[Alex Geis]

Got a better answer on the AVID boards, as it looks like it’s more an issue with driver conflicts than not being supported. After trial and error, it looks like the problem is coming from the firewire bus drivers even with the device not selected.

[Alex Geis]

Starting to look like it’s a more deep seeded problem than the interface…
Now it seems that even having the interface selected on startup and switching to internal speakers before launching MC5 doesn’t even work half the time. Either:

– Initializing audio hangs with SPOD
– Bus Error
– Failed to Initialize Audio Hardware -> Segmentation fault

Only way to reliably get audio working is to set the output to internal or digital out, and reboot the entire machine. Kinda surprised, since I’m playing video just to the attached displays for now and no video out, I would’ve hope there was at least some basic support for audio out, as the interface works on most OS X apps, FCP and even Avid ProTools 9. I’d be happy to run it on my PT HD machine, but I don’t have any slots available for a video out PCIe if I did do that.

[Alex Geis]

Hey Bob,

No joke: I called up Blackmagic, asked them about that page, and the person literally told me “Since we’ve verified the Z400, any configuration right off of HP’s page will work as is.” Basically didn’t say anything about needing to replace the graphics card with one of the ones on the list, so that threw me for a loop and wanted to double check if there was anything else to it. I basically only run MacPros and xServes, so I’ve never had the need to custom config a machine except memory, fibre channel cards, external storage and the occasional Digidesign board.

Besides the CPU itself, I’ve got 3 apple LED’s on my own work desk with DVI to MiniDP converters and DVI KVM’s, so should be a breeze to hook up!

Thanks for the clarity!
-Alex

[Alex Geis]

This looks like the place for CPU spec questions for the Ultrascope, since I haven’t been able to get too much detail for Blackmagic directly. Simple question for you guys:

After shopping around and looking at the prospect of building a case, etc… I found the Z400 has liquid cooling (as the most important thing here is that the machine is as quiet as can be under the desk), so I’m fairly sold on that model. Issue is: Some of the specs on the customize page don’t line up with the ultrascope req’s. So:

– What Xeon speed should I get, since it only has mentioned what core2/ix speeds are recommended
– What’s the minimum graphics card I should pop into this beast… also, which would probably be the quietest – ie, no ridiculous fan
– Config mentions it uses a x58 express, although the ultrascope page says to stay away from x58?

Thanks guys,
-Alex

[Alex Geis]

After all that, I decided to drop back down to 10.4.11 and it turns out that xsan 1.4.2 can still pull through and work as a client for our 2.2 controller. Not elegant, but it works and 12.1.3 is working great for digest.

Thanks again for the 10.5 info!

[Alex Geis]

Thanks for the info Wickham,

I was able to figure out the kext issue…
ran chmod -R 755 and chown -R root:wheel, and issued a kext terminal commad to reload it (forgot it off the top of my head.. came up on a google search), and it did the trick.

Would you happen to know off the top of your head if I had a 12.1 license, how much it would be to upgrade to the minimum version needed to run on 10.5.8 on a PPC? I have Suite running on a MacPro as our main editing machine, and just use the PPC as an ingest and media bin organizer, so 1295 for a license just for that seems a bit overkill.

[Alex Geis]

Thanks for the quick responses guys.. starting to make a lot more sense! Just to revisit one or two things with a little more detail, although the info for the HDx, and hardware limitations for the AJA stuff made total sense. Last Qs:

So take the media I’m trying to work with.. some ProResHQ 1080 23.98p material.
To test out that my displays are actually working as they should, I tried the following with the AJA TV app:

When I tried playing it out via primary using SDI via AJA Hi5 to HDMI on the 46″, when playing using 1080psf23.98, the tv said “unsupported format”… I read in some Hi5 forum somewhere that that’s cause the Hi5 cant handle 1080psf, so I switched the output format to 1080p23.98 and it plays beautifully.

Then I tried playing out via secondary using component at 525i29.97 to the 14″ (which is a non progressive tv), and that played fine too.

Now, when I bring the same clip into media100, and play out, i get unsupported on the 46 and black on the 14. Kona control panel says that its stuck to 1080psf23.98, and from how I interpreted the reply, I’m guessing there’s no real way to change that unless I actually use 1080 29.97 footage?

And with the 14”, I’m totally at a loss since the down convert icon shows up in the aja control panel when im in media 100 and it says its shooting out at 525 29.97, but the screen is still black.

I’m thinking it’s just as you mentioned that media100 reads the 23.98 footage and is treating all the output strictly as psf23.98?