[Andy Prada]

I am about to embark on buying a new monitor for my edit setup and face the same dilemna as yourself. I had (still have) a 16:9 analogue Sony Trintron which being interlaced is ideal for monitoring field dominance and interlacing. I too don’t trust lcd’s at all for this.

My understanding is that everything is sort of moving toward progressive display which counteracts the problem at the back end. However, I like my video perfect and have yet to get a proper answer so I’ve held off buying an HDMI LCD solution.

I await the reply of others with better knowledge with some interest

[Andy Prada]

Fred…thank you for this. I will take your advice and report back when I’ve pondered a little more over the weekend.

[Andy Prada]

Chris Pearse of BMD wrote this to me:

A firmware update should not be able to fry a card or the PCIe bus, no. It is effectively just a transmission of data across the PCIe bus like any other. If the firmware were to fail during the update process, this could cause the card to fail.

It is however possible that the PCIe slot may fry a card if there were a voltage spike. We have seen some cards where the PCIe power connector on the card has sustained physical damage from such an event.

This could happen for a multitude of reasons. But I would suggest taking a look at the card and the components on it for any damage, especially the PCIe connector. If there is damage, I would not try using the card again, and would suggest not using another card in the same motherboard.

One other thing that could be a possibility is that we have seen some incompatibilities with certain X58 motherboards, where the cards just aren’t recognised, or function correctly. This shouldn’t affect the card or motherboard in any way. Whilst I have no data on this specific motherboard (only the Asus P6T and Intel DX58SO motherboards have been verified as incompatible so far), this could indeed be the problem.

If I can help you any further, please do get back to me.

I think I might return the card to them and have it checked out. I don’t like the sound of not being able to use this card at all with my system.

[Andy Prada]

Went one further than this. I tried installing the card on a completely clean cloned Windows 7 installation (I took the precaution of backing up first) This installation doesn’t even recognize the card at all so I suspect the rogue installation may have damaged the card.

[Andy Prada]

Windows 7 does support firewire – at least in 64 bit PAL format – because I use it all the time to control Sony VTRs – DVCam and HDV.
Sometimes Premiere CS4 (not PPRO2) has a sulk and I need to reboot to get it to recognise the machine. But windows always recognizes the firewire cable being plugged and unplugged and generates an options menu.

Try uninstalling your firewire drivers and reinstalling.

[Andy Prada]

This post maybe no help at all to you but I’ve just dragged a long form windows HDV project kicking and screaming to completion in CS4. It was a nightmare from start to finish and, to be honest, I don’t think the results are worth the hassle.

HDV gobbles up processor power because its MPEG based. Throw any decent effects – BCC, Graffiti etc on to the timeline and you have a recipe for miacardial infarction on a regular basis.

I’ve had similar sluggishness in FCP and Avid too so although Premiere is a dog when it comes to memory, it’s not the only package to struggle with this format.

On a different issue – 40 hrs is, in my view, unmanageable for any system. Might you consider doing a simple ‘assembly of usable footage’ from the rushes – consolidate it into a new project and start the edit from there. This will reduce your timeline length and vastly improve workflow. (You can always go back to original rushes from the capture project if you feel you have missed something.) If you can’t even get past first base and make simple edits on the timeline, cut your project into segements and then stitch the consolidated elements together when you’re ready to begin serious cutting.

Sorry if I’m telling grandmothers to suck eggs!

[Andy Prada]

There is no mention of Windows 7 on the BMD website to the best of my knowledge. You might get it to work. You might not. They will certainly not support anything not in the tech spec for the products which leaves VistaSP1 64bit as the latest OS for windows – something I’ve avoided myself.

I only add to this post because, like you I think, I now feel I need to move up to 64bit, in my case with Premiere Pro CS4. PPro simply isn’t workable on 32bit with the kind of multilayer long form time lines that I work on using Boris BCC and Graffiti. It regularly stalls at 1400Mb RAM leaving me with lost time and endless repetition of work. Considering that W7 is launched this week and that the code has been out for ages in the community I’m a pit perturbed that BMD haven’t at least mentioned it as on the agenda.

[Andy Prada]

I have mine working with CS4 on a Quad Core 6700 self-build.

It seems to be stable but I have some render issues that I ‘m not sure are CS4 problems or Blackmagic. (See my other post earlier today about blurs)

I also had some Project manager issues regarding mjpeg projects in CS3. Projects wouldn’t consolidate with mjpg but would in DV.

This is probably not helping you. Anyway, Blackmagic have released the drivers for CS4 and they can be downloaded from their site.