LHe sync issues, all of a sudden

[Jeremy Garchow]

Sync as in a/v (audio/video) sync, or sync as in h/v (horizontal/vertical) sync?

Jeremy

[David Jahns]

SYNC as in audio drifts out over time.

about 3-4 frames per minute. When you stop and restart the timeline, it corrects itself – but when digitizing, the quicktime file is actually out of sync if the capture is more than 20 seconds or so.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Jahns] “SYNC as in audio drifts out over time. “

Yeah, but there’s also sync as in rolling picture, you didn’t specify, so I asked.

[David Jahns] “When you stop and restart the timeline, it corrects itself “

This is probably a case of not doing either a fully complete render or audio mixdown before layoff. Doing an audio mixdown render is quick and easy, select all, hit command-option-r. This basically renders all audio into one complete and temporary file (with channel selections in you have them) for easier playback. This helps in minimize any rogue audio files that are strewn around the system/different drives.

[David Jahns] “but when digitizing, the quicktime file is actually out of sync if the capture is more than 20 seconds or so. “

This usually indicates that your drives aren’t slow enough (are the dropped frame warnings turned in your FCP prefs?) or that your easy setup isn’t matching your incoming format. Are you capturing now or logging and capturing?

Jeremy

[David Jahns]

Thanks, Jeremy.

If this were one workstation, or a new user, those might be useful suggestions, but things have worked just fine for years – and nothing has really changed in our workflow/process – (except that I’ve noticed a few different versions of quicktime on different machines – damn iPhone users, updating their quicktime w/o authorization!)

I’ve double checked all of the workflow/settings – it’s not user error. Something has changed in our setup or OS’s, and it’s damnedest thing I’ve ever run across here…

I suppose we can try the mixdown as a workaround, but that doesn’t help with the digitizing, and our SAN is running just fine – plenty of bandwidth available. Even digitizing NTSC locally to a RAID doesn’t solve it, so it’s not a drive speed issue either…

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Jahns] “(except that I’ve noticed a few different versions of quicktime on different machines – damn iPhone users, updating their quicktime w/o authorization!)”

That’s not good for the SAN is it?

[David Jahns] ” Even digitizing NTSC locally to a RAID doesn’t solve it, so it’s not a drive speed issue either… “

Yeah, that would seem to indicate something, unless your SAN is goofing it up. How are you attached to it?

Jeremy

[David Jahns]

we’re using EditShare, which is a gig-E based system.

But the sync issues during digitizing happen even we’re completed disconnected from the network – just local storage, and SDI to the deck – both with house sync and on free run.

By the way… how do you quote someone else’s message in your posts?

[Eyal Dimant]

I know its unlikely that this is the case across 9 machines, but I find when the FCP scopes are up on machines with the LHe it throws my sequences out of synch, on both client and computer monitors.

Hope it helps.

Eyal Dimant
Threehead Studios Inc.
http://www.threeheadstudios.com

[Francois Stark]

Hi

Have you found any solution to this problem? Did these six suites run without any sync problems before?

Thanks
Francois

Regards
Francois

[David Jahns]

Actually, YES I DID!! (But it’s quite unlikely to work for anyone else, I’m afraid, we had a very unique issue.)

I meant to write a follow up, but it slipped through the cracks.

I work in the 12 person Post Production Dept of an Ad Agency (with 400 other people), and we probably have 250 Mac systems throughout the building. Unbeknownst to us, our IT Dept had remotely installed “listening” software called JAMF that allowed them to remotely install upgrades & perform IT tasks – updating MS Office, etc… There was no application to be seen, only a folder in the Library / Frameworks folder of the boot drive.

I found this after re-installing a system from scratch – wipe the drive, fresh OS, etc… testing it out, and it worked perfectly. After IT installed MS Office, the sync issues returned! I was about to lose my mind!!! But we traced it down to the secret “remote install” software, not actually MS Office.

As soon as we removed the JAMF frameworks – the sync issues disappeared completely on ALL systems.

As you can imagine, we had a pretty serious “Keep your IT hands off our systems!” chat after that, and ever since, we have not had a single sync issue. Hurray!!!

If anyone needs more details about the JAMF software, just let me know.

[Kevin Camp]

hi david,

we’ve been having audio sync issues with one fcp station, and it happens to be the only one with the ms office suite installed on it. our it guy is currently on vacation right now, so i can’t ask him if he is running jamf, or anything like it.

if i was to search that mac for ‘jamf’ would i find the software, or can you point me to where i might find the offending software to try removing it to see if that solves our issue too….

thanks

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW