Red Rocket X + Mac OS Catalina

[Matt Ryan]

+1, FWIW. The new Mac Pro, for all the money it costs, still doesn't have a good 8K RED story RIGHT NOW. Maybe in 6 months, but today it appears to be a crippled platform that would greatly benefit from the 5 year old technology of the RR-X.

Not to mention not all of us are on a new machine..

I’m still using my trusty 2013 MBP to cut 8K Monstro footage.

[Matt Ryan]

If we all ask nicely, RED is usually amazing at trying to make it work. I believe it to be worthwhile and I don’t see why anyone who owns a Rocket X would stop using it even if the machine alone can handle it. Extra firepower is a good thing.

[DJ Meyer]

I’m still using my trusty 2013 MBP to cut 8K Monstro footage.

I admire your intestinal fortitude, especially with Premiere on OSX!

[Brad Harris]

Hi all,

I just wanted to jump in here and hopefully put some of these questions to rest regarding development of RED ROCKET and RED ROCKET-X. Our Product Management and Support teams have put together the full details here: https://support.red.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033764054

[Corey Robson]

Was hoping for Catalina compatibility too. I'm still on Mojave but will have to upgrade eventually. I love my RR-X, will be sad to see it go to waste.

[Anthony Berenato Jr]

Hi all,

I just wanted to jump in here and hopefully put some of these questions to rest regarding development of RED ROCKET and RED ROCKET-X. Our Product Management and Support teams have put together the full details here: https://support.red.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033764054

Just curious about what the challenge is in getting the extensions and installer notarized, to make the installer work with Catalina and all following Mac operating systems into the foreseeable future? Granted, I don't know much about coding - but I'm assuming the process is fairly simple.

Not trying to shake the boat. Just figure that's the best way to leave a card that just entered EOL, especially for those of us who invested in the tech to not have $5K-$6K bricks sitting around when updating operating systems.

[Antony Newman]

Brad,

Thankyou for chiming in - I had not realised RRX was EOL, with no RRX driver testing having taken place since MacOS Lion (10.7).

AJ

[Antony Newman]

I just tried a quick experiment on Catalina 10.15.2 : MacPro 2013 (10 core) : Sonnet Echo Express III (TB2) : 8K Monstro R3D Footage

Resolve 16.1.2 : Makes use of the RRX :
>Memory and GPU : GPU Processing Mode : OpenCL (Metal seems to cause screen corruption errors)
>Decode Options : Use Rocket for : Decompression and Debayer

REDCINI-X PRO 51 : Makes use of the RRX :
Toggling between the ROCKET icon : Considerable speedup when Rocket active

FCP-X : 10.4.8 : Makes use of the RRX :
There seemed to be an issue : When playing a clip - it decoded while playing : Screen corruption when paused
More screen strangeness in 'Better Quality' mode than 'Better Performance'

- - - -

I then to reinstall the RRX driver (just to see if this is possible) : Answer NO : The Flat Package (PKG file) is 'Not Compatible' with this version of the OS.
I am not familiar with how this (zipped) packages can be broken down into smaller parts to work out where the script is failing.
It fails before it reaches the steps that would require PRIVACY SECURITY updates (mentioned on Red.com)

FCP-X : 10.4.8 : I then tried to re-apply the RED Apple Workflow (thinking that this would be a relatively safe test).
The aforementioned screen corruption seemed to now happen all the time in : Better Quality mode.

REDCINI-X PRO 51 : I hit a problem : Even though it reports that it can see the ROCKET-X .. it is NO LONGER possible to activate the Rocket ICON.
Even if you select 'x' in the Dialogue to use the Rocket ... when the dialogue is closed down ... the ROCKET is NOT used.
I am guessing this is a bug? Has anyone else found a way to turn this back on?

- -

Thoughts

+) I am guessing that the FCP-X issues I am seeing are related to the running out of memory on D700, now Apple are leveraging the GPU more with each release.
Better Performance must use less GPU Memory than Better Quality.

+) Workaround if it is not possible to install the Rocket-X driver on Catalina (ie that you want to install the ROCKET-X on another Mac)
I would suggest installing Mojave (10.14) first : Then install the RRX driver (ie the PKG file) : Then upgrade to the latest version of OSX

AJ

[Michael Tiemann]

[...]
Thoughts

+) I am guessing that the FCP-X issues I am seeing are related to the running out of memory on D700, now Apple are leveraging the GPU more with each release.
Better Performance must use less GPU Memory than Better Quality.

+) Workaround if it is not possible to install the Rocket-X driver on Catalina (ie that you want to install the ROCKET-X on another Mac)
I would suggest installing Mojave (10.14) first : Then install the RRX driver (ie the PKG file) : Then upgrade to the latest version of OSX

AJ

Don't waste your time. The RR-X drivers are simply not accepted by Catalina, whether you start them with a Mojave install (which I did) or whether you try magic on Catalina. Unless/until Red decides to write new drivers to keep our $7000 cards working, we are SOL on Catalina.

[Antony Newman]

Thanks for the input Michael - I might persevere for a bit simply because REDCINI & RESOLVE were both usable on Catalina with RRX.

Additional test :
+) RED PLAYER 51

Fist time I have opened it up on Catalina : It works just fine with Rocket-X.
It defaults to having the ROCKET ICON active.

+) If I click on the ICON -> Popup "Rocket-x X Use for decodingDriver 2.1.34.0 ..."

+) If I space out (ie deactivate using the Rocket) - and close this popup, the buffer resets and I believe this this time it is not using the Rocket.

+) It is now Not possible to enable the Rocket Icon. I am guessing this is a bug?


Thoughts : Perhaps if I could find where the RED Config is stored - I could used a text editor and reset this / then restart the app?

AJ