Edit To Tape issues

[Dan Riley]

I have exactly the same issue. I’ve been doing edit to tape to Digibeta via SDI
for 4 years with no problem up through a G5, FCP 5 and my Aurora Pipe Studio.
Now with the Intel Mac Pro and AJA KONA 3 and FCP6 (and up to 6.0.3)
and Sonnet eSATA RAID, your description is exactly what happens here.
I’ve been trying to track it down but have not found any solution.

Seems to me it’s gotta be the AJA card and communication issues with the
DigiBeta deck but this is only conjecture. We have a patch bay for changing
connections to the AJA for machine control and maybe it just doesn’t like it
when those connections are changed. Like you said, after a restart, it works.
So probably the shut down and restart clears out the AJA card’s control
issues. Or maybe it’s something completely different.

Dan

[Adam Taylor]

spooky!!

my system started doing very similar things yesterday. Throughout the day it got worse, culminating in several kernel panics, and not being able to get all the way through startup before the system crashed.

Applecare proved invaluable, and after a couple of procedures the mac is back to perfect health.

First suggestion was to reset the PMU. To do this restart the mac by pressing the power button and then keeping it pressed until you hear a second set of chimes. This didn’t work on my mac so the second suggestion was a PRAM reset.

This is done by hitting the power button, then immediately after hearing the chime press and hold apple, alt, P, R until you hear the mac restart again. This took a minute or two to happen…just keep holding!

That was all it took to reset my system back to normal.

I can’t say it will cure your problem, but you never know!

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

just noticed your on 10.5 and an Intel mac….i don’t know if my suggestions are relevant as i’m using 10.4.11 on a quad G5.

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

UPDATE>>>>>

it seems the solution i put forward yesterday is not a solution after all. My mac has just restarted having the same problem with FCP. Namely, when using the Edit to Tape function the software freezes. Force Quit does not quit it properly and FCP refuses to reload (even though its icon continues to display the triangular marker underneath on the dock).

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Kevin Monahan]

Are your drives initialized properly with Mac OS Extended?

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Dan Riley]

In my case the answer is yes.
If I’m editing with no issues and all is well with FCP 6.0.2 and
SD and HD shows, all kinds of formats…. then the minute I want to
output to tape, then software freezes…… how does that point to
a drive issue? Don’t you think this points toward comm errors?

The one area with the Mac OS that is flaky is networking.
You can change a network connection or disconnect an ethernet
cable and the Mac will refuse to shut down or it will freeze.
So I think this is related to the AJA card talking to our
Sony deck or the Panny 1400 deck or the Sony Beta 2800 deck.
Maybe those of us with trouble have something connected wrong
although the AVID MC in the next suite over is not having this trouble
and it goes through the same comm patch bay.

Dan

[Kevin Monahan]

Well, freezing is often a drive issue in my experience. A lot of people don’t set up their drives right, glad yours is good. You’re are using RS-422 device control?

Have you tried trashing prefs? Perhaps something corrupted them.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Dan Riley]

I should have tried the prefs thing earlier but hate to do it cause I have to
go through FCP and reset everything. I’ve read there is trouble with those
programs that keep track of the prefs in their Leopard and/or FCP6 versions
so I don’t use them. Anyway I’ll try trashing prefs and see if that helps
and report back.

Thanks,
Dan

[Crys]

Well, I finally resolved the problem! For those that have AJA LHe:

I called AJA tech support and they sent me a text file and told me to follow these steps:

1. Quit FCP and Kona control Panel

2. Take the .txt from the attached (for those that want the txt file, you can email me at crys94ATyahooDOTcom) and go to

3. Library > Applications Support > FCP System Support > Plugins

4. Drop it there, restart, and launch FCP

After that, they told me to download the latest update, KONA LH/LHe Drivers Version 5.1 NDD.

Before dropping in the text file, you might want to try the update first and see if that solves your problem. Ever since I followed these steps, everything has been working great!