A great post by Frank Glencairn on his blog that I would like to share.
Roger Deakins predicts the end of film.
Monthly Archives: February 2011
Building a “Hackintosh” Mac Pro clone – Part 2 – The Specs
Let’s look at the current top of the line off the shelf Mac Pro’s, the 8-core and 12-core systems.
8-Core
Two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” processors
6GB (six 1GB) RAM
1TB hard drive
18x double-layer superdrive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB DDR5
12-Core
Two 2.66GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” processors
6GB (six 1GB) RAM
1TB hard drive
18x double-layer superdrive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB DDR5
Now let’s look at the proposed Hackintosh.
12-Core
Two 2.66GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” processors
16GB (eight 2GB) RAM
5 x 1TB hard drive RAID 0
1 x 1TB system drive
1 x 1TB swap drive
2 x NVIDIA GTX285
Okay, lets break that down. We’re not going to get into component prices yet, just identify the components we need.
12-Core CPU specs:
Intel Xeon X5650 Six-Core 2.66GHz 12M Cache, 6.4GT/s QPI, 95W, 32nm
Motherboard:
*Intel S5520SCR
*I’m choosing the more expensive S5520SCR because it provides 12 DIMM slots, 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, 1 x PCI Express x 4 slot and 1 x PCI Express x 1 slot. Note, the two x16 slots will support the two double width graphics cards.
Memory:
8 x Kingston 2GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC CL9 DIMM with Thermal Sensor (16GB total)
Graphics:
2 x Nvidia GeForce GTX285 512bit GDDR5
HDD:
7 x 1TB Seagate Constellation ES (3.0Gb/s, 7.2K RPM, 32MB Cache) 3.5” SATAII
Optical:
25x DVD-RW Drive
Now from ServersDirect our shopping basket comes to $4231.58 without the graphics cards, those are tough to find and will be dealt with separately. From Apple, the same machine with only 6GB RAM and a single 1TB hard drive is $4,999 (granted it includes the Radeon HD 5770 graphics card which they charge $250 for), and with 16GB RAM and only four drives instead of 7 we’re already at $6,199
From Newegg the internals (they don’t have the chassis) come to $3874.81 compared to ServersDirect’s $3629.61 so ServersDirect is cheaper.
Now lets look at finding those Nvidia GTX 285′s. I can source them new here in South Africa (for now) at ZAR R3,761 each, which is $520 or I’ve been tracking them on E-Bay from $250 each. So let’s add $500 for two of them.
That means we can put together a killer 12-Core Mac Pro clone with 16GB RAM, 5TB RAID0, 2 x 1TB system drives (one OS, one swap) and two GTX 285′s and OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard for $4,760 (ZAR R34,619.28 as of today) plus shipping via air freight to Cape Town! It’s in a 3U rack mount chassis with the 5 RAID drives in hot swappable caddy’s (although configured RAID 0 you wouldn’t want to pull one out).
All it needs is assembly!
Additional Items:
Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme – $999 (occupies 1 x PCI-X x4 slot (x8 physical))
Da Vinci Resolve – $999
Apple Final Cut Studio – $999
Notes on expansion:
This system will be optimized for Da Vinci Resolve and Final Cut Studio, the choice of the now discontinued Nvidia GTX285 is that it is still to date the most high performance card with full OSX compatibility. “Upgrading” to newer GTX400 series or 500 series cards is dependent on drivers and official Resolve support.
In this system configuration there are no more available slots for a Red Rocket. I plan to install a Red Rocket in the second Windows workstation. Redcode RAW workflow in Resolve would then depend on having previously transcoded Redcode RAW media to DPX on the SAN.
Notes on compatibility:
The new Apple motherboards are based on the Intel 5520 chipset from what I can deduce, which should make the combo I have chosen relatively straightforward.
This is not guaranteed to work! This is an experiment and there isn’t much out there on the net about dual Xeon hackintosh builds.
Notes on networking:
I’m foreseeing a problem with installing a 10gE adapter in this system. The small tree adapters need a 8 lane PCI-Express slot and there aren’t any open when configured with two GTX285′s. A 4 port gigabit adapter for an aggregated link may be an option in a x4 slot as long as there is OSX driver support.
Building a “Hackintosh” Mac Pro clone – Part 1 – The History
This is really a story of two companies and a few really innovative, intelligent men who saw the future and changed the world.
Founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak effectively created Apple Computer on April 1, 1976, with the release of the Apple I, and incorporated the company on January 3, 1977, in Cupertino, California.
The history of Microsoft began on April 4, 1975, when it was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque.
These two companies began a bitter and just-about legal rivalry that spans the past 35 years to win the hearts, minds and loyalty of the world. The world would quite literally never be the same again.
Both companies have had major ups and downs, successes and setbacks, interlocked but seperate, dependent but rivals and competitors. Together, they have literally definined much of what our lives have become today.
The two companies have crossed paths in a tangled web many times over the past two decades, which I won’t write about here, but it really is very interesting reading.
Wikipedia recalls one of the most important events to take place in 1997:
At the 1997 Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be entering into partnership with Microsoft. Included in this was a five-year commitment from Microsoft to release Microsoft Office for Macintosh as well a US$150 million investment in Apple. It was also announced that Internet Explorer would be shipped as the default browser on the Macintosh. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates appeared at the expo on-screen, further explaining Microsoft’s plans for the software they were developing for Mac, and stating that he was very excited to be helping Apple return to success. After this, Steve Jobs said this to the audience at the expo:
“If we want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us that’s great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and we don’t do a good job, it’s not somebody else’s fault, it’s our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective. If we want Microsoft Office on the Mac, we better treat the company that puts it out with a little bit of gratitude; we like their software. So, the era of setting this up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over as far as I’m concerned. This is about getting Apple healthy, this is about Apple being able to make incredibly great contributions to the industry and to get healthy and prosper again.”
Today, Apple Inc is the worlds second largest company next to Exxon Mobil.
However, some things never crossed lines until far more recently, and that brings me back to the subject of this series of posts, we’re talking here about running OSX on x86 hardware.
The early days – pre Intel (PowerPC G3/4/5 emulation)
The first time I successfully installed Mac OSX on a x86 platform it was not far off brain surgery. There was a decent community on the internet and while there were various PPC emulators in development, the best by far in my experience was something called PearPC – http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/ If you visit the project there you can see it harks back to 2004 with the latest posts dating back to 2005.
Most of you reading this who have heard the term “hackintosh” have only come across the concept long after Apple decided to switch to Intel x86 architecture which was first announced by Steve Jobs in 2005 at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). In fact the fact that one can assemble a purpose built Apple Mac clone has only become general public knowledge for the past two years or so.
Of course Steve Jobs would rather you didn’t. There is for instance a “Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext” located /System/Library/Extensions on the volume containing the operating system. According to Wikipedia:
The extension contains a kernel function called page_transform() which performs AES decryption of “apple-protected” programs. A Mac OS X system which is missing this extension, or a system where the extension has determined it’s not running on Apple hardware, will be missing this decryption capability, and as a result will not be able to run the Apple-restricted binaries Dock, Finder, loginwindow, SystemUIServer, mds, ATSServer, translate, or translated.
However, this was never a matter of stealing for stealing sake. This was an outrage that the majority of personal computer users in the world were forced to choose between Microsoft Windows or well, a different flavour of Microsoft Windows. I’m not purposely ignoring Linux here, but let’s face it, only recently have there been Linux options on the table that are beginning to look like real alternatives.
Those of us PC lovers who hated Windows 98, didn’t think much of XP and wished we could have the swish new OSX without the proprietary Apple hardware and price tag would go to great measures to make our Intel hardware pretend it was PPC.
Looking back, it was awful, low level nuts and bolts tinkering and it never really worked, while you could convince OSX to install, there were features that didn’t work, convincing audio and video hardware to play along with the charade was a nightmare. Forget about actually running any Mac apps, it was enough just to run the OS, and even then your mouse cursor moved literally a second or so after you actually moved your mouse. It was a dark dark age indeed for would be Apple lovers without an Apple.
Rumor had it that there was a mysterious Apple project code named “Marklar” whereby Apple had x86 systems natively running OSX, but it was all deeply locked somewhere inside Apple’s laboratories with security rivalling a nuclear missile silo.
Still it was enough to know firstly that it could be done, Apple were doing it, and secondly Apple must have enough reason to bother with it in the first place.
That reason was simple enough, the PPC architecture was quickly reaching a dead end, and Intel were starting down the warpath to 64-bit multi-core domination. The early Xeon platforms, and more importantly, Intel’s technology roadmap into the future were potent enough to convince Steve Jobs to make the switch.
That switch changed everything.
I happened across a beta version of Apple’s x86 version of OSX as you do… okay maybe I didn’t just find it… I probably spent a good amount of time looking for it from dubious sources, but in any case, with far less tinkering than any of the emulators I had OSX installed on my Dell Inspiron laptop with sound and almost full video card support.
I found that without the geek factor challenge, without much actual interest in Final Cut and without owning any hardware that would really properly work with OSX, I dropped it for a while, hearing and reading about others building full component for component clones that would function exactly as the real thing.
Now I have a need…. the time has come for me to delve into Final Cut Studio, I cannot continue professionally doing what I do without it. Also I have abandoned my dreams of running a fully equipped Assimilate Scratch DI suite for Da Vinci Resolve instead. Yes, the time has come to build my dream “hackintosh”, and I will share my own recipe and experiences with you as well as a running total of cost and savings compared to going with Apple hardware.
The case for good cases
There is a very good reason why millions of dollars of equipment on a movie set are kept in military grade hard cases. Gear often moves in vans, battles through air freight, even helicopters to remote locations and is loaded and offloaded by hand. Accidents happen, and even though insurance has you covered, it won’t help you to do your job in a highly pressured environment when it may take days or weeks for crucial equipment to be replaced.
Even more unthinkable is the loss of terrabytes of irreplaceable data, resulting in complex insurance claims and costly re-shoots, not to mention the inevitable job loss of those deemed responsible.
Ok, I’m already breaking out in a cold sweat just thinking about it, so lets not go there.
A little money spent on protecting the mission critical data and IT components of today’s data centric film set provides the best insurance of all, and that is the subject of today’s blog post.
Specifically, I have recently been introduced to the products of a company called SKB – http://www.skbcases.com/ and even more specifically, their range of rack cases here – http://www.skbcases.com/industrial/index.php
For the purposes of my kit, the two cases of primary interest to me are the 30” deep roto shock rack cases, varying from 4U to 10U and the standard 19” rack cases also varying from 2U to 12U to suit whatever may be going in them.
SKB Above: 30” deep roto shock rack cases
Above: SKB standard 19” rack cases
Canford Audio high density 3Gb/sec HD 75 ohm BNC panel
What I have in mind, is to have my A/V connections on the back of the rack, and that means one requirement of the case is to have enough depth for the server chassis to mount from the front end, and leave enough space at the back end to route all the cabling from the various cards to the connection panels screwed into the back of the case.
That means I need a pretty deep case. The Chenbro server chassis are 660mm deep and I will need to allow at least 100mm or so for cabling. This makes the SKB 30” deep shock rack cases ideal, since they provide 762mm depth rail to rail.
These cases also provide shock protection, crucial for a 24 drive SATA RAID server for instance.
There are further considerations however, and that is the height required, and the weight of the whole thing. Here are the units I need to house.
Storage server – 5U
Apple “hackintosh” workstation – 3U
Windows workstation – 3U
Dell Powerconnect 6224 switch – 1U
Asus GigaX switch – 1U
That’s 13U in total, 11U of it are server chassis that are 660mm deep. The largest of the SKB deep rack cases is only 10U in height.
So, I have two choices. I either choose a smaller server chassis or split the gear over two cases. The largest unit is the storage server, the Chenbro RM51924, and the only way to shrink that is by reducing the RAID from 24 drives to 16 drives… meaning I can use the smaller 4U 41416B chassis or going for a slim internal DVD drive and so forth but keeping 24 drives with the RM41824. Reducing the drive count to 16 is a possibility as I could simply install 1.5TB drives instead of 1TB drives and still arrive at a total of 24TB with perfectly adequate throughput. With the Chenbro RM31616, I could get 16 drive bays in a smaller 3U form factor.
Above: Chenbro RM31616 – 3U, 16 drive bays
Above: Chenbro 41416 – 4U, 16 drive bays
Above: Chenbro 41824 4U, 24 drive bays
The other option I considered briefly is to build the workstations into low profile 2U chassis, however, this is impossible due to the number of full height cards that need to be accommodated.
Above: Chenbro RM31300 – for my “hackintosh” and Windows workstations – 3U, supports 5 full height cards.
The solution therefore is to choose a 4U (16 or 24 bay) or 3U (16 bay) chassis for the storage, and keep the two 3U chassis for the two workstations. This adds up to 9U or 10U, fitting in the deep case with space for breakout cables and connection panels at the back.
All that is left out are one or two network switches depending on if the storage server chassis is 3U or 4U, which can be accommodated in a cheaper standard depth case, of either 2U or larger so I have space for future equipment. The only cabling between the two cases is then standard cat5 ethernet.
Next up I will discuss the internal organs of building an 8 Core Mac Pro clone for the Da Vinci Resolve and FCP workstation.
Rich’s game plan for 2011
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything new on Digital Cinema Demystified. Some of you have been following my previous posts on the build up of my home brew open source SAN storage server.
So what’s the point? What’s the big idea here?
Well, the point is that I have a lot of gear laying around, which was bought and has yet to earn it’s true value back. There’s people that have put money into me, and I need to generate a return for them as well as a living for myself.
I have some pretty marketable skill-sets if it’s all packaged right, and that’s what this is about.
Three years ago I ordered a Red One, and went down the DI (digital intermediate) route with Assimilate SCRATCH. It was a disaster. SCRATCH is fantastic, but I simply didn’t have the resources to finish what I started. I still can’t afford SCRATCH.
Now it’s time to finish, and technology exists now at a price point where this is possible, mostly thanks to Blackmagic Design with their fantastically affordable hardware and Da Vinci Resolve.
The plan is to cater to the growing need for on-set DIT’s (digital imaging technician), data-wranglers and real-time immediate color grading. The digital future of cinema that I saw five years ago has happened and now there is a real need for technicians who can problem solve on the fly around camera and on-set post, and deal with vast amounts of image data quickly and efficiently.
This means that one of my goals for 2011 is to consolidate what I have at my disposal, spend as little additional cash as possible, as wisely as possible, and maximize the value I can add to any digital production that employs me as a DIT and data wrangler.
This blog is about the technology, and here’s what we’re going to build.
1 x 24 drive SATA RAID SAN server
1 x 8 – core “Hackintosh” running Final Cut Studio and Da Vinci Resolve
1 x 8- core general purpose Windows Adobe CS5 workstation
We will run aggregated gigabit ethernet providing up to 500MB/sec over quad links from workstation to server, with a Dell managed switch that also has four 10gE uplinks.
The Hackintosh will run two Nvidia GTX285′s, a Red Rocket, and a Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme. The Windows box will also run an Nvidia GTX285.
It will all be combined into compact high impact flight cases (preferably one but it may need to be split over two) with BNC and XLR termination panels in place and all break-out cables and cabling internally routed and secured.
Monitoring will be via a Panasonic pro-series plasma, first over HDMI, and later over dual link HD-SDI with the addition of the optional input module for the display. The plasma will also feature a high impact flight case.
A Tangent Wave panel and Wacom tablet will provide input surfaces also.
