Upgrading to new Quad Core 2.5 G5…

[Tom Matthies]

I’m upgrading the system here from FCP4.5 on a Dual 1.25GhzG4 running OS 10.3.7 up to FCP5 running on a 2.5Ghz Quad G5 running 10.4.x. Attempting to make the change over as smooth as possible, are there any new drivers/firmware required for my Io to work with this new setup?
I have a very limited amout of time to change the systems over and I’m just trying to avoid any roadblocks in the process. I can’t do any upgrades to the IO until the old system is offline.
Thanks,
Tom

[Jeremy Garchow]

The current drivers/firmware can be found on aja’s site. What versions do you have in there now?

[Tom Matthies]

Hmmm… Not sure which version is in there. I know this machine hasn’t had any updates to the Io drivers or firmware for a year or so. When I bought a new G5 2.3 for at home and upgraded to FCP 5, I needed to update the firmware on my IoLa to work correctly. I’m just assuming that I’ll most likely need to do the same to this Io when I move over to the G5 Quad & FCP5. The Io here is a full version and not an IoLA or IoLd. We’ve had it inline for a couple of years now. How does one check which firmware version is loaded in a given Io anyway? Probably time to update it I’m guessing…
Tom

[Jeremy Garchow]

You are exactly right most likely, it will be time to update. It’s easy and no big deal.

Drivers are here:

https://www.aja.com/ajashare/AJA_Io_v2.1.zip

Control Panel with firmware update is here:

https://www.aja.com/ajashare/ProIO_ControlPanel_v1.1.zip

Jeremy

[Bob Zelin]

the I/O won’t be your problem – your problem will be with your storage – if you have SCSI or SATA storage (FW will be ok).

bob Zelin

[Tom Matthies]

Hi Bob.
Nope. Fortunately, for now, it’s Firewire for storage. I managed to find a PCI Express card (two of ’em) that will work with FW800 drives. I’m going to run it this way for a while before adding a SATA raid to the system after NAB.
I’m getting another FCP studio license and the software should show up in the next day or two. Then the fun begins, doing a clean install and changing everything over from the old machine. I currently have a number of projects going, so the changeover will be tricky. I’ll get the new G5 running with the existing drives and make everything redundant before trying any projects “for real”.
I an always in the middle of some project or another at any given time so the old “never upgrade in the middle of a project” rule won’t work. I managed to do it before on my machines at home, so wish me luck on another sucessful change over. (knocking on wood right now)
Tom