drift / sync issue with ProRes playback

[Miska Draskoczy]

Is it only ProRes thats losing sync, or all codecs? The super weird thing for me is that its only ProRes – uncompressed or dvcprohd work fine. I had to put off troubleshooting with AJA tech support for now because I had to actually, you know, edit 🙂 Unfortunately in dvcprohd until this gets solved. Hopefully I’ll have some downtime soon to tear my system apart again. If you find a fix in the meantime, please post here. thanks.

-miska

[Andrew Freiband]

We’ve definitely seen it with multiple codecs, not just ProRes. Though there may be a data rate issue involved which might exempt something like DVCPro HD; I would expect to see it with Uncompressed and None, as we have. We’re working on it with Aja presently, will definitely report.

[Patrick Troy]

we are having the same issue
ProRes drifting out of sync
extremely frustrating its been about 8 hrs of 12 so far trying fixes and workarounds.
Costly with deck and monitor over $500 for the day and still no result
having to make a dvd so client has something at least for tomorrow screener
It seems you guys have had this problem for the last 6 weeks at least and noone’s got any relief
how have you been playing out?
unable to at all?
The only difference here is we are on PAL so its 1080i25.
How can Kona let us dangle like this?

heres hoping there’s some movement at the station.

cheers
Patrick

[Rich Rubasch]

Hi guys….We discovered the same issue today. Ours has more than sync drift, we are also seeing a sort of judder on playback. We tested the crap out of it with all kinds of source tapes, setting the deck differently internally, easy setups, sequence settings, control panel etc. Here’s our findings. DVCProHD worked perfectly. ProRes422 HQ worked just fine. ProRes422 DID NOT KEEP SYNC.

This was ALL 1080i 24p footage.

DVCProHD runs at 14mbps, ProRes HQ runs at about 28 mbps and ProRes runs at about 18 mbps.

2008 Quad Core MacPro
Leopard
QT 7.4.5
Either Kona 5.1 or Kona 5.1 NDD
Kona 3 card with breakout
Panasonic 1200A deck

Only DVCProHD and ProRes HQ got the job done.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Patrick Troy]

Frustrating as all getup!

We are stuck with a feature on ProRes that we cant playout through the card we have.

Im taking the quicktime to a lab for an emergency playout (hopefully) as we want the highest possible quality to show distributors etc.

As I didnt do any sync tests when we set up the system almost 12 months ago Im wondering if it is endemic to the system or something I have done upgrading FCP, QT, and Kona drivers along the way.

MacPro Dual Quad 5gb RAM
3Tb Sanman RAID
OSX10.4.11 FCP 6.0.3 QT7.4
KONA 3 w 5.1 driver

[Patrick Troy]

Is it essential to have a sync generator in the chain?
and if so why only with ProRes?

[Gary Adcock]

[Rich Rubasch] “Here’s our findings. DVCProHD worked perfectly. ProRes422 HQ worked just fine. ProRes422 DID NOT KEEP SYNC. “

how was the material converted –

I am finding that the Base version of ProRes is best for software conversions- it drops the 8 bit material into the 10bit space without trying to up-sample the content to fill 1024 levels. ( HDMI was the exception here, as the cameras I tested only had 8Bit HDMI signals)

Whereas the HQ version of ProRes is best used for direct capture via Baseband (HDSDI, Component)

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD

[Gary Adcock]

[Patrick Troy] “or something I have done upgrading FCP, QT, and Kona drivers along the way. “

that would be my guess.

latest and greatest on the mac usually means that you should have the OS version as updated as the QT and Apps you are using, from your note the QT is not even current for FCP 6.0.3

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD

[Patrick Troy]

Gary

thanks for your post
we still have the issue.
the AJA people are loaning us a Gen 10 to see what effect that has.
Someone suggested trying an IO as it is made specifically for ProRes.
We took the 75gb Quicktime to a bureau to get a playout for the screener.
They had an LHe which worked fine.

Mystery with our quicktime – the player is QT 7.5 but the pref pane says 7.4.
Just followed the software update so not sure ow that occurred or what it means.
regards
Patrick

[Patrick Troy]

Hi there

just got off the phone with Elijah at Digistor in Melbourne Australia
who pinpointed the problem. Thank You.
Kona card in wrong slot
reseated it – ran the Expansion Slot Utility -bingo! – back in sync

I had seen the Expansion Slot Utility mentioned on other threads but as the system was set up by Mac techs I thought it couldnt be set up wrongly. And it seemed to refer to newer Macs.
Lesson – Mac Tech does not equal AJA tech

regards
patrick