Our 36 Core Video Rendering Server – Finally Explained

[nicklmg]

Amazon: http://geni.us/cIa

NCIX: http://bit.ly/1VIJ00q

 

Our workflow has improved by leaps and bounds over the past few months. Today, we explain how...

 

[Wiplive]

nice i want one. saw it on vessel 7 days ago ayy lmao

[Jacktastic-Mofo]

Saw it on vessel and it was super interesting! At my old internship we worked on Macs ( ) and we moved all our project files to a thunderbolt hub when we were done to be rendered on a 12 core MAC Pro and sure it was fast but it was kinda cumbersome. This is just uber dope.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

@nicklmg 
Was really hoping Linus would show a video go through the rendering process instead of Linus talking through the whole video, the same problem with binaural audio video, there was no binaural audio clips in it.  want to know how quicly a video renders in real time on video, i didnt want the entire process, just could have been an example test footage. 

[ozziestig]

@nicklmg @LinusTech So how does Dmitri(HardwareCanucks) use the server, does he rock up and upload his footage and then downloads it when he is done or is it another way?
 

[manikyath]

@nicklmg @LinusTech So how does Dmitri(HardwareCanucks) use the server, does he rock up and upload his footage and then downloads it when he is done or is it another way?

 

i think they referred to dmitry using a 4K workflow, not using the rendering server.

[Nitroblast]

Loved this video, love the server videos

[kunal445]

what is this vessel you kids seem to be talking about?

[_Grid21]

Amazon: http://geni.us/cIa

NCIX: http://bit.ly/1VIJ00q

 

Our workflow has improved by leaps and bounds over the past few months. Today, we explain how...

 

Could you list the software you guys use as I really want to trying this out on my own server I have.

[Streetguru]

You guys should totally pick up a Quad socket G34 motherboard
Only $739

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-H8QGIF

 

With 4 16 core Opteron 6376 Only $699 Each
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113306

And like put the 72 AMD cores, Vs 36 intel cores against one another, since they would end up costing relatively the same ton money

That is to say, one of the 18 core Xeon chips, since the AMD stuff would cost like $3100 with the motherboard.and those chips are like $4500 each was it?

You know, for fun.

I'm sure AMD/newegg will totally send you some loaners.

Course even with twice the threads I don't think AMD has a chance unless the workload is mass virtualization.

[ObeseWalrus]

Fuck that's smart. But what's with the server names? Also: Did you guys ever find out why the old server room was smoking? Also also. If you are open for employment then I am a Cisco Certified Network Associate and I can configure your Cisco router ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°).

[finnjaeger]

I run a Production House and we also just recently switched to a 4K Workflow but using Avid instead of Premiere, it just gives us more flexibility when working with big projects (30min+ final) because you can access the same project with multiple workstations at the same time, so you can essentitaly work on one Project with multiple editors, also it features better compatibility with Davinci Resolve. And the biggest point, its amazingly FAST and stable! Its made for running in a server-client enviroment as opposed to Premiere, I am 100% sure that if your editors get used to media composer, they will never look at premiere again

 

Anyways, we figured out that the best way to deliver to youtube, is just uploading the DNxHD Masters, DNxHR was not yet working, but that might have been fixed, so for 4K we just use Apple Prores instead. 

Also Uncompressed Upload to youtube is also working, so if anything breaks just upload Uncompressed, since you also have a 1Gbit Up connection(as do we), that should not really take much time. 

 

Youtube re-encodes the video you upload no matter what, so giving youtube the best possible starting point yields a Higher Quality final Output.  And yes we have done very extensive testing with a buch of codecs in 4K/2K 60/24/30p. 

[Musikman]

I thought this video was really interesting. Would you see performance benefits if you followed this workflow but instead of 4K in and 4K out it was 1080p in and 1080p out? I sometimes edit on a computer that's a little on the older side and was wondering if I could make timeline navigation and general performance better by using Cineform and this workflow.

[finnjaeger]

I thought this video was really interesting. Would you see performance benefits if you followed this workflow but instead of 4K in and 4K out it was 1080p in and 1080p out? I sometimes edit on a computer that's a little on the older side and was wondering if I could make timeline navigation and general performance better by using Cineform and this workflow.

You will see performance  benefits compared to non edit codecs like H264 and AVCHD or SAVCX, you might not see any benfit over dnxhd or Prores, only if you have a very recent GPU. 

[EricX2]

Is it weird that I actually wanted to see them "Use" it? Would have been fun to see it encode a video and the performance difference with the timeline scrubbing.

[Snadzies]

My caveman brain doesn't speak Video Production.

If you had dubbed over Linus with the waah waah waah trombone from the Charlie Brown specials I'd prolly have gotten just as much out of it.

 

Anyway, I like the behind the scenes videos that show how the sauce is made from time to time.

[GodAtum]

How did they convert to Cineform using media Encoder, it does not support it (https://helpx.adobe.com/media-encoder/using/file-formats-supported-export.html)?

[studdmufin]

How did they convert to Cineform using media Encoder, it does not support it (https://helpx.adobe.com/media-encoder/using/file-formats-supported-export.html)?

actually it is supported in media encoder http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2014/10/gopro-cineform-codec-settings.html

 

I'm curious if you guys used the avi wrapper or the mov? I was doing some tests with cineform after hearing how amazeballs it is. I do a lot of commercial and narrative work and would love to make my workflow faster. I typically either don't transcode or make prores. After doing some tests (trying to see if cineform can convert faster and keep a similar quality) I found that there is a big difference between the mov flavor and avi flavor of cineform. I tested with a 6770k @4.7ghz and 770 4gb and a Titan X.

 

Both Titan X and 770 4gb the mov container encoded at about 82fps at quality 4 of cineform win CPU utilization hovering around 100%.

 

With the avi wrapper the Titan X rendered at 37fps with filmscan1 and  Higher HD as well as High HD and only ~30% CPU utilization and ~5% gpu utilization. My Titan never went higher than 405MHz when transcoding The 770 4gb only rendered at 32fps using the avi wrapper at filmscan1 with similar cpu and gpu utilization.

 

Note: My tests were transcoding a clip from a t3i (just the camera I had laying around when I wanted to do this test). It was a ~6min clip 2.1GB large h.264 codec in a mov wrapper. I used Adobe Media Encoder build 9.0.2.2. I Used HWMonitor to monitor cpu and gpu utilization.

 

I'm going to have to do more tests evaluating the quality of cineform compared to prores, but from all the things I hear online it is pretty similar.

[fabiosapplou]

I've actually put together that same setup, but using a macpro as a render farm, but other than that, its basicly the same, despite i have find a way to get my dropbox linked with the system as to enable the staff of my company to send work to render from home.

It takes a while if we use the dropbox method, but is a neat way to work work between countries.

[fabiosapplou]

Amazon: http://geni.us/cIa

NCIX: http://bit.ly/1VIJ00q

 

Our workflow has improved by leaps and bounds over the past few months. Today, we explain how...

 

Can you guys tell us what is the format you export from your workstations? Before it gets encoded to h264. 

Whats the format you use to archive your videos?

 

Thank you