Weekend Kona LHi woes

[Bob Zelin]

open up the expansion slot utility (do you know where it is ?).
You say that you have an early 2008 MAC Pro – so it probably uses the Expansion slot utility. Make sure that your card slot is a x4 slot. NOTHING (no storage card, no AJA card) can operate as a x1 slot.

Bob Zelin

[Jim Curtis]

I, in fact, did not know where Expansion Slot Utility was, but I found it with my trusty EasyFind app.

When I launched it: “Expansion Slot Utility is not intended to run on this system.” I don’t think any of my slots are 1x.

Between my first post, and getting your reply, I swapped PCI cards, putting the LHi card in Slot 3 (4x), and returning my RocketRAID card to Slot 2 (16x), where it was working great before I installed the LHi.

(BTW, my external RAID 5 is off for these tests. I’m using my MacPro internal software controlled RAID 0 for my testing.)

There was no change to the audio sync problem after swapping slots. Still drifting.

I loaded an hour-long DV NTSC Sequence into FCP, and it’s playing in sync for long periods. So, this issue seems to be related to XDCam EX at the moment.

[Warren Eig]

Early Mac Pro 2008 don’t use the Express slot. They are fixed bandwidth. The 2007 and 2006 Mac Pros use the express slot utility.

Warren

Warren Eig
O 310-470-0905

email: warren@babyboompictures.com
website: https://www.babyboompictures.com

https://www.babyboompictures.com/BabyBoomPictures/AFX.html
https://www.babyboompictures.com/BabyBoomPictures/KnitWits_Movie.html
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0251670/

EDITING REEL: https://www.babyboompictures.com/BabyBoomPictures/Editing_Reel.html
TITLE DESIGN: https://www.babyboompictures.com/BabyBoomPictures/Titles_Reel.html

[Jim Curtis]

I don’t know what I did, but it’s working now, and the audio is staying in sync with XDCam EX footage.

I was experimenting with different footage I had on my drives. SD NTSC was working great. HDV 720p material was working great. I made Presets for each in the AJA Control Panel. So, with those successes, I tried loading up the same two XDCam EX projects that were out of sync before, and this time they were playing in perfect sync. I guess toggling around settings in the CP did something to reset the card or something. I have no other good explanation. Magic, maybe.

I left the LHi in PCI Slot 3. (4x)

–

I do have two other slight issues with the card, though: When 525i (NTSC) is chosen as either the primary or secondary output via YC analog, the image is slightly washed out, including the color bars generated by the LHi when FCP isn’t the controlling application.

And the card doesn’t seem to be using all the raster on my CRT (Sony PVM-9L3, which has been very trusty about displaying a well-calibrated image). IOW, the LHi seems to be scaling down the image to the YC output. I see the entire raster even when the monitor ISN’T in Underscan mode. With other inputs, there is normal TV cut-off. But with the LHi, I’m seeing a black border around the image in normal scan mode.