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New system – is the kona 3 faulty?
Just had a new system installed this week comprising of Quad G5, 4gb ram, Kona 3, Xserve Raid (14x250gb), FCP Studio and Shake, digibeta deck and a Sony HVR Z1E, and a JVC 1950 monitor. I have spent the last few days tearing my hair out over the weird behaviour i’m getting from the Kona. Unfortunately, the card was installed whilst the system was still at the suppliers, so i have no idea how it was fitted or tested (assuming it was tested).
I think a lot of my problems have been my choosing incompatible setting between FCP and Kona, however….i thought that i could get a signal out to the broadcast monitor from FCP, Shake, Motion etc. but I can’t. Nothing gets a signal out except fcp, and that has been very hit and miss.
I have been getting the output signal stuttering and breaking up when the output is only showing the konas test 100% bars. When i switch to video as ref instead of the BBG it improves a little, and it clears up when i switch to free run…i guess that hints at a problem sync generator ( I have a snell & willcox on order, so hopefully that will arrive soon). The installation engineer is returning on tuesday – for what ever reason, we didn’t get chance to properly check the install before he was called away to another job. And its bloody annoying when your installation is constantly being interrupted by him having to take service calls for other clients when he supposed to be fitting my kit!! (oops..sorry about the rant!)
Another thing – when i have a project set up for HDV, and my Z1E is connected via firewire, the HDV options on the kona settings all remain greyed out. I don’t understand that! So i digitised some at HDV and i could not get t to play through the kona. So i reset everything so the Z1 played out as DV using its onboard converter, this time the kona would play the material as dv, but the strobing on movement was beyond belief – i guess its interlacing, but wih so many variations of settings and options I am getting lost in a sea of choice. Is there anywhere on the web that gives a comprehensive guide to which settings to use , with which kit, to achieve this or that end result???
I realise this all sounds a bit confused, i’m still trying to get to the bottom of it – and learn all the manuals for everything at the same time. I am new to fcp/kona/xserve having worked on avids and protools for the past six years.
If any of this sounds familiar i’d really appreciate a pointer or two.
My main worry is why am i not seeing other software grab the video card and use it when it needs it? I was really counting on this card being able to do all i need a broadcast card to do, and so far i have been very underwhelmed.
worriedly
Adam“silly keeps you sane”
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9 Replies
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Wow, that’s a loaded post. Sounds like you need to get up to speed with FCP. use easy setups (control-q) in combination with the Kona control panel (to select which SDI spigot you need) to bring in whatever format you need that matches your source footage. Your Kona will not being in stuff over firewire. After selecting the proper easy setup, make sure you make a new sequence (very important) otherwise your footage will not match your sequence.
As far as other apps grabbing the Kona, you will probably have to go into each apps preferences and select the KOna as the output for whatever format you are working in at the time.
Let’s start there.
Jeremy
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you are asking a lot of questions, and I think you are panicing. Do one thing at a time. Learn how to use the Kona Control Panel RIGHT NOW. Do you know where it is ? Pass your Digi Beta thru your Kona 3 using the Kona control panel. Does it work ? Do you see the output of your Kona 3 now, on your JVC monitor? If it does work, go into FCP, and like Jeremy said – use the EASY SETUPS (like Kona 3 SDI uncompressed 8 bit – I forgot the exact names, I am not on a system right now) – but USE THE EASY SETUPS. Bet it works. And if it doesn’t work, check the VIEW/External Video menu setting.
You don’t need overkill like a Snell and Wilcox Black Generator – save your money, and get a cheap Sigma BSG-26N or Horita BSG-50 – just make sure that you TERMINATE the Reference Input with a BNC terminator – if you don’t do this, you will get all kinds of wacky behavior.
Let me know
Bob Zelin -
thanks for the info…
i have been using the Kona Control Panel (its very self explanatory, and i have read the manual as well), and i have been using the easy setups. I realise i need to get used to the hundreds of options, but i’ve been editing for two decades, so i am not too worried about that. My main worry is that according to the Kona manual the video card should be grabbed by which ever quicktime application is running at the time. On my system this does not happen.
I cannot get motion or shake or quicktime to utilize the kona, and hence none of those applications appear on my broadcast monitor.The 2 reasons i haven’t used the digibeta through it yet are that i don’t actually have any digibeta footage in the office yet (!) and the sync that is in at present (until the S&W is delivered) is not putting out a stable signal so is causing some glitching.
As for the high end sync – well its bought and paid for! I had the chance to kit out a completely new editing and mixing suite, and as it wasn’t my money we bought well to futureproof us as best we could.
Have you any tips for ensuring the card is behaving correctly (ie working with other software)?
regards
adam“silly keeps you sane”
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i just looked again at motion and you’re right…i can see what needs altering. I shall sort that out on monday when i’m back in work!.
“silly keeps you sane”
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[lightning ad] “I cannot get motion or shake or quicktime to utilize the kona, and hence none of those applications appear on my broadcast monitor. “
adam
as with any hardware it the video out to be assigned within the different applicationsIn motion set it prefs for Video output. Just like you have to do with After effects
In Shake you need to set it in the Flipbook settings – and note that Shake always needs to render PRIOR to on screen playout.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Chicago, IL -
thanks gary…just the advice i needed!
“silly keeps you sane”
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Adam,
One more thing…
Kona ships with two utilities, Kona TV and VTR Xchange. These let you use Kona3 for I/O independent of other apps. VTR Xchange is for capture and mastering. Kona TV is just for viewing. These work with any QT movies (including ref movies) as long as they are uncompressed or DV25/50/100.
Sincerely,
OliverOliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Hi
In reply to the original post it certainly seems that there are several set up issues
and as noted these settings are critical.
Just wanted to add our experience of Kona 3.
We have had a card on test for a while that now seems ok with FCP 5.11 and Final Touch.
V.2.0 drivers are essential, you can upgrade from the Kona site. The supplied drivers
are out of date and seem not to work at all. The Kona utility will let you know your version on the ‘info’ tab.
We did have an apparent sync/genlock problem where the card would lose lock and the output
would be disturbed. There are apparently some gen-lock issues with the card and we have been told
to always use the card with input passthrough selected on the default Kona output. (E-E in other words)
We also had an issue where the loading of the Kona drivers seems to make the Mac desktop run very
slowly. Even without any apps running the OS would open windows very slowly, the dock would
stutter up and down when hiding etc. The output of pics from FCP would be stuttery and broken up.
Trashing the Kona drivers would make the Mac run as normal, not much good for anything else obv.We and our suppliers were unable to fix this issue with our first card and it was replaced.
Our 2nd card worked fine as above.
We now have just today taken delivery of 4 new systems all configured by our supplier. (Quad G5 xserve raid FCP 5.11 Final Touch)
2 are OK and 2 are displaying the problems as above.
It does seem to be a driver/settings issue and will probably be resolved fairly easily. But in theory all these machines
are identical and have identical hardware and software loaded at the same time by the same supplier.We are going to reload the software on the 2 ‘faulty’ machines today or tomorrow so will update.
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Just as an update to my earlier post – 3 out of 4 of our new Kona 3 cards
displayed the problem I mentioned with causing all applications to stutter and stall.
There is apparently a problem with some ‘early batch’ cards and these are being replaced for us.
I am unable to give you details in terms of serial/batch numbers but it will be apparent on install if yours is a problem card. The good thing is that they seem to either work or not.Has anyone else experienced these problems ?
Neil
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