew Madu]

Crazy to think that random people could have 5TBs at their house!

Petabytes even! Now there's a word that just rolls of the tongue :biggrin: