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UltraStudio Express, Decklink, AJA ioXT and Adobe Premiere CS6
We have a new 27″ iMac running Premiere CS6 with a Thunderbolt UltraStudio Express. Video is coming off a Promise disk array – also Thunderbolt. When editing, if I do anything other than play at normal speed (fast forward, fast reverse) the external display can’t keep up. Not even close – it can lag as much as 10 seconds behind where the play head actually is in the timeline. It’s not a deal killer, but can be frustrating – especially when editing with a client and trying to move through a lot of footage quickly. The client has to sit close enough that they can watch my iMac monitor and not my nice big external display.
I’ve been told by Black Magic that this is normal behavior and there’s not much I can do about it. So, since we are preparing to add 3 more workstations in the near future, I’m curious if anyone is using a Decklink card with CS6 in a MacPro or perhaps an AJA ioXT with an iMac and if the results are the same?
I’m coming from FCP7 with a Kona card and didn’t have this issue.
Thanks,
Don Hertz
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3 Replies
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The external monitor is connected to the UltraStudio (via HDMI) or to the back of the Promise array?
I’ve heard a similar story with a monitor daisy-chained to the iMac with an array in the middle, and the guesses are that (1) Thunderbolt is overwhelmed, (2) iMac is overwhelmed.
If the external monitor is connected to the Blackmagic device, than it still could be the iMac/TB issue: pulling a lot of data off of the array and then sending it to Blackmagic may still overwhelm the iMac. The BMD device may be playing a part in it too. A good test would be to play a file off of a local drive (internal iMac drive) instead of Promise and see if it exhibits the same issue. (It doesn’t have to be anything too heavy or uncompressed – just high resolution.)
Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA -
The Ultrastudio is connected directly to the Mac via Thunderbolt. It’s then connected to the external monitor via HD-SDI. There are 2 Thunderbolt ports on the iMac. One is going to the Promise Array. The second goes to the UltraStudio. No chaining.
I’ve been told by Black Magic technical support that what I’m seeing is typical performance with the UltraStudio Thunderbolt product when using Premiere Pro CS6. It can’t keep up when fast-forwarding or rewinding. My question mainly is – is anyone experiencing different performance with a Decklink card or perhaps an AJA ioXT?
Thanks,
Don Hertz
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I have a friend editing on a macbook pro with an AJA IO-XT and a sanlink thunderbolt to fibre solution.
Everything is daisy chained but i didn’t hear him complaining so far.
His facilities have mainly mac pro’s with kona 3 or 3G cards in it. As they are waiting for new MAc Pro’s they have made a temporary transisition to macbook pro and imac with io-XT.Also you might want to post this on the AJA IO forum. probably somebody from AJA support will respond quite quickly to your question.
Hemeleers Gunter
Mac Pro, Imac 24″, Macbook Pro 15″ all intel
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