PP CS 5.5 & Blackmagic trouble

[Tim Kolb]

The maturity of third party drivers for CS 5.5 seems to still have some variability.

Have you asked BlackMagic about your experience?

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[John Ward]

I have not. To be honest, since they recently declared they were ‘fully supporting Premiere Pro’ I took them at their word. Point taken, though. PR and engineering are definitely two different departments.

thanks,

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions
locomation@yahoo.com
john.ward@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[Peter Blumenstock]

Works ok for me (not perfect but “will do” for the moment), but I have a different tower. Just out of curiosity, are you booting into the 32bit Kernel?

[John Ward]

I must be because I’m not sure how to boot into the 64-bit.

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions
locomation@yahoo.com
john.ward@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[Peter Blumenstock]

In system profiler click on Software. 64-bit Kernel and Extensions gives you the answer. I don’t know if your machine defaults into 32 or 64 bit Kernel or if it can actually run in 64bit. Also, it may not be related to your output issues but it cannot hurt to give it a shot.
If you are in 32bit mode, hold down 6 and 4 while booting next time, if your machine allows booting into 64bit it then will.

[John Pale]

If you are on a Mac Pro 1,1 you cannot boot using the 64bit kernel. If you hold down 6 and 4 nothing happens.

This is the only Mac Pro that cannot do so. The EFI firmware is 32 bit and cannot be changed unless Apple does a firmware upgrade (Don’t hold your breath on that…its a 2006 machine..they want you to buy a new one)

You have 64 bit processors, can run full 64 bit apps and can access large amounts of RAM…so in most instances, it doesn’t matter. Your machine, however can only communicate with hardware in 32bit.

[Paul Jay]

This is the only part that Adobe needs to fix before getting serious FCP switchers.

FCP is superior with these 3th party hardware.
Premiere still has lot of issues in my experience.
Lets hope they get there soon.

[John Ward]

Thanks for all the suggestions, folks. Indeed, I have the 1,1 version and cannot, apparently, boot into 64-bit to fully take advantage of it. We will be moving to a newer Mac Pro soon and that will not be an issue. I still need to be able to test our trial PP through our card before then, however, so I’ll start bugging the Blackmagic folks, I guess. That aside, Premiere seems much more professional than the last time I used it (circa 2000-2001, I think) and seems like the direction we want to migrate from FCP 7. Thanks again for the help and I’ll post when I discover the answer.

cheers,

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions
locomation@yahoo.com
john.ward@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Ward]

Okay, so the deal has to do with the trial version and the Blackmagic drivers. Not a deal-breaker for us because there are still so many aspects of fitting Premiere into our workflow that we CAN test. Would have been good to see it, even watermarked, rather than take on faith that it’s all going to be all right but we can still evaluate. Here was the response from Blackmagic:

Thank you for contacting us. Currently you need a full version of Adobe CS
5.5 in order for our driver to work with your system.

Braeden Burns
Support Representative
Black Magic Design Inc. USA

Anyway, thanks to everyone who chimed in and it looks as if we may be joining the Premiere ranks pretty soon.

Thanks,

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions
locomation@yahoo.com
john.ward@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Pale]

I don’t know what BMD is talking about. the trial is just the full version without a proper serial number. It’s the same software.