Io HD Units and DRIVERS!

[Gary Adcock]

Umm…

Aja is not going to release a driver for a working product until it works correctly.

Apple writes some of the interconnect protocols for the IoHD.

I believe that the Apple Engineering team have been pretty busy of late with the new FCP, Snow’s release and working on things like getting 90% of the xpress cards on the market to not kernel panic when inserted.

IMHO FCP 7 is not ready for PrimeTime productions just yet. Buy it and start working with it, but hold off on real projects that require output until the first update is out, the driver for the IoHD should be very close on the heels of that release.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows for the Digitally Inclined
Chicago, IL

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Michael Sacci]

Also with the IoHD there is more than just a driver, since it will handle the encoding of the new prores codecs (which PCI cards don’t) it takes a bit more work. I’m sure no one wants these drivers out more than AJA, but as Gary says, they will come out when they are ready, which is what we want. Later and right trumps Earlier and buggy.

[Shaun Gish]

We’re supposed to accept the delay because Aja is expected to deliver a driver that works correctly but it’s ok that Apple released an OS that doesn’t?

I have had nothing but major issues with Snow Leopard and have rolled back on the machines I installed it on. Everyone that I’ve worked with has had the same issues (application crashes on save/open dialogs) and I have a fairly large sample size.

Funny though – I bought my IoHD about 2 months before the FCP 7 upgrade.

I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with the IoHD (and I’m a huge AJA fan). I intended on purchasing a new macbook pro for field capture with it and then found out about the lack of express slots on everything but the impractical 17″

I’ve also been unable to get it to be stable. I did all of the firmware updates and the thing was flat out buggy. I was considering returning it prior to the FCP 7 update but then I kept hearing about how wonderful it was and how the new drivers would add ProRes proxy and 4444 support so I decided to wait.

I’m still waiting.

Right now I’m considering it the worst purchase I’ve made in a long, long time. I should’ve gone with a Kona card for my tower and just dealt with field acquisition in a different way (KiPro…)

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Shaun Gish] “I’ve also been unable to get it to be stable. I did all of the firmware updates and the thing was flat out buggy.”

How so? What were you trying to do? I have had great success with mine out in the field.

Did you call AJA support?

Jeremy

[Christopher Wright]

things like getting 90% of the xpress cards on the market to not kernel panic when inserted.

WORD!!

and add PCIe ESata cards to that list as well!

Dual 2.5 G5, IO, Kona LH, IO, Medea Raid, UL4D, NVidia 6800, 4Gig RAM
Nehalem Octocore 12 GB Ram, Nvidia card, MBP, MXO, MXO2 mini, Windows Vista Adobe Studio CS4, Vegas 9.0, Lightwave 9.6, Sound Forge 9, Acid Pro 7, Continuum 6, Boris Red 4, Combustion 2008, Sapphire Effects

[Kevin Paolillo]

The argument that it’s okay to be late, because we’d rather have a driver that works? That’s incredibly LAME. Imagine if Toro said please don’t move in to your new house, because if you do, our lawnmower won’t work for 2 months. Just give us time until we figure out how to make it cut your new lawn. That’s unacceptable. You buy a product. It’s supposed to work as advertised. I’m sorry, but you can’t market yourself as a company who works hand in hand with Apple on everything and be this out of step. It’s not like Snow Leopard was sprung on AJA last minute. It’s clear they dropped the ball, and they are not willing to communicate with even a sliver of information to the very community that supports them, save for an unchanged line buried deep on their company website. At the very least come out with a frequently updated homepage note that keeps us posted on progress. This was handled very poorly and with every passing day with no progress or communication, the anger towards your company grows. Are you listening AJA?

[Will Griffith]

>>Are you listening AJA?

Kevin, I’m not sure how long you have personally dealt with AJA, but
The IO HD works perfectly on 10.5 with FCP 6 and has for quite some time.
As far as them “listening”, they do all the time and provide excellent customer
service.

FCP 7 is not ready for prime time, and 10.6 is not even compatible with our XDCAM
software, so please give blame where blame is due (hint.. APPLE).

We are now a month in and they have not addressed many things, such as critical
problems with Color and many driver issues.

Thanks
Will Griffith

[Jeremy Garchow]

Hey, Will. I agree with you about AJA. They certainly do listen, and listen good. If the ioHD isn’t ready I am sure they have very good reasons. I am curious, though, on your thoughts of why FCP7 is not ready for prime time? 10.6 certainly isn’t, but FCP7 on Leopard? You aren’t the first to say so, so I’m just wondering what reasons you have run in to. For me, FCP7 has been awesome, but we shoot a ton of AVC-I so it’s been fully worth it for us.

[Kevin Paolillo]

Will, I agree Apple deserves some blame, but here is what I take issue with. A click away from “available soon” is the IOHD product page where I am told this-

“Co-developed with Apple, Io products work with Final Cut Pro to provide a seamless non-linear editing experience, with all the features of proprietary systems – but without the expense and hassles.

All of AJA’s Io products have been co-developed with Apple for use with Final Cut Pro to deliver powerful video/audio capture, editing and video production – all in a single, integrated system. Each member of the family comes with special Final Cut Pro presets to facilitate ease of use.”

If you want to place the blame on Apple, fine, but Aja should do it upfront on the product page, and let people know clearly that this product does not work with the the new Mac OS that is preloaded on every new machine. Further, it’s not my job to manage the relationship with Aja and their “co-developer”. I don’t tell clients sitting in my suite, “I’m sorry, but you see, uh, the reason you can’t see your project on the big screen or I can’t output to tape is because of some software issue Aja and Apple are having.” That’s my problem, and they expect me to deal with it in a timely manner. Similarly, Aja’s product, the IOHD doesn’t work with Snow Leopard. A lot of other products now do. That’s Aja’s problem. I expect them to deal with it in a timely manner.

To be fair, I’ve gotten good service in the past from Aja, which is exactly why I’ve trusted their products to be an integral part of my suite. But I call it like I see it, and when a release for Kona comes out in days but IOHD is still a paperweight with the new OS a month after release and four months after Snow Leopard was unveiled to developers at WWDC, to me and a lot of other users that’s AJa dropping the ball, plain and simple. And numerous unreplied to emails asking simply for a status update, a new similar product with a big spot on the homepage that supports Snow Leopard (IO Express) and a completely unchanged “available soon” message give me no indication that the ball, if not yet ready to be thrown, has at least been picked up. Maybe a few less than pleasant posts from customers on well respected community forums like the Cow will move this issue up the priority list, or at the very least, get AJA publicly communicating what the issue is, and how long it will take to resolve it, so I can plan my business accordingly. Because after a month of zero communication from Aja I’ve got to decide soon on whether I lose money, shut down, and deal with a backtrack install or make a phone call to Blackmagic or Motu. Or maybe Aja can overnight me an I/O express until the problem is fixed? My client and I need solutions not excuses.

[Shaun Gish]

Yea – that pretty much sums up my issue… Just communicate with the customers and we won’t be nearly as pissed off. The biggest issue for me is that alot of my work is onlining clients offline work and several of my clients are using the new version of FCS… I have to jump thru hoops to get everything to work just so I can finish their edit and output to tape. It’s incredibly frustrating and all I really want is a rough timeline… is it going to be 3 more weeks or 3 months?