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Multibridge Extreme not working/audio problems outputting to digi beta
Hi all,
Like the title says, my multibridge extreme card stopped working today, in front of the client no less. It worked perfectly fine yesterday.Here is what is happening. I opened FCP and the project loaded fine. I went to play a sequence and I noticed that there was no video coming out to my external video monitor. I went to move the cursor to a different part of the sequence and I got the beachball. I didn’t think it was big deal at the time. I have everything backed up so if something happened to the files from force quitting (it’s happened to me many times) it would just be a big inconvenience. After the same thing happened three more times I concluded it was the multibridge. If I switch FCP to not show external video, I can play my sequences, but I have no audio. Even if I switch the audio output to anything other than “Decklink Audio” I still have no sound in any programs. No itunes, no quicktime, no sound in anything.
The computer knows that there is a card in the PCI slot, I just can’t tell if it knows what it is. I still have a Decklink system pref and “DeckLink Audio” as a sound out option, but those might be from the Decklink software I have installed.
Another strange thing that is happening, which leads me to believe it has something to do with the PCI slots, is that sometimes after restarting, my external SATA raid (Tempo SATA E4P controller card from Sonnet Tech) doesn’t mount and the PCI setup assistant opens. This just started happening today. The multibridge documentation says to keep that card in slot 4 and Sonnet Tech documentation says to keep that card in 2 or 4 so I have it in slot 2.
In a thread on another board someone mentioned similar problems and their solution was a clean OS install. I don’t have time to sleep or use the bathroom let alone re-install the operating system. Does anyone have any suggestions? I’ve already lost several hours and need to get this fixed faster than ASAP.
Here is what I am using
Mac Pro 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
2 GB ram
Multibridge Extreme card with the latest drivers and the breakout box
Sonnet Tech Tempo SATA E4P card for external SAT raid
latest FCP versionto kill 2 birds with one stone, here is my audio problem:
a few weeks ago I out put material to digi beta using a Sony DVW-A500. I uses XLR cables for the audio and a SDI cable for the video. I did the same thing a few weeks before that with no problems. I double checked the tapes before mailed them and the audio sounded FINE. The people that received the tapes said the audio was completely distorted and unusable except for about 15 minutes out of the 2 plus hours I sent. They said they tried a few different decks all with the same problem. I talked to the place where I rented the deck and we did some tests and everything worked fine. What could have caused this? Did I connect the deck wrong? Could it be a fluke? I need to figure out if I did something wrong before Thursday when I rent the deck again.-Jon
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9 Replies
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Hi Jon,
The fact that your Multibridge Extreme stops responding and your SATA array sometimes fails to mount at startup, leading to the Expansion Slot Utility appearing, suggests something wrong with your PCI Express setup. Please go to /System/Library/CoreServices/ and open the Expansion Slot Utility. Are the Multibridge card, Sonnet card and graphics card all listed as “running at maximum speed”? If not, you might need to change to an alternate PCI Express profile to ensure there is enough bandwidth for all three devices.
In regards to your audio distortion problem with the Sony DVW-A500, you mentioned that the recipients of your tapes tested them with several decks and reported problems on all of them. However when you retested your tape(s) on the Sony DVW-A500, all appeared to be fine. Could it be that the deck on which you tested your tapes was the exact same deck that you originally used and that it has a problem? If so, you might not have been able to hear the problem but others would.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Luke,
thanks for your help. The Multibridge and Sonnet card appear to be working fine today. I did play around with the expansion slot utility yesterday trying different configurations but nothing worked yesterday. Maybe the computer just needed a rest.As far as the audio problem goes, I think I might need to explain it better. I rented the Sony deck and made my tapes. I played back the tapes using the rented deck and picture and audio appeared to be fine. The people I mailed the tapes to had audio problems across a few different digi beta decks which led back to a possible error on my end while outputting the tapes. I talked to the rental place and they said that no other people had problems with audio and that same deck. We even did a few export tests and played them back on a different deck and had no problems. Could this have just been a fluke? I’m 99% sure I had the deck connected to the multibridge box correctly, but if I didn’t, would that cause the problem?
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Hi Jon,
It is very important that you launch the Expansion Slot Utility and verify that the Multibridge card, Sonnet card and graphics card all listed as “running at maximum speed”. There must be some technicality that causes the problem to come and go with the Multibridge and Sonnet hardware and computers don’t need sleep!
[Jonnyres] ” I’m 99% sure I had the deck connected to the multibridge box correctly, but if I didn’t, would that cause the problem?”
I doubt you would have been able to output video or audio at all if the Multibridge was not correctly connected to the deck so I don’t think that is the explanation. I do wonder a little about the cables you are using between the Multibridge and the deck and whether they might be the source of your problems. Can you also try simply output SDI video with embedded audio to the Digibeta or is there some reason why you are using XLR cables?
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
The computer needing sleep was a joke. Everything seemed to be working better than usual today.
I’ll try embedding the audio on Thursday. The XLR cables are fairly new so I don’t think they could be the problem, but why would I not hear the distortion if they were the problem?
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Luke, the Expansion Slot Utility sounds like it could be helpful. Does it only exist on Intel Macs? I can
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Hi Chris,
The Expansion Slot Utility is not relevant to G5’s and so you will only find it on Intel versions of Mac OS X installed on the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro allows you to allocate more or less bandwidth to various PCIe slots whereas the bandwidth is pre-allcoated on the G5 and cannot be changed.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Jon,
I agree it doesn’t make much sense that the cables might be the problem and yet nothing about this problem seems to make sense. You’ve used a deck that others have used successfuly but only your tape appears to have an audio distortion problem even though you could not hear it. The tape has reportedly exhibited the problem on multiple decks but not on the one you originally used. Can you get the tape back and so you can listen to it again and see if distortion can now be heard or if you detect no problem?
Please let me know how you get on with the embedded audio test and also what you see in the Expansion Slot Utility.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Luke,
I’ve done some outputs just using the SDI cable and things seems to be working fine. I tested the tapes by connecting the deck to an NTSC monitor and a mixer and everything seems fine. I’m waiting for the problem tapes to return so I can take them to the rental place and we can try and figure out the problem. -
Everything worked perfectly with the output. The client was the reason we used XLR cables for audio the last time. It took some convincing but he finally agreed to audio over SDI. thanks for all of your help
-Jon
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