Apple Prores 422 Codec dropping frames

[Gary Adcock]

[VintageSeltzer] “Hello, I am unable to capture video without dropping frames and aborting . I have tried both the Aja Kona2: 720p 59.94 ProRes 422 and the Prores 422 HQ with no luck. Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5 GHZ, 4 GB DDR SDRAM, AJA Kona2, Facilis Terrablocks Fiber Channel Storage, Final Cut Studio Am I missing something? Any suggestions?”

read some of the other posts but it appears that the non-intel desktops are not suited to LIVE capture of material to the Apple prores codec in any HD format.

Have you tried capturing SD? it is not your storage, is it the CPU’s inability to compress in real time.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Vintageseltzer]

Thanks Gary. I have not tried any SD capturing with the Apple ProRes yet, and probably wont even bother. The company I work for is planning on an intel mac upgrade in the next month, so I will conduct all my tests then. Thanks again for your input.

[Chris Borjis]

[gary adcock] “it appears that the non-intel desktops are not suited to LIVE capture of material to the Apple prores codec in any HD format.”

You have got to be kidding me.

That is totally unacceptable and I really hope apple is doing something to improve this situation.

That a less than 1 year old G5 Quad system can’t capture HD in the Pro res codec is a major “up yours” to apples customers.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Borjis] “That a less than 1 year old G5 Quad system can’t capture HD in the Pro res codec is a major “up yours” to apples customers.”

Have you tried it on a Quad?

The ProRes codec is a major advancement, but it takes a lot of horsepower to compress/decompress. That’s why something like the ioHD (with the codec built in to compress/decompress) will help ‘older’ systems.

Jeremy

[Chris Poisson]

FYI my first attempts yesterday to capture to Prores failed miserably all the way around. Tried everything. This morning still no luck. I can capture 8 bit uncompressed 1080i, but no Prores anything. It really sucks. The machine (dual 2 gig with 4.5 gigs ram, SATA RAID 0) can’t keep up.

[Walter Biscardi]

[JeremyG] “The ProRes codec is a major advancement, but it takes a lot of horsepower to compress/decompress. That’s why something like the ioHD (with the codec built in to compress/decompress) will help ‘older’ systems.”

Absolutely true. The older systems, even one year old, simply won’t be able to keep up with the Pro Res codec in realtime if it’s a dual processor machine, at least from what I’ve seen. We have a Quad G5 here and hopefully that one will be able to do it in realtime.

But of course, you can easily capture DVCPro HD, create a ProRes timeline and then work like that. Then you render before output, but using the Pro Res codec.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Walter Biscardi]

[Borjis] “You have got to be kidding me.

That is totally unacceptable and I really hope apple is doing something to improve this situation.”

Not really. ProRes is a major move forward with a codec and if you want to use that for capture (which is not necessary) then you will need a lot of horsepower to do so.

As gary suggests, you can also purchase an Io HD for an older machine or laptop if you wish to actually ingest using Pro Res.

As with all technology, if you want to absolutely keep up, you need to plan to update your computer ever 12 months. What I do here is we have three edit suites and I generally purchase a new computer every 8 – 10 months. The newest one goes in one suite and the others slide down. So my oldest machine is about 2 1/2 years old.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Bryan Keith]

I dont have the upgrade yet, but from your experience so far, do you think a Dual 2.5 g5 with blackmagic HD pro is going to drop frames capturing as pro-res?

[Chris Borjis]

[walter biscardi] “Not really. ProRes is a major move forward with a codec and if you want to use that for capture (which is not necessary) then you will need a lot of horsepower to do so.”

And it goes back to reminding me of when Steve Jobs pimped G5 architecture as so much faster and better than pc stuff and now his foot is in his mouth.

oh well, what can one do? nothing really, just spend more money I guess.

Still though, a just over a year old Quad G5 PCI-E with 4gb of ram and 4GB Fibre channel disk array should have been able to handle this and I really hope it does.

[Shane Ross]

[Borjis] “Still though, a just over a year old Quad G5 PCI-E with 4gb of ram and 4GB Fibre channel disk array should have been able to handle this and I really hope it does.”

Transcoding to, yes. Capturing too…hope so. It is a very unique compression that takes a lot of horsepower.

[Borjis] “And it goes back to reminding me of when Steve Jobs pimped G5 architecture as so much faster and better than pc stuff and now his foot is in his mouth.”

Well when Avid introduced the DVxHD codec, the older Avid systems couldn’t handle it. You needed a newer more powerful one that could. This isn’t new. When a powerful complex feature comes along and takes a LOT of horsepower, many older models won’t be able to handle it. That is typical.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net