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G-Raid no good for DVCPRO HD?
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I want to clarify: My company has medea scsii raids too, but we bought the G-raid (and I cannot explain why exactly) so that we could capture on set with a laptop. Anyhow, I have been trying to run DVCPRO HD from the drive thru the FW800 and am getting tons of hiccups and freeze frames. The box claims that DVCPRO HD is no problem for the drive. I have also run the AJA disk speed tests on the drive and for DVCPROHD 720p60, I am getting write speeds of 43.9 mb/s and read speeds of 70.5 mb/s…I compared these to Walter’s speed tests in his review and they seem to be comparable, if not slightly better. So why am I having these issues? Any suggestions Walter?
thanks,
Eli -
[Walter Biscardi] “FW400 should not be used for anything but regular DV, period. And even there, you’re giving up a lot of RT performance with FCP.”
I’m inclined to agree… since we’re talking about hard drives.
Of course I should allow for the fact that our Aja Io does a great job of 25mb/sec uncompressed SDI work, all over the FW400 bus… but that’s not a case of hard drives. It seems like I’ve been noticing that of late many people (not you Walter) are starting to allow the data rate and the hard drive throughput rate to be interchanged in conversation, when they are two entirely different things. Or, maybe I’m wrong…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
[Eli Mavros] “I want to clarify: My company has medea scsii raids too, but we bought the G-raid (and I cannot explain why exactly) so that we could capture on set with a laptop. Anyhow, I have been trying to run DVCPRO HD from the drive thru the FW800 and am getting tons of hiccups and freeze frames. The box claims that DVCPRO HD is no problem for the drive. I have also run the AJA disk speed tests on the drive and for DVCPROHD 720p60, I am getting write speeds of 43.9 mb/s and read speeds of 70.5 mb/s…I compared these to Walter’s speed tests in his review and they seem to be comparable, if not slightly better. So why am I having these issues? Any suggestions Walter?”
You cannot capture DVCPro HD reliably on a laptop. Apple does not recommend capture of DV100 via a laptop. The only people who seem to recommend this is Panasonic. In fact, if you capture DVCPro HD directly to a laptop, you’ll notice the quality is reduced.
As for editing DVCPro HD on a laptop with the G-RAID, I really don’t know why you’re having problems. I’m cutting my own independent film which was shot on the Varicam and I’m not getting any dropped frame issues. All footage was captured via Firewire to the G-RAID via a G5. Sometimes I cut on my Powerbook and sometimes I cut on my G5 and either way, I don’t get dropped frames on the project.
Keep in mind you won’t get two streams of DVCPro HD with a laptop, you need a dual G5 to get that.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Is the drive brand new? Have you tried say, 10bit Uncompressed media on it? What version OS/FCP are you running? Can Quicktime Player play the DVVPROHD media without hiccups?
That’s a pretty good drive. I have one myself that gets used daily, and for 10bit Uncompressed it’s been a far more economical solution than trying to add more storage to my SCSI JBOB.
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[CharlieX] “Is the drive brand new? Have you tried say, 10bit Uncompressed media on it? What version OS/FCP are you running? Can Quicktime Player play the DVVPROHD media without hiccups?
That’s a pretty good drive. I have one myself that gets used daily, and for 10bit Uncompressed it’s been a far more economical solution than trying to add more storage to my SCSI JBOB.”
I can’t agree with this advice. The G-RAID is marginal (in my mind unnacceptable) for 10 bit uncompressed. Since I’ve been doing 10 bit through SDI longer than most, I feel qualified to say that.
As far as economical, it simply isn’t the best choice. A SATA array is much better and similarly priced. I will never understand the attraction of these G-RAIDs. I’m not saying it’s a bad product… it’s just nothing special and better can be had for the same price.
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
mitch,
what do you recommend in replacement(sata) of a g-raid firewire800(similar as you suggested)? thanks…
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[jaser] “what do you recommend in replacement(sata) of a g-raid firewire800”
Hi,
For a 4 drive array the Seritek 4 port cards are a good choice. Either external with their enclosures or internal with the Macconnect Kit(s):
https://www.barefeats.com/hard46.htmlhttps://www.barefeats.com/quick.html
https://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_id=306
July 14th, 2005 — MaxUpgrades has released their MaXConnect kit that puts 9 drives total inside your G5 Power Mac. I had a chance to preview this product. It’s ingenious. I’ve heard from readers who put drives is in the optical bay of the G5, but their drives were just sitting there vibrating and heating up. MaxUpgrades has devised a mounting solution that keeps the drives from oscillating and allows air to move over and under each of the four drives. I mounted four drives in our G5 Power Mac test system. The drives ran at the same temperatures as the drives in the factory bay.What do you do with your SuperDrive? I put mine in a FireWire enclosure. I ran iDVD to make sure it would recognize it. Burned the DVD just like normal.
The optical bay kit handles up to 4 drives. The CPU bay kit handles 3 drives. You can order each kit separately or together.
Best Wishes,
Mitch
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[jaser] “what do you recommend in replacement(sata) of a g-raid firewire800(similar as you suggested)? thanks…”
Well first, I wouldn’t use anything with two drives, but if I did I’d use two SATA drives in a single external case. Why? Because they will be faster, and I know it’s only a matter of time until you add two more drives anyway. Realtime is one of those things where you don’t realize what you’re missing until you see somebody with a lot more.
SATA clearly kicks in at three drives and higher (four IMO). I’d go with four SATA drives in two Firmtek cases with a Firmtek 4-port SATA card. A 1Tb will run around $1,100 total (which is less than the new 1Tb G-RAID.
People who have watched uncompressed 10bit over here realize that there aren’t getting any realtime by comparison. Like Walter alluded to in his post, people are going too minimal in the disk sub-systems and they aren’t aware of how it’s affecting the performance of their FCP system. We’re building race cars here… just having the best engine won’t get you the trophy. Everything… the computer, the video card, the amount or RAM, the disk array… they all count.
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
[CharlieX] “That’s a pretty good drive. I have one myself that gets used daily, and for 10bit Uncompressed it’s been a far more economical solution than trying to add more storage to my SCSI JBOB.”
I wouldn’t recommend this drive for 10bit uncompressed work. Only one stream with limited RT on FCP really slows down the workflow. 8bit is fine, but 10bit you really want a fast array such as Fibre Channel or SATA.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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G4, dual 2.0, 2GB ram, FCP 4.5, G-Raid 500…
–> worked like a charm.
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