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

[Jeremy Garchow]

[gary adcock] “I would go the other way and keep the 2 G of Apple ram”

Well, now we can try both! 😉

[John Knowles]

[Jeremy Garchow] Where’d you get that layout?

I’ve seen it several places on the net and it was referenced on LAFCPUG as well.

[Gary Adcock] 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-

I bought both sets of 1GB chips from OWC; their memory has always worked well for me and it’s not cheapo generic stuff. But I have noticed that Leopard is a lot more sensitive about certain issues (memory, graphics card) than Tiger was, so that may be a factor. Regarding both of your advice on pulling the RAM, I will give it a try when I have downtime.

Regarding format mixing:
I realize that I’ve thrown a lot of different formats into the mix; I was hoping that the open timeline would help with that but I see now there are definite limits. The AVCHD material plays back choppy and out of sync in a true ProRes sequence, and the DVCProHD material can cause major issues if not in a 720p project. I’m going to upconvert everything overnight this week so that it’s all the same.

So it’s not the IoHD at all probably, it’s the Mac not being able to handle all the RT duties and output/up- or down-convert at the same time. Where do you think the problem actually occurs though — when FCP calls for the AJA driver, or sends it down Firewire, etc? Because it can play back without problems when Video Out is set to None or Cinema Desktop, but the act of engaging external video equipment (with mismatched clip/Primary settings) causes the panic. I get WHY it’s bad when the settings are mismatched, but I just didn’t expect such a big error to occur; I thought at worst I would just get a green screen or static.

UPDATE: I have an HD monitor now, hooked it up via component outputs this time and was able to reproduce the panic as before (meaning the HDMI is not the problem). The settings were: Primary and sequence set to 1080i29.97, 720p60 clips on the timeline, SafeRT Video Quality set to MEDIUM.

The Video Quality setting is the real culprit here. It cannot be set to HIGH because it’s greyed out, MEDIUM causes the panic when the clips don’t match the sequence (possibly LOW too, haven’t tried it but what’s the point) and DYNAMIC allows playback without a panic. So obviously I have to upconvert all my non-ProRes HQ material but I still need to figure out this greyed out HIGH setting. Guess I’ll try the RAM and see what happens…

JK

[Jeremy Garchow]

Start with the RAM. YOu don’t need downtime for this. Simply shut down, pull the RAM and reboot.

Jeremy

[Gary Adcock]

[John Knowles] “PDATE: I have an HD monitor now, hooked it up via component outputs this time and was able to reproduce the panic as before (meaning the HDMI is not the problem). The settings were: Primary and sequence set to 1080i29.97, 720p60 clips on the timeline, SafeRT Video Quality set to MEDIUM. “

Before you do anything else- you need to reflash the Firmware in the IoHD-

Something is not right- I would start there BEFORE you yank the RAM

[John Knowles] ” bought both sets of 1GB chips from XXX ; their memory has always worked well for me and it’s not cheapo generic stuff. But I have noticed that Leopard is a lot more sensitive about certain issues (memory, graphics card) than Tiger was, so that may be a factor. “

Yes the newer machine are more sensitive to RAM issues- thats why 3rd party RAM is always been suspect. Just because it has “always” worked for you does not mean that it was Ok, just that your systems needs were not enough to cause errors. Doing HD is harder on your computer than dragging it behind your car- it is time for the hardware to be fussy if it is not getting what it needs from the system.

Since you are KP’ing – what does the crash log say ? { the apple crash log will have a line that says
“thread X crashed” and it will point to a likely cause- have you looked at what the log says?}

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

[John Knowles]

I pulled the 512 modules (Apple supplied) and the HIGH setting under RT returned.

I cannot play back non-ProRes clips in a ProRes timleline without dropping frames; both the 720p and AVCHD material won’t play without rendering first (despite their bright green bar). But I guess that’s to be expected.

Setting the RT quality to MEDIUM still results in a panic. I don’t know why that’s still happening; although I would rarely set the RT quality to anything other than HIGH or DYNAMIC, I’m still wondering if that’s a fault with my machine or if it’s reproducible on another computer…

[Jeremy Garchow]

Did you flash the firmware again as Gary suggested?

Use the AJAioHDUpdater that is provided in the AJA Utilities folder in Applications.

Jeremy

[Gary Adcock]

[John Knowles] ” pulled the 512 modules (Apple supplied) and the HIGH setting under RT returned. “

NOW try it the other way….

Keep the 2G of apple ram and remove all the other….

Told you it had something to do with the RAM……

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