How to view an 8k clip in 100% quickly?

Hiya,
Working with 8k red files now. I was wondering if anyone has some tips on how to work with them practically.

1) When I review them in Redcine X I often zoom in at 100% to check sharpness. Is there a fast way of doing that? A few ways that come to mind:
a) Do an 8k timelime, but that will be SLOW to work with so rather avoid it
b) Drag them into a timeline and magnify with 4 times. This works but is quite time consuming. Is there a ay to do it in the Media browser somehow?

2) Performance is REALLY SLOW in a 1080p project. In Redcine X I can almost view 8k in realtime, but in Davinci I get 8-10fps. I get 15fps in Half res (easily full speed in Redcine X). Only at quarter res do I get 24fps.
We have 2x14 Cores 3.1GHz and 2xTitan X with 128GB Ram, Raid with 700MB/s read. Using 14.3.0.014 Window 10.
Edit. Performance mode was off. If I turn it on I get 24fps in all resolutions but it looks as if playback is only in half resolution.

With Performance on in 4k UHD I get the following
24fps after a while in fullres. This looks better than the 1080p project

Thanks for the help!
/Andreas

It doesn't really work in Resolve like in RCX. The wavelet codec has one big advantage: it can quickly be decoded in fractions of whole number factors like 1:2, 1:4 etc.
Both RCX and Resolve are doing this, but in Resolve you either set it manually per clip or for the whole project, while RCX can scale the decode when you want to check focus at 100%. What we are doing here is checking, sorting and trimming our footage in RCX and then move the result into Resolve per XML. Works really well for au, but we keep it all in HD and never switch to full decode.

But if you really need to work with full 8K in Resolve, you'll need to build a massive workstation, preferably Linux based.

What we are doing here is checking, sorting and trimming our footage in RCX and then move the result into Resolve per XML. Works really well for au, but we keep it all in HD and never switch to full decode.

But if you really need to work with full 8K in Resolve, you'll need to build a massive workstation, preferably Linux based.

Thanks for the reply. We don't need to work in 8k. Mostly 4k. It is just checking focus that I am interested in really or cropping in. Interesting that you sort in Redcine X. I find that Redcine X is very slow with skimming through the timeline fast. But maybe you guys have a Rocket X or so? I found Davinci was easier to quickly go through material, but maybe now in 8k Redcine X is better again.

/Andreas

In Resolve it's just more tedious, like changing settings in the RAW tab all the time.
I admit that RCX is slow when skimming long shots.

If you use performance mode than Resolve will "silently" switch RED debayering to half resolution, so this is probably why you see it.

Interesting that your 28 cores at 3.1GHZ is unable to decode 8K Red at 24p. Check your CPU when you play it - is it close to 100%?

Interesting that your 28 cores at 3.1GHZ is unable to decode 8K Red at 24p. Check your CPU when you play it - is it close to 100%?

It is not close to 100%. Jumping between 17-70%
In performance mode it is pretty solid at 50%

Not sure what is going on. In Redcine X CPU is used at 100%
/Andreas

70% for some systems is a lot. At 50% you already maxing all real cores.
Jumping from 17% to 70% is strange and suggests some issue. What is this RED data rate against your raid speed? You have to have some margin, specially when raid is based on HDDs.

Also check Playback Setting in User tab in main Resolve preferences, specially "Minimum Interface Updates During Playback".
You can also try disabling 1 GPU and see how this affects playback (specially CPU behaviour).

Red data rate is around 270MB/s but the RAID can handle around 700MB/s.
I tested the UI Setting but could not see any difference.

Tested with 1 GPU for UHD playback. 8fps. CPU is around 24% GPU according to task manager was at 50% I wonder if the GPU could be the limiting factor.

Has anyone been able to playback a UHD timeline with 8k Red files?
/Andreas

Yes, this seems to be the case, but your project is set only to 4K or HD?
In this case if decoding can be performed in realtime then later it's only 4K or HD data traveling and going to display. What if you do 8K project ? I wonder what is holding GPUs going realtime- debayering/8K frame data...

You could try to download Scratch Play and check how 8K behaves there.
Are your both GPUs maxed in case of both active?
Does RCX play it realtime at full debayer?

Another test- export 8K DNxHR or Cineform and try playing this in 4K project.

You could try to download Scratch Play and check how 8K behaves there.

yes -- mistika, which is often used for this kind of really demanding work, would also an interesting target for an objective comparison. (=> https://www.sgo.es/mistika-review/)

Yes, this seems to be the case, but your project is set only to 4K or HD?
In this case if decoding can be performed in realtime then later it's only 4K or HD data traveling and going to display. What if you do 8K project ? I wonder what is holding GPUs going realtime- debayering/8K frame data...

You could try to download Scratch Play and check how 8K behaves there.
Are your both GPUs maxed in case of both active?
Does RCX play it realtime at full debayer?

Another test- export 8K DNxHR or Cineform and try playing this in 4K project.

Hiya, I did a test at work where I have another computer setup and had some interesting results.
We have a 2x 10 core 3.1GHz with 1 Titan 1080 Ti.

In Redcine X this actually played back much better than at home with 2xTitan X, even though we have faster CPUs at home. This to me sounds like the limit could be the Titan X cards (last generation after all). I will bring home the 1080 Ti cards from work and test at home in the weekend to do more benchmarks on our rig at home with both 1 card and 2 cards.

I tested the projects with 1080p and UHD both. The reason why I need better playback is because I want to zoom into the 8k video, otherwise halfres would be ok.
/Andreas

If you want to just view image then I think Scratch Play may be better (its zooming is so smooth and quick). It's free.

Tried in Davinci 15beta3 at work. with 1x1080 Ti.
I can playback half res in 24fps on a 1080p timeline. I can also play it back on UHD timeline, but it can stutter a bit here and there. So it is better than when I'm home since half res would not playback either.

Scratch seems nice but I found the performance was not so good. For fullres it would only play a few frames per second, still interesting program.

/Andreas

Interesting. For long time it was much faster than Resolve for such a things like playback+ some LUT etc.

Interesting. For long time it was much faster than Resolve for such a things like playback+ some LUT etc.

well -- 8k RAW debayering is a very special case...

but again: try mistika resp. the free 'mistika insight' training edition (although, it may not like your 8k raw footage -- see: https://www.sgo.es/forums/topic/mistika ... lium-clips), the 'mamba' compositing tool (which is right now available as a free public beta version again) or request a trial licence for 'mistika ultima'. this tools are really exciting, if you need ultimate performance. although they also come with extremely well designed color grading capabilities, i still wouldn't see them as an attractive alternative to most resolve users. they are not as user friendly and simple to use as resolve, but nevertheless they are incredible powerful and perfomance optimized.

Not really as all have to go over same RED SDK. You can't read and debayer RED in a different way than over RED SDK as far as I understand. Don't know how much you can "customise" this part of the chain.

Not really as all have to go over same RED SDK. You can't read and debayer RED in a different way than over RED SDK as far as I understand. Don't know how much you can "customise" this part of the chain.

yes -- i agree -- that's why i was speaking about a "special case", because of the reasons you mentioned this particular task shouldn't be seen as representative for the general performance of an application -- although, some optimization possibilities are always remaining.

I'd suppose that the chain of operations in DR doesn't allow the adaptive scaling you have in RCX.

I second that to all my knowledge (and we have been using Red starting with the Red One) all applications have to go through their SDK. They want to protect their 'secret sauce' that way.

Hiya,

I have done benchmarks in both Redcine X and Resolve 14.3 in Windows 10.
This is from Redcine X.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/153325412@N06/41533232714/in/album-72157697069366825

Result is that I need 2x1080 Ti to play it back smoothly. The Titan X can process the files quickly but for some reason playback is just never fast.

I am not quite finished with Davinci benchmarks, but have done all the 1080 Ti tests.
On a UHD timeline I can playback Half Debayer Good (but not premium). It will stutter a bit and then it will playback in 24fps so it is borderline.

Full Debayer and having performance mode seems like the most practical, when you stop playing it drops to full debayer and while playing it is a bit more blurry.

If I look at the CPU in Full Debayer only 50% is used. And the GPU is being used 14%-23% for both GPUs so in this case Davinci is clearly not using the hardware to its fullest potential. Hopefully it is something that can be optimized by Blackmagic. The reality is that to playback 8k it needs to use the CPU at 100% and GPUs at about 60%

Thoughs?
Can anyone playback full debayer on a 4k timeline or a 2k timeline?
Andreas