RED editing hardware questions

Justin Young wrote on 5/23/2009, 4:16 AM

Hi all. Planning a project using the RED in a few months and trying to sort out the editing hardware. Doing some tests with V9 and some 4K RED footage. Pretty impressed considering the age of my editing machine.

One thing that I have noticed is that the preview frame rate increases a lot when I loop a short section and let Vegas buffer it. I am using the 2K template as it seems to give me slightly better playback results and I seem to be unable to use an external display for monitoring with the 4K template. On Preview (Half) the preview frame rate varies greatly between 3-10 fps. If I let it loop enough I get a steady 24 fps playback.

What I was wondering is, does this indicate that the disk access speed is limiting the preview frame rate, or does Vegas buffer the video at a lower resolution enabling it to play back easier?
My current PC has dual Xeon CPU's and sits between 50-70% CPU utilization playing back non buffered 4K footage and 30% when playing the buffered footage.

Is there a recommended minimum hardware setup for Vegas to edit RED? Would a 4 disk RAID array allow me to playback at 24 fps at 1/4 preview (1024x576)? I don't expect a definite answer on that question, considering I haven't listed my system specs. I am also planning a RAM upgrade. Really I am trying to work out what my existing bottlenecks are, hoping it is disk access speed as I was already planning a storage upgrade for this project.

Thanks

Comments

farss wrote on 5/23/2009, 4:58 AM

I'm no guru on the RED, only worked with the SI-2K but there's not that much of a difference that I've read of.

You probably shouldn't need a RAID array to playout the footage. A basic RAID 0 setup wouldn't hurt but you shouldn't need anything over the top. What this kind of footage needs is a lot CPU power, you're decoding highly compressed RAW footage and that takes a lot of CPU power.

Vegas's playback will improve as you loop as it buffers the decoded frames into RAM. If you want full FPS continuous playback you're going to need a lot of CPU power, not fast disk arrays.

What you really need to nail down very early on is your workflow. There's a number of ways of working with this kind of footage, which way you jump will make a considerable difference to the hardware you need and also the quality you get from the camera.

That's about all I have, there's a wealth of info at reduser on workflow but I'd suggest you get your head around how this kind of camera works, it and the SI-2K are radically different to just about every other camera, arguably closer to shooting film than video.

Bob.

john-beale wrote on 5/23/2009, 9:08 AM

The RedUser.net site has a lot of info, and they just opened a new workflow forum specific to Vegas...

http://www.reduser.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=52

jabloomf1230 wrote on 5/23/2009, 10:37 AM

Thanks for posting that. It's an interesting sub forum. The only funny thing posted there is that there is a bug in Vegas 9 when rendering the correct color with Red files. Sony support has already responded saying they are going to fix it. Of course that's not the funny part. One of the posters suggested that to use Cineform instead.

Justin Young wrote on 5/23/2009, 3:40 PM

Thanks for the reply. It looks like you have answered my question regarding how Vegas buffers its video. Looks like I will need to use some form of intermediary format. Not too much of a leap, as our last few projects have all needed a similar step (Two shot on Super16 and the last on the HVX200). At least with RED the footage can be swapped on the timeline, I have heard an update of Gearshift is in the works specifically for RED.

Justin