What’s wrong here: deck, tape, IoHD or the operator?

[John Knowles]

And the plot thickens…

AJA has recommended that I set Secondary to 720p 59.94 when there is 720p material in my timeline; problem is I cannot monitor that with my current setup until I get another HD monitor in here; I have to downconvert to 525i for now.

But if that setup turns out to be correct, then doesn’t that render the open timeline feature of FCP useless with this device? Aren’t I supposed to be able to drop another format into my ProResHQ sequence and get playback if my drives and machine can handle it? I get the green render bar over my 720p footage and I’m getting at least 141 MB/s off my RAID for 720p, and yet previewing via 525i or 1080i gives me static and a potential kernel panic.

If anyone else here has the right footage and equipment, would you mind testing this for me? Would really like to compare performance to another IOHD unit.

1. Primary to 1080i 29.97, secondary to either 1080i or 525i downconvert.
2. Easy Setup > Apple ProRes HQ 1080i 29.97
3. In a new sequence, drag in a ProRes HQ clip, then drop some 720p60 clips after it and check your playback on an external monitor.

What do you see during 720p playback? Static? Green fuzzy screen? Also, are you able to set your SafeRT Video Quality (in the timeline dropdown) to ‘High’, or is it greyed out?

If someone could test for me, would really appreciate it!!

[Jeremy Garchow]

Alright, now you have me a bit confused. Your footage is 720p and not 1080i? I thought all footage was Beta upconverts?

Is it ProRes or DVCPro HD (you have said both)?

[John Knowles]

I have both kinds of footage in my project; I pulled in the 720p footage from P@ files, it was not upconverted off tape. I also have AVCHD footage from a camera as well; that’s the deal with this project, pulling together all the sources and outputting all finals to ProRes HQ

[Jeremy Garchow]

OK. With the ioHD this makes a huge difference though. Your AVCHD footage will be ProResHQ, your unconverted captured footage will be ProResHQ. Your P2 footage will be DVCPro HD. So not only is the footage being transcoded to ProRes on the fly, it is also being cross converted and interlaced and this is all in software that this is happening before anything hits the ioHD box, unless your render your footage in the timeline before play out. Have you tried rendering? Perhaps it’d be best to use COmpressor to transcode all of your footage to ProRes before the edit (even @ 720p60). That might help with some of your issues.

I didn’t get a chance to test today, but hopefully tomorrow I might be able to get a minute and go through your proposed workflow and see what I find. A kernel panic is a pretty unique error. The times I have seen them is usually due to a system foul. I don’t have an HDMI monitor to test out either, so all my tests will be via standard connections such as analog component or HD SDI.

If I can get to it, I’ll let you know what I find out tomorrow.

Your P2 footage is 720p60 or is it another frame rate?

Jeremy

[John Knowles]

Perhaps it’d be best to use COmpressor to transcode all of your footage to ProRes before the edit (even @ 720p60). That might help with some of your issues.

I’ll definitely do that, it will help greatly if I don’t have to render a bunch of material in my final sequences. I had no idea all that was happening before it hit the box, the green render bar had me fooled into thinking that it didn’t need to work so hard 🙂

I didn’t get a chance to test today, but hopefully tomorrow I might be able to get a minute and go through your proposed workflow and see what I find.

Thank you so much for trying, I appreciate it (and if you can’t get to it I’ll see what AJA can do as a test). And yes, my clips were all 720p60.

The main issue seems to be a mixed timeline; 720p material in a 1080i 29.97 timeline and outputting at 1080 or 525 to a monitor makes it very unhappy. I just tried a pure 720p60 project with 720p60 clips with 720p 59.94 as Primary, and it all plays fine downconverted to 525i. I could swear I tried doing a straight 720p > 720p output when I had the LCD hooked up to HDMI, will try that again when I get the new one.

Also, and you can do this without any media or gear, just try setting up a new ProRes HQ 1080i 29.97 project and timeline, and see if you can select ‘High’ Playback Quality in the RT menu (not in the prefs). Is it greyed out?

JK

[Jeremy Garchow]

[John Knowles] “Also, and you can do this without any media or gear, just try setting up a new ProRes HQ 1080i 29.97 project and timeline, and see if you can select ‘High’ Playback Quality in the RT menu (not in the prefs). Is it greyed out?”

Hmm. I have heard about that one. You know what it was? A Ram issue. tell me about the RAM in your machine and how it’s set up.

Jeremy

[John Knowles]

Tell me about the RAM in your machine and how it’s set up.

I have 6GB of RAM: 4x 512MB modules (from Apple), 4x 1GB modules (from OWC)

They are installed as follows: A1&2 are 1GB, A3&4 are 512, B1&2 are 1Gb and B3&4 are 512. I installed the RAM according to this chart: Mac Pro layout

[Gary Adcock]

[John Knowles] “And the plot thickens..”

NO lie

John, you have 3 different formats( DVCPRO, AVC, and ProRes) in 2 different sizes (720 & 1080) and trying to make it all up and downconvert at once.

First off- the AVC Intra loaded via log and transfer-is not a true ProRes file- it is a wrapper on the file that looks like prores but is NOT, much like Redcode or XDcam footage is.

[John Knowles] ” potential kernel panic. “

You are ABSOLUTELY sure the IoHD Firmware has been updated?

if not uninstall and reinstall the driver over again. you are pushing the processing of your machine to the limit,since all of the content needs to be converted to ProRes just to shoot down the pipe to the IoHD, so I am going to say that 90% of the issue is in your CPU

– KP’s from the IoHD are pretty rare- since it is external to the CPU – making it harder to actually force the hardware to crash.

Also – Pull all of the 3rd party RAM – it is a known issue with non standardized 3rd party ram- use a reputable RAM dealer like Crucial- cheap out on the RAM, and it usually haunts the highend user-

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD

[Jeremy Garchow]

[John Knowles] “I have 6GB of RAM: 4x 512MB modules (from Apple), 4x 1GB modules (from OWC) “

Where’d you get that layout?

I’d start by pulling the 512’s and stick with 4GB and position it like number 4C in that diagram.

See what that does for you first.

Jeremy

[Gary Adcock]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I’d start by pulling the 512’s and stick with 4GB and position it like number 4C in that diagram. “

I would go the other way and keep the 2 G of Apple ram – it stands a better chance of working than the 3rd party stuff.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD