best way to run 2 rockets

[Mike Kushner]

Wish there was no need for transcoding. I get frustrated letters from the directors and producers i work for often saying that the transcoding step is time consuming, buggy and costly and is discouraging them from shooting RED.

RED would blow the competition away if the camera could generate a ready to edit 1080 file in Pro Res or similar. it's not more resolution or a sensor with a catchy name we need - it's a quick turn around solution for 1080 TV work. (high speed footage, too. digital recorder works fine for sync sound frame rates.)

[Matthew Love]

I do agree with you Mike, but typically with my setup if we shoot 1/2 epics at 5k at 23.98 for the day i can have offloads and prores transcodes done an hour after camera wrap. I just stay on my camera guys about offloads in the last quarter of the day.

[Tom.Wong]

i think you're gonna need a pci expander to gain the full use of the rockets. in a mac tower you have 2- 4x slots and 2 16x slots. one of the 16x slots will be for gpu automatically. not sure how the system is gonna run with one rocket in a 16x and another in a 4x. or u could put both of them in the 4x slots. but again don't know if RCX will even initialize the two rockets together if it's seen that they aren't running at full capacity.


as for director's producers not liking the hassel of transcoding. I think there is just so much mis information out there. transcoding always happens. it's part of the process. if you edit at home and go adobe premiere, yes you can skip all of that. but any post house big or boutique never edit with native master footage. they'll either transcode in house or on set, no matter what camera you are shooting. alexa direct to edit? well it records log c to the pro res, you really think an editor is gonna cut with flat footage and try to show that with clients? or spend the money on expensive plugins to put a lut on it? i transcode for alexa pro res on set all the time, baking in looks for dailies, and down to a lower quality codec like pro res proxy or dnxhd 36 so they can have a smooth editing process without needing the most powerhouse system.

avid AMA can do native stuff but it falls apart on keeping files online iin the project in something long form. most post houses don't even run the newest version of avid, so thus again, they either transcode to avid mxf in house, or on set. i just had a shoot the other day where i had dnxhd quicktimes, and avid fast import would have rewrapped the footage like lightning. post house rejected them as dailies because their version of avid didn't support fast import. so i was rewrapping them in avid 6 on set so they could have their mxf files.

transcoding is part of the deal, and i don't think that's gonna change for a long time. a offline online workflow is really important for post houses. saving on storage requirements on their sans, not needing to spend all the money on powerhouse computers for every edit bay, faster to generate out rough cuts, etc. etc.

the sooner people accept that, the easier things will get because it will be more about finding the right solutions for the job rather than going against the current.