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Triple Displays on FCP with MacPro?
I have a triple display FCP system (two 30″ cinema displays and a 23″ dell, which I have on a moveable arm so I can bring it close and see the tiny friggin’ bin tiles)
The system seemed to work flawlessly on my G5. I recently upgraded to the Mac Pro 8 core 3.2 GHz with 8 GB of RAM and had to buy two new video cards cause even though the G5 I had was PCIe and the MacPro is PCIe, apparently I couldn’t use the old cards.
So, I got two nVidia 8800 GTs.
Then the problems began. I have had all kinds of weird glitchy video issues. FCP crashes when I scroll through sequences or often I will get strobe-y green and pink frames in playback. I have been working with Apple to try to solve the problem. So far I have done TWO erase and installs. And obviously re-installed the full FCP studio. The Apple people assumed the issues must be hardware related so we have swapped out the processors, both video cards, the Logic board, the RAM and the memory riser cards! Still same issues.
Today a guy in the FCP support at Apple told me that the reason I am having these issues is cause FCP only supports TWO monitors! He pointed me to this site on Apples support site: https://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n302671
The article though, was written in 2005 but he said it still applies.
That seemed a bit hokey to me, so I did a little research (which is how I ended up on this site) and discovered that according to the Apple FCP manuals:”Digital Cinema Desktop Preview works only with AGP graphics cards. For triple-display configurations, you should use a PCI graphics card for your computer display and an AGP graphics card for any monitors you intend to use for Digital Cinema Desktop Preview.” (Chp 14, p. 229 Vol 3 of the FCP 6 User guide)
BUT, the most current MacPros don’t have AGP ports anymore…. So, is Apple saying they don’t fully support their top-of-the-line desktop systems? I am trying to get to the bottom of this. Anyone else in the same boat?
Dave
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4 Replies
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There are products out there that will combine two monitors into one DVI port. So the computer you connect it to, and it’s OS, will think it’s just a single large monitor with high-resolution and a very wide aspect. Matrox used to make stuff like this. Their MXO product I think can do this as well.
Sean
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No, it is the TRIPLE HEAD 2 GO that is the thing you are looking for.
Shane
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I will second the Triple Head to Go!!!
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
lf you try to use two separate graphics cards to drive three monitors for FCP, a bunch of Motion FxPlugs will fail inside FCP. They will still work in Motion.
Lame integration between a flagship Apple product and the MacOS.
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”
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