Smoke, Flint on LINUX …

[Anonymous]

❓ ❓ Hi guys,
i consider to buy either the bundle ‘TV Suite’ or Smoke and Flint
separetely. What are the pro/cons of these systems, beside the
8 bit limitation ?? I have Flame/Inferno running on Octane and Onyx, but
i don’t have any experience with TEZRO or LINUX !!

Opinions, Comments ??

thx,
mark

[kuban]

linux is fast. a lot faster than your current boxes. you will like it.

[kalthans]

the new linux systems are very, very zippy. in general the UI and interface responds much quicker on those boxes than the older SGI’s.

i really like the linux systems for how fast they handle timeline soft-effects in Smoke….they beat my Octane2 hands-down.

as for flint on linux vs. flame on SGI….i think the two main deficiencies having to work in 8-bit (not much of a problem if you are working NTSC/PAL) and lack of the modular keyer. other than that they are basically identical (ok…fine…you don’t have Motion or 3d tracking but as soon as discreet rolls out their new optical flow and tracking technology in the new flame?inferno? releases i think you’ll see features like that ripple down to flint pretty soon.

by way of comparison, i took a complex comp i did on flame (30+ layers, particles, motion-blur, high anti-aliasing etc.) and rendered it on the flinux box and Onyx2…the flint box rendered it 3 times faster!

depending on the type of work you’re doing (broadcast vs. film, etc) i think you’ll be very very happy with the new IBM based linux systems.

be careful when you buy, though…because i know discreet has some near-future plans to release some HD functionality on those IBM platforms, and we were told that our existing linux boxes won’t support the newer cards that will be required

k

[kuban]

kalthans wrote:

(ok…fine…you don’t have Motion or 3d tracking but as soon as discreet rolls out their new optical flow and tracking technology in the new flame?inferno? releases i think you’ll see features like that ripple down to flint pretty soon.
k

flint v9.5 has been released a few days ago, and discreet timewarp can now do optical flow based timewarps. But motion module(realviz retimer) is still there in inferno only.

By the way, flint_linux_HD was demoed on NAB. Linux boxes should already be capable of doing HD. Maybe discreet will support FX4000SDI in the newer linux versions, and that will be a lot better system.

[Anonymous]

I am happy to hear something like this, because it is a big
cost saver comparing to the SGI systems, my opinion: they prices are way too high, but Autudesk China is doing Sales Business, Europe and the States are just dreaming about, even though there a lot of cracked boxes on the market here.

PERFORMANCE => We have Lustre running here as well and i must say,
WOW !! the IBM Linux system handles hugh data files really well and as you
mentioned they are faster then the SGI brothers. I will pay attention to the card issues, but i’ll use the boxes mainly for commercials and if we have to do film stuff, we get the image files from the scanners, so no problem at all !!

But thanks to your comments anyway..

Regards,
Mark

[kalthans]

mark,

i’ve only used the flinux systems sparingly, but i don’t think you can have ANY media on they system higher than 8bit…from what i understand this is a discreet-imposed limitation to differentiate it from flame/inferno

when you initiate a wire transfer from another system or import an image it is forced into 8bit space

somebody please correct me if i’m mistaken about this

k

[Anonymous]

I imagine that this limit of 8 bits occurs for processing reasons, me I seem that also to one he has limited when Tezro with Onyx is compared. In the case of the Flint/Smoke for same Linux or of the Flame/Smoke for SGI, always the use of systems is necessary as the Stone to be able playback in real time?

[Andy Milkis]

If you try to copy 10 or 12bit material from another discreet system, or filesystem to a linux product, it is reduced to 8bit. That is a limitation of the hardware — the NVidia board used for graphics is 8bit only.

-Andy

[Anonymous]

Hello,
if it’s so that even the internal processing is limited to 8 bit, then i will have to think about, because in case we also use it for film work with complex keying or color-correction and then this limitation, hmmm…seriously wondering ,i just thought the I/O cards do have this limitations only ?!?!

If the hardware problems, why they don’t let the image files untouched
and if you want see a sequence(2K) in realtime, just use RAM player??

Am i wrong, or ??

Mark

[Xavier]

amilkis wrote:

If you try to copy 10 or 12bit material from another discreet system, or filesystem to a linux product, it is reduced to 8bit. That is a limitation of the hardware — the NVidia board used for graphics is 8bit only.

-Andy

I think this is a limitation of marketing. Octane and Onyx2 have 8 bit graphics too and they render 12bits just fine.

Shake, After Effects and Fusion can all render at 16 or 32 bits on hardware similar to Flinux.

— Xavier

[eltopo]

So if Linux works that good, when they are going to migrate Flame and Inferno to it?

[John Montgomery]

No…its actually not a limitation of marketing, but a hardware issue. As much as I have issues with product marketing decisions (like no MK in flint, for instance)…can’t put the blame there this instance.

Xavier wrote:

amilkis wrote:

If you try to copy 10 or 12bit material from another discreet system, or filesystem to a linux product, it is reduced to 8bit. That is a limitation of the hardware — the NVidia board used for graphics is 8bit only.

-Andy

I think this is a limitation of marketing. Octane and Onyx2 have 8 bit graphics too and they render 12bits just fine.

Shake, After Effects and Fusion can all render at 16 or 32 bits on hardware similar to Flinux.

— Xavier

[Xavier]

johnmont wrote:

No…its actually not a limitation of marketing, but a hardware issue. As much as I have issues with product marketing decisions (like no MK in flint, for instance)…can’t put the blame there this instance.

How do you explain that Burn renders 12bits just fine on Linux then?

— Xavier

[Andy Milkis]

Discreet’s systems software (FFI/FS) have always been very closely integrated with the graphics hardware. Flintux and Smoke on Linux were specifically written to work with the nVidia graphics board and DVS video boards in the system. The nVidia board chosen is an 8bit board. I am sure that there are marketing issues, but as far as I am aware, that is the state of things.

With respect to burn renders…burn in entirely a software renderer. Many of the things that are so interactive about a discreet system are things accellerated in hardware. OpenGL intensive tasks (particles, for example) render slower on burn then on a workstation with an OpenGL card. Check out this fxguide article for more info:

http://www.fxguide.com/article146.html

-Andy

[BKM]

I may know nothing here… but perhaps the 8bit limitation isn’t really for rendering/processing.. but for stable realtime playback?

I believe Smoke does alot more than just render…. it edits I hear.

And concidering that this is a Port from IRIX, it may not be the best yet.
Flint just got HD… that’s a start, soon I’ll bet 10bit too.

When it’s stable, the SGI 64bits/RAM will be the only reason to go for that expensive hardware. However, the hardware changes to Linux will be forever in flux as that technology is faster evolving.

BKM

[Author]

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