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DLT tape drive in NY

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By Michael Oliver -
Anyone in NYC have a DLT drive and interested in pulling the data off around 10 tapes in exchange for a case of beer? ?One of the partners found some tapes at home and wants to pull the data off. ?No datarecovery, no rush, no repair. ?Just pull whatever you can off onto a HDD.

--
Michael Oliver
mcoliver@gmail.com
858.336.1438

Flame fibre card temp straw poll ...

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By Peter Smith - Our Flame, which sits in the corner of a lightly ventilated room (output from dmesg): celerity8fc: Event: Adapter Number 1. Temperature limit exceeded. Fibre controller temperature 100 degrees C. Card temperature 86 degrees C. This looks a little bit on the toasty side to me. Your flame(s)? -- Pete Smith DevOp/System Administrator Realise Studio 12/13 Poland Street, London W1F 8QB T. +44 (0)20 7165 9644 realisestudio.com To unsubscribe from the list send a blank e-mail to mailto:studiosysadmins-discuss-request@studiosysadmins.com?subject=unsubscribe

SSA website interface to forums

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By Greg Ercolano - I wanted to post someone a link to a message thread, so I usually send them links from the SSA main page (SSA main page-> Community Content -> SSA forums), i.e. http://www.studiosysadmins.com/board/show/32/ Usually if one waited long enough, the page would come up.. but I think it's reached a point to where the browser times out before the page displays. Is the SSA forum mirrored to a mailing list archive, like gmane? -- Greg Ercolano, erco@seriss.com Seriss Corporation Rush Render Queue, http://seriss.com/rush/ Tel: +1 626-576-0010 ext.23 Fax: +1 626-576-0020 Cel: +1 310-266-8906 To unsubscribe from the list send a blank e-mail to mailto:studiosysadmins-discuss-request@studiosysadmins.com?subject=unsubscribe

renting machines in vancouver

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By Michael Oliver -
Anyone have a good reference for renting machines up in vancouver? ?Need 5 by end of next week for about two months. ?min 24GB RAM, min 2GB graphics (can be quadro or gtx), i7-3930k or dual 6 core xeons.

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Michael Oliver
mcoliver@gmail.com
858.336.1438

[OT] tea

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By Wayne Chang - at least a few people on SSA completely hate sweet tea... this picture is for you.


NFS Flame Framestore vs. 10G card data-rate

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By Dan Young -
OK - story time.

I've got a client here in NYC, who had a single flame, and bought a new one from my company. Basically, it's a pretty rippin' spec'd box - z820, 64gb, brand new peripherals (CG246's are FIRE!) - but didn't buy a stone for favor of an NFS-based framestore.?

Nothing out of the ordinary there, tons of people are doing it these days.?

So, these guys have an Arista 7148 (awesome switch, used to have one myself back at MPC NY) and a pretty legit set of Isilon clusters. In short, the one hosting both the framestore for the new and old flame is a 6-node S200, which, if you are familiar, absolutely RIPS.?

We get this new machine built, and we fail to get any good performance out of NFS. We're hitting maybe, 2-500mbps, on a crazy?roller coaster?of inconsistent data. The only other client to this cluster (which is already capable of 2.5gbps/out, by the way) is the other Flame.?

Project-wise, they're often 10/12 bit 2k, and typically run 6-800mbps for playback requirements to their stones. Pretty beefy requirements, but the cluster can totally handle it.?

So, naturally, with the numbers were hitting on the new flame, performance-wise, we're not on the mark of delivering what we need from the NFS to satisfy this Flame.?

Much deliberating, tweaking, switch config looking at, Isilon config looking at, and we come down to the fact that when the first one was installed, they had purchased a Myricom card. Now, the story goes (before my time) that when the first one was installed, they saw the same results from the Myricom card - and couldn't figure it out.?

The solution at the time the first flame was bought, was to purchase a Mellanox ConnectX-2, which at the time was a 2500$ card with a 2000$ QSFP to SFP+ adapter to get it on their 10g network. Kind of shitty, as the Mellanox is about 600$... I thought to myself, but I was wondering why.

We wound up having to use a ConnectX-3 (the 2's are disco'd, etc) - which was thankfully only 750'ish, capable of the same stuff (QDR, etc) as it's older brother, and the adapter was 40$. Wow, they have really come down in price.?

The second we put that card in, using the SAME AVAGO/Finnistar cheapie 10g SFP+s - we are getting CONSTANT 700-900mbps from this, AND from both at the same time.?

So, what I'm wondering is - optics aside, is the QDR in that Mellanox card actually worth the extra 100$? Or is it the cacheing on the card? Because AFAIK, some other 10g nerd can confirm this, I'm hoping - the Myricom cards DO NOT cache anything, or attempt to buffer - where the Mellanox cards do? Is that just a bit of extra ROM on the card that you're paying for?

Either way, in my books - if you can spend an extra 100-150$ to get a ConnectX-3, get both IB and 10g in one card, it's a freakin' no brainer over the Myricom (which blows my mind because I LOVE(d?) Myricom cards) - but I really really really can't figure out why, and vastly would like to know.

Also, I don't think I've ever seen NFS get rates like that over 10g, goddamn.

TL;DR - What is the data rate of a Myricom 10g card and why is it so much less sufficient than a QDR Mellanox dual-personality?card?!

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Dan Young
CineSys-Oceana New York
347-334-0132

Job going with ABC News NYC (Disney group)

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By Dan Young -
They don't have anyone on the list so I can't post it up on the jobs page.?
See JD below!

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Disney ABC Television Group is seeking a Broadcast Maintenance Engineer in New York.
The Broadcast Operations and Engineering Graphics Support department supports and maintains all graphics technical facilities for the ABC Television Network in New York.

The ideal applicant must have a minimum of 5 years technical maintenance experience within a television or cable facility with the following skills.
?????? Strong technical background in HD and SD digital video and audio systems
?????? Comfortable working in an IT intensive environment
?????? Strong PC and troubleshooting skills are required
?????? Ability to maintain of a variety of broadcast graphics equipment
?????? Knowledge of Chyron Camio/HyperX Automation system, Viz-RT, Autodesk Inferno/Smoke, Maya, Adobe CS and Avid (including ProTools) is a plus.

Candidate must be a self-starter.? He or she must also exhibit an ability to work with engineering, entertainment, sports and news personnel in a demanding environment.? This is a freelance position with an average of four to five workdays per week.? It requires shift work and flexible hours including nights, weekends or holidays and overtime. We are seeking qualified individuals who are energetic and willing to work in a team environment.

Benefit includes:?Medical, Dental, Vision, Basic and Supplemental Life Insurance, Dependent Life Insurance,?Basic and Supplemental AD&D Insurance, Flexible Spending Account (Health and dependent care accounts), Long Term Disability Insurance.?


Candidate should send his/her resume to?Kam.L.Cheung@abc.com?for consideration.
---

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Dan Young
CineSys-Oceana New York
347-334-0132

[OT] traceroute fun

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By Wayne Chang - traceroute -m 200 obiwan.scrye.net To unsubscribe from the list send a blank e-mail to mailto:studiosysadmins-discuss-request@studiosysadmins.com?subject=unsubscribe

NYC - Flame users group - June 19th

Chelsio iSCSI

Softimage Windows Network Install?

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By Jean-Francois Panisset -
Perhaps foolishly trying to get Softimage 2014SP1 (released today?) for Windows running off a network install. So far I've done the following:

- installed locally
- copied installed to network
- copied magic PIT file to network location, licensing stuff should be OK
- edited Application/bin/XSI.bat and Application/bin/setenv.bat to replace references to C:\ for network path

Unfortunately it crashes at startup. Any ideas? Or is it a well known fact that "Softimage for Windows won't run off a network install" and I'm justing wasting my time?

JF

the daily "battle" to stay operational.

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By Julian Firminger -
Hi list,

As we all battle to keep our own infrastructures (or our clients) up and running day to day, spare a thought for these dudes at ERT who are in a technical fight, for real, to keep broadcasting. ?Being on crew during this will be the stuff of legend.?

http://www.vice.com/read/shutting-down-ert-could-bring-the-collapse-of-the-greek-government?source=vice_iphone_app

Julian Firminger

Sysadmin, Post Production Workflow Architect, Avid Video Editor, Colorist

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Review/color grading systems

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By Anonymous - Hey all, What is everyone using for Review systems and color grading these days? We currently have a old scratch, and are looking at upgrading. Any one using resolve or something else? We don't have crazy requirements, 3D 2K HD-SDI ( 4K possible), good color tools, ability to play off a local raid/ssd for long sequences. Some sort of api to be able to integrate it into out pipe would also be awesome. Rv is a option also, but the color tools aren't were we need them.

What else is out there?

Thanks
-Brent

Avid Unity impersonation

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By Saker Klippsten -
Started new thread. 

Well here is what we got. OSnexus with    The media harmony samba module compiled into it. This allows multiple Avids to work from one shared drive letter with no problem on the same project but not from the same bin, otherwise they over wright each others bins that's because no locking is happening on the bin. 

We have a unity we are renting for 10 weeks so I am going to take the opportunity to look under the hood traffic wise and see what's going on. 


Facilis ,as some are familiar with , have this unity impersonation mode. That tricks avid into thinking its unity storage attached and activates the unity features like bin locking ,displaying who has the lock on the bin etc... 

I have never really used a unity hands on till a week ago and a freelance editor took the time to show me the workflow which I am certain we could replicate. 

Maybe it's some sort of scsi header thing which we could mimic. 

More to come. 





Saker Klippsten | CTO | Zoic Studios
310-838-0770 o
310-202-2063 d
310-350-3854 c

On Jun 17, 2013, at 2:08 AM, julian firminger <justdigitalfilm@gmail.com> wrote:

Saker,
(minor thread jack)

Where have you gotten with tricking the Avid's into thinking it's a Unity?  I had some success with this back in 2010 on FC attached workstations.  Sneaky text files and all.  What whistles are you looking at and what is your approach?  (If you dont mind sharing!)  

Julian Firminger

Sysadmin, Post Production Workflow Architect, Avid Video Editor, Colorist

Amsterdam, The Netherlands



On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Ben De Luca <bdeluca@gmail.com> wrote:
I believe the drivers all originate from teridichi and the mac driver was seen as a low priority due to the small market. 




On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 8:19 AM, Jean-Francois Panisset <panisset@gmail.com> wrote:
Very useful to know, thanks!

Has anyone tried the TERA2 stuff from Leadtek?


They are also claiming "OS independence", but their Mac drivers are 10.5 vintage, so that's not very reassuring.

JF



On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 11:57 PM, Matthew Cahill <mcahill@wetafx.co.nz> wrote:
Hey JF

I'd get in contact with them, we had one on test at MPC before I left. Can confirm we had it working with macs and they had a working kernel extension to stop the dithering hammering the bandwidth.
Worked with the terra soft switcher too! 12 cards per 4U chassis i believe.

Cheers

Matt


On 17/06/2013, at 6:43 PM, Jean-Francois Panisset <panisset@gmail.com> wrote:

Poking around the Amulet site, I'm not finding something that would be an external box on the host computer site, it seems they are also selling a PCIe card.

A big advantage of an external encoder box is that it might actually work with Macs?

JF



On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 1:51 AM, Ben De Luca <bdeluca@gmail.com> wrote:
I think our flames are full with a fibre card, sas adaptor and then a 10 gig card. 


I was thinking of something like  http://www.amulethotkey.com/products/dxr2ip a terradichi pcoip adaptor that external to the box. 
I have heard of them but havn't seen one in action or know of any one using them or what they might cost. 

My hope is one day I can link in our flames with our existing pcoip infrastructure. 

On the pcoip front do people have some thing better for the assignment side of equipment than the terridichi web controller? 










On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 1:30 AM, Dan Young <vfx.it.london@gmail.com> wrote:
Classic problem isn't it?

Yeah the tera2's are mint - no matter the f10 being strong I'd test the following wrt quality of experience;

- forced 8-bit through switch
- non-forced through switch
- forced through switch on private vlan
- non-forced on private vlan
- point to point for both

Would be interesting to hear your findings

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 15, 2013, at 14:42, Saker Klippsten <sakerk@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hit send by mistake...
>
> That's said the 8bit vs 10bit is a. interesting issue. I am still going to test and see what plays out. We currently just have a DVI patch panel. (Only have 3 flames) but all 6 Avids are Pcoip and I want them to be able to connect to the flames just as easy when my tape-ops need to swap bays around which happens more than I like.
>
>
>
> On Jun 15, 2013, at 11:37 AM, Saker Klippsten <sakerk@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I am going to be using the new Tera2 cards and portals. Noticed a big difference in quality and playback of full screen material.
>>
>> It will be going through a switch but I can do P2P. I have had no issues when routing through our force10 gear. We had one last purple Dino (summit 400) left in our MCR room because I  was to lazy to pull new fiber with LC to LC for a force10 switch . the extreme is an SC xenpack . It cannot handle PCoip more that 6 machines took it down as machines suddenly became laggy. Popped in a f10 no issues.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jun 15, 2013, at 11:10 AM, Dan Young <vfx.it.london@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Saker - remember, you need about 78-85mbps dedicated to get good performance out of XOrg extended for flame (whilst forcing an 8-bit display) - are you going to be going point-to-point with it or going through a switch? I actually had someone complain about having to be "held back by 8-bit display in the Flame GUI" when the guy was using a CG241 (an 8-bit monitor) - which was particularly amazing because there's almost no way of extending a 10-bit GUI without the supplied 75' AvenView DisplayPort cable that has replaced the orange DVI AvenView - and having a CG245 or newer Eizo.... facepalm's abounded...
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3d printing prosthetics for feature film

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By Michael Oliver -
Anyone have a recommendation for a 3D printing company in NY? ?Looking to print prosthetics for feature films. ?Anyone know what printers out there are top dog these days? ?Is Stratasys top dog? ?http://www.stratasys.com

--
Michael Oliver
mcoliver@gmail.com
858.336.1438

How to get basic prores support in Nuke7.x linux

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By Jimmy Christensen -
I don't know why I haven't thought of this before, but the libav used for the ffmpegReader and ffmpegWriter actually has prores support. It's just blacklisted.

A simple way to enable it again without re-compiling it :

sed -i 's/prores/proves/g' /opt/Nuke7.0v8/plugins/ffmpegReader.so
sed -i 's/prores/proves/g' /opt/Nuke7.0v8/plugins/ffmpegWriter.so

I cannot guarantee for colorshifts etc., but hey it's quicktime anyway....

- Jimmy

Mac OS X Automounts

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By Michael Miller - Hi all, All the discussion, and excitement (that I share), over the fixing of the bug with NFS mounts in OS X has me wondering -- What do you all use for automounting your NFS shares in Mac OS X? AutoFS, FSTAB entries, Startup items? Why do you use the method that you do, any benefits you feel one method has over another? I have a ton of Mac editing systems on NFS mounting our Isilon storage. We have a lot of different AD users on every one these machines (that are bound to our domain), and I periodically need to reconfigure the mounts on the computers for all the users. Just wondering what others with similar setups have found to be their preferred method of dealing with network mounts. Thanks. Mike To unsubscribe from the list send a blank e-mail to mailto:studiosysadmins-discuss-request@studiosysadmins.com?subject=unsubscribe

My latest ebay purcahse

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By Saker Klippsten - As many of you know I source lots of network equipment from ebay. My Latest Ebay snag are? 5 Z800 workstations.

Needed to build some more Avid machines and my Z400's do not have enough slots to handle all the cards. I also needed to build a couple more Play back machines using RVIO and a couple decked out Heiro machines to compliment our Flame Ops. While I typicaly use supermicro for everything. I stick with HP for Avids, Flames and Dedicated Playback machines because of how versatile the Z800 is as well as quiet. It has plenty of power and slots. I purchased them really for the Chasiss and motherboard. I have a bunch of X5690 procs I am going to stick in there and ram as well but not bad only spent only 3,490.00 for 5 decent workstations. Specs below.

1. Graphics Card
2. PCoIP Card
3. Black Magic Card/AJA/Avid Card
4. Chelsio Card
5. Atto FC41 card for Unity

So I went onto ebay and snappged 5 of these? Z800 for dirt cheap. There are 7 left!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=321110289854

Specs

HP Z800

Single Intel Xeon Quad X5550 (2.66GHz)

12GB ram ( 3 - 4GB Dimms )

1TB HDD

1GB FX3800

DVD-RW SAS PORTS



-S


OT: Javapocalypse

Tracking software Poll

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By Saker Klippsten - Hey everyone I just received what looks like the most biased review from one of our tracking sups when they tested some tracking packages.? We own licenses of all but we want to start spending our time focusing around one.
package. While I understand there is no silver bullet. Cost is always a factor.

I wanted to take a poll? on what tracking software most of your artists prefer or the company as a whole prefers..

1. Syntheyes
2. PF track
3. 3DE
4. Boujou.

Thanks!
-S

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