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What’s wrong here: deck, tape, IoHD or the operator?
I was going to try and solve this in an older thread, but my issues got steadily worse by the end of the day and now I’m not sure what’s going on. I’ve listed the issues below; since I’ve limited experience with analog decks and the IoHD I’m hoping someone has seen this before and can help me narrow down the cause — is it the deck, the Io, the cables, FCP, or something I’ve done?
Project specs: upconverting Beta material(SP and Digi-) to Apple ProRes HQ 1080 29.97, pillarbox. Approx. 24 tapes, 1-4 mins. per tape. AJA control panel shows: 525i29.97 in, 1080i29.97 out, TC set to SDI 1 (I set it to FreeRun but it won’t stick). Deck is rented Sony J3 attached via 422 deck control and SDI.
Issues so far:
1. Most audio is 7 frames out of sync. I saw this post further down (https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/150/858540#858540), so clearly I’m not alone with this issue. I’m contacting AJA tech support tomorrow, but it looks like this issue is still a mystery, no? I’m thinking it’s a separate issue than what follows though…2. Intermittent deck control. When I initiate log and capture, there is ‘jittery’ behavior: the play and stop button lights pin pong back and forth and the TC display at the top right is constantly changing even though the deck is paused. Sporadic loss of deck control, dialogue box that states “Tape Trouble. Check VTR…” This happens while it;s idle and even in the middle of capturing.
3. Lots of timecode breaks. This afternoon when I started capturing I had only an occasional TC break, but by the end of the day (at about tape #18) I was unable to go more than a few seconds without a break. I was unable to capture via In and Out points, it kept telling me it couldn’t find timecode while it was rolling to the In point (and the TC was there, with plenty of pre-roll). Capture Now worked for a while but at the end of the day I couldn’t capture much by any means.
These issues all got steadily worse over the course of the day. I shutdown everything once to let it cool off and restarted it in sequence (RAID, deck, IoHD, Mac) but the problems remained. Oldest tape is dated 2003 but I think they’re mostly new dubs, and I can’t imagine I would get 5 bad ones in a row like I did at the end of the day…
TIA,
JKMachine specs: MacPro 2.66, OSX 10.5.3. 6GB RAM, 3TB eSpeed RAID, twin 23″ ACD, FCS2 with .03 upgrades, QT 7.4.5, IoHD drivers 5.1.2 and latest firmware.
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27 Replies
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Thanks for making a new thread about this.
1) Make sure in the Kona control Panel your primary format is 525i29.97 and your secondary format is 1080i29.97, then in FCP, choose the appropriate 1080i29.97 easy setup.
2) This is a known problem with some Sony decks but totally fixable, check this out for details:
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1942 You don’t have to worry about the PCIe slot config, but the rest of the info is pertinent (make sure to read the whole thing and note the RAM config).3) See number two.
Now, you don’t have anyother fw devices on your bus, correct? Your drives are running fast enough?
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[John Knowles] “TC set to SDI 1 (I set it to FreeRun but it won’t stick). Deck is rented Sony J3 attached via 422 deck control and SDI. “
FCP cannot read TC over SDI only over 9 pin serial.
“Sporadic loss of deck control, dialogue box that states “Tape Trouble. Check VTR…” This happens while it;s idle and even in the middle of capturing. “
This usually means there is
1) an issue with the deck or
2) your tape does not have continuous TC laid down ( unless you create the tape it’s never sure)
3) try to shorten the pre-and post roll settings in FCP to be less than 2 seconds, since I am going to guess that there may not be enough timecode on the tape before or after the area you are trying to capture,“I was unable to capture via In and Out points, it kept telling me it couldn’t find timecode while it was rolling to the In point (and the TC was there, with plenty of pre-roll). “
see #3 above – you may have done this to yourself with too much pre-roll
“Capture Now worked for a while but at the end of the day I couldn’t capture much by any means. “
OK this means that there is something wrong with your computer and its setup-
shut all other apps
DO NOT let your computer sleep EVER-
Trash the FCP prefs (all of them)
reboot the computer.“Oldest tape is dated 2003 but I think they’re mostly new dubs, and I can’t imagine I would get 5 bad ones in a row like I did at the end of the day… “
Don’t be so sure- are you looking the TC window. one frame missing is enough to create this issues when trying to do something related to capture – especially with some JH3 players ( technically not a deck – it can only playback)
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD -
THE UPDATE:
First thing this morning I tried Jeremy’s suggestions from the Apple article about the .txt file to cut down on the frequency of FCP ‘polling’ the player over the serial cable (all the other items I had already done or tried). BTW, I’m capturing to a SATA RAID and have no other FW devices attached. Anyway, no dice — just a bad as the night before. Also, the text that Apple supplies in the article is wrong — the file it created caused an error message when FCP started up. (I got a replacement version of the same plugin with one additional line of text from AJA; works fine)
I decided to return the J3 and pick up a JH3 for my pile of HDCams, see if that went any better. I got the deck configured to remove the pulldown so I could capture 1080i29.97 instead of 23.98psf. So far so good — but no timecode or deck control! I swapped out the SDI cable and serial cable with new ones, still nothing.
So I called AJA tech Support (who are just great, very patient) and Rudy led me through a series of tests where we trashed every preference under the sun, zapped the PRAM, and even tried the VTR exchange app. What we determined was that A) it’s not FCP, B) the serial port appears to be working, and C) there’s no apparent conflicts on my system setup or user account. We were stumped. In desperation I called a friend who uses a lot of AJA products and he had in fact seen an IoHd freak out once before.
From excessive heat.
I realized that the IoHD was situated close to the deck, a monitor and other warm gear, and it had been on all day yesterday (plus some of the gear was on overnight). So it was pretty hot. My friend said that his original solution had been to stick it in the fridge for 5 mins.; not wanting to mess with condensation I stuck it in front of the A/C vent until the case was nice and cold. Then I plugged it all back in and rebooted. And it worked! I had deck control back and TC. I was able to batch capture about 5 tapes this evening, although there’s still some lingering deck control weirdness. Right after a new tape is inserted I still get the “new tape” prompt a few times, and then an occasional hiccup during batch capture on some tapes where I would just lose deck control for no reason until I re-opened log and capture. Those I might chalk up to a bad tape or two, and maybe the deck is a bit twitchy still; I’m getting another one tomorrow hopefully to test it out.
I still have the glitch with the audio out of sync by 7 frames, will have to keep talking to AJA on that one. I’m also worried that something in the unit may have gotten fried a bit, so a replacement may still be in my future…
JK
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Thanks for the follow up, John. Good to now that text is wrong. iw on’t send that out anymore. I too have the plug-in from AJA, but it’s not always available. I had hoped that the Apple article would at least be the step in the right direction.
Putting the ioHD in the fridge. Now that’s a new one.
Jeremy
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The Apple article definitely helped, and I think anyone who is unfamiliar with things like RAM placement in the Mac Pros (lots of confusion out there) would benefit from it. And I had never heard of a solution like that text plugin before, so that was a nice “magic bullet.”
BTW, here’s the text from AJA’s version of the plugin for anyone who’s interested. The first line is the only one that’s different from the Apple version:
// Enabler to disable alternate ETT polling mechanism
startuponly
FileVersion(60243, 41391, 68)
codedictput(0,”kgDeviceControl”,”useAltETTPolling”, “value”);
Save this as a plain text file, name it “DisableAltETTPolling.txt”
JK
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Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the water…
I plugged the IoHD into a 46″ LCD yesterday for a client to watch the 1080i footage I’ve been capturing and BAM — I got the bad kernel panic of death screen. Restart the Mac, try again. Same thing. Repair permissions, trash prefs, no joy. Unplug the Io and everything (FCP, project, footage, RAID) works normally.
It DOES support this kind of video previewing, no? I’m convinced I have a lemon at this point. I can’t get a hold of tech support this weekend but I will first thing Monday and try to get a new unit.
Oy ve.
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Kernel Panic? That’s usually a system error.
Are you sure you have 5.1.2 installed and have you uninsalled and reinstalled them lately?
When’s the last time you reinstalled your system?
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My system is a fresh install on a new hard drive, same with the Pro Apps. I installed everything a month ago and there are no previous installs of anything on the drive. I’ve had the IoHD since July 2nd and I installed the latest software immediately.
The kernel panic was reproduceable and happened 7 times from doing the same thing: playing back DVCProHD material via the HDMI port. Without the IoHD attached, the system, the drives, the clips, FCP all function normally.
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[John Knowles] “The kernel panic was reproduceable and happened 7 times from doing the same thing: playing back DVCProHD material via the HDMI port. Without the IoHD attached, the system, the drives, the clips, FCP all function normally. “
In FCP or out via one of the other ports on IoHD?
the question does the IoHD’s other VidOuts work???If it is a reproducible issue – please contact support with detailed information.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD -
the question does the IoHD’s other VidOuts work???
I’m able to view HD material down-converted to 525i via the S-video port. I was unable to test the component out with the LCD because I didn’t have the right cables and the client was waiting on me. What I wound up doing was routing the 2nd DVI signal from my graphics card to the HDMI port on the LCD (DVI>HDMI cable) and use Digital Cinema Desktop Preview.
If it is a reproducible issue – please contact support with detailed information.
Doing that right now; I hadn’t heard back from them on Friday so that’s why I posted here over the weekend…
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