kona lhe erratic capturing – anyone able to help please?

[Bob Zelin]

you write – We use the codec DVCPRO HD.I am using PAL.

PROBELM 1: DROP FRAMES So far we have captured 28 of 40 tapes.When we try and capture now we get the message in FCP 5.1 – dropped frames. But the SATA drive has 300 GB free. We have moved the kona to the top slot hoping that it will stay cool. We think maybe we are having heat issues.So the card will capture ok for a while.But we try and bring in whole 1 hour tapes and sometimes it will stop and say drop frames. If we wait. Turn eveything off then sometimes we can get the whole tape done.

REPLY – you will never get reliable capture of DVCProHD from a single SATA drive – you should ABSOLUTELY have TWO SATA drives stripped together in RAID 0 for reliable capture at DVCProHD. Also, you should have a reliable
SATA host card, like the Sonnet E4P (if you are using the Quad PCI Express computer).

When we started doing the feature we successfully captured direct to 1TB lacie driveson firewire 800. Now we can’t do this. it won’tlet us.Could this be coz the 1 TB are getting fulland therfore writing too slow? This problem is not always there. However now we can not get our final 12 tapes in.

REPLY – ANY DRIVE that gets full will have poor response – SATA, SCSI, FW, etc. You just said you were using SATA, and now you are saying that you are using a 1TB Lacie FW800 drive . Which is it ?

This saga has involved returning everything to the sellers and sitting with their tech people trying to solve this. Because it is eratic we couldnot replicate the problem. It seems to need to be running for a while before it does the drop frames problem.

REPLY – this is not your dealers problem – you have to have the correct storage to work at DVCProHD (or other higher resolutions). A Sonnet E4P in a Quad with 2 Hitachi or Seagate SATA drives stripped together at RAID 0 will NEVER give you dropped frames – that is, until you get 90% full.

PROBLEM 2: Sometimes the capture window exhibits crazy looking noisy image and then won’t capture. –

REPLY – could be a lot of things.

SIDE QUESTION: On a totally different point . I think should be able to use the lacie drives with firewire800 to edit this feature. I want to be able to use the 2 x 1 TB hard dirves +internal 500 GB SATA.Should this be OK.

REPLY – OK – your SATA is your internal 500 Gig SATA – THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE – DONT DO IT !!!!! Get a SATA host card, and 2 external SATA drives, and your problem will be over.

Just for the record – SATA is not officially supported (even though it works fine), and you “should” be using an Apple XServe RAID, or a large SCSI or Fibre array for your DVCProHD job. Want your aggrivation to end – just listen to me, and get a couple of external SATA drives, and a cheap SATA host card, and your problems will be over.

Bob Zelin

[Davo Kornflake]

Hi Bob,

Many htanks for your reply. To be honest I have been waiting for the Sonnet fusion 500 to come out forever. So in desperation I searched the net and saw that people were sawing in various boards that you can get 1 stream on to a sata drive. Also i read that you could capture onto a LAcie via firewire. So as I waitined for the sonnet and the delvery date kept slipping I decided to use my back up solution ie 2 x 2 TB lacie as my main work space while I waited. Really appreciate you taking the time to reply. I hear as of today that the sonnet fusion 500 will ship end of this week. phew.
if you have time can you offer thoughts on 2 other queries.
1. I done’t seem to be able to get time code using the method so far. It occurred to me that now HDV is supported could I use HDV into FCP then use media manager and uprez to DVCPRO HD. Therefore i’d bring the timecode with me. If i chose this route rather than via the kona is there any possible issues?

2 Sound : The other reason for doing this is that when I capture firewire HDV I get a much better signal it seem sthan using the kona audio. Am i doing something wrong ? I have been told to set the unity to 67. Is there any other place to adjust the audio to get a better signal to noise ration.

As to the internal SATA drive/ lacie firewire drives – I tried both to see if I could get it to work.

Again amny thanks for reading and your feedback. cheers.

[Bob Zelin]

you can get the correct box RIGHT NOW from Ron Amborn Maxx Digital
at (714)374 4944. I just installed my first one today, and it works great.

Just for the record, 5 drives striped RAID 0 with the Sonnet E4P STILL are not fast enough to do uncompressed 1080i HD – you get between 190 and 220 mb/sec – more than good enough for SD 8 and 10 bit, and DVCProHD, but not for uncompressed HD. You will need TWO of these boxes for uncompressed HD on one Sonnet E4P. Cheap, but not free.

Bob Zelin

[Davo Kornflake]

thanks Bob. Yeah I have 2 on order! Just for the very purpose you mention.

David MIlls
Director of Bedlam Oz
Outdoor Theatre company
http://www.bedlamoz.com