[Ben Cheng]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for your advice.
We gave up the idea of using Premiere Pro as a capture station, as it does not fit into the workflow well.

Cheers,
Ben

[Ben Cheng]

Hi Bob & Jeremy,

This particular system is quite unstable for a while, dropping frames regularly. Even when the Huge U320R-600 is less than 10% full.

I have been troubleshooting this system and we replaced the G5 motherboard and CPU before.

Some of the actions taken:
– Replaced faulty CPU = No more loud blowing fans
– Swapped a new brand internal SATA disk, with a fresh install of Mac OS X
– Re-installed Mac OS X 2 weeks ago
– Huge U320R-600 passed Internal Disk Speed Test

The customer noticed the data rate is not fixed and the no. will range from 23MB/s to 27MB/s.
On the other system with Blackmagic, this does not happen.
I remembered on other systems with Kona cards, the data rate does not change too.

Both Kona and Blackmagic systems are working on PAL Uncompressed 10bit only.

Cheers,
Ben

[Ben Cheng]

Hi Harm,

Not in this case.
As we are using distributed encoding, across several dedicated systems.

I guess we will not go with PPro as the capture program, as most source media comes in 2 tapes.
Thanks for your time & patience =)

Cheers,
Ben Cheng

[Ben Cheng]

Hi Harm,

For certain source media, they come in 2 DigiBeta tapes or more, therefore we need to capture from 2 tapes & join them into 1 AVI file.

This is for Windows Media encoding. The encoder software only accepts 1 single AVI file, with both audio & video on it.

There are another option which support capturing from 2 tapes & create 1 AVI file, but the price is pretty high for the HD option.
Therefore we are exploring other options.

I guess for PPro, the only way is to export & render a new AVI file.
Thanks anyway.

Cheers
Ben Cheng

[Ben Cheng]

Hi Harm & All,

Tks for all your replies & time.

May I know what do you mean for AVI Type 2 there is no need for ref file?
Hope you can enlighten me on this point.
May I know how to achieve that?

As mentioned in my previous posting, my aim is to combine 2 AVI files on a PPro timeline & create a single AVI file, without rendering a new AVI file.
Rendering a new AVI file takes time & disk space, especially for HD formats.

Cheers,
Ben Cheng

[Ben Cheng]

Hi Wayne,

1. The graphic card in it is the standard model, not the CTO one.

2. Kona LSe was chosen as there is no HD requirement either now or future.

Cheers,
Ben

[Ben Cheng]

Hi All,

Thanks for your reply.

1. To ‘combine’ media captured from 2 tapes, without rendering a 3rd AVI file.
The rendering takes up a lot of disk space & time, if you are working in HD formats.

2. After capturing, the next step is to encode the AVI file.
As mentioned before, the source media may be on 2 different tapes, hence creating a AVI reference file save time & space.

An AVI reference movie is a file which contains no actual data, but refers to another piece of AVI media.
If the source needs to be render, e.g title or effect applied, then the reference movie will point to the rendered media.

Cheers,
Ben Cheng

[Ben Cheng]

Hi Wayne,

Kona LSe in both Mac Pro.

I’m using Slot Configuration 4 for the system with UL5D.

Configuration 4 setups the PCI Express slots as follows:

Slot 4 – 4x – ATTO Celerity FC41ES
Slot 3 – 4x – AJA Kona LSe
Slot 2 – 8x – ATTO UL5D
Slot 1 – 8x – Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT 256MB

Cheers,
Ben Cheng
The Media Village

[Ben Cheng]

Hi All,

Thanks for all your attention & time!
I have installed 2 x Mac Pro, running the following config:

System 1
– Quad Xeon 3.0Ghz
– 2GB RAM (4 x 512MB, 2 in each riser)
– ATTO Celerity FC41ES – Slot 4
– AJA Kona LSe – Slot 3
– Slot Configuration Utility – Config 2

System 2
– Quad Xeon 3.0Ghz
– 2GB RAM (4 x 512MB, 2 in each riser)
– ATTO Celerity FC41ES – Slot 4
– AJA Kona LSe – Slot 3
– ATTO UL5D – Slot 2
– Slot Configuration Utility – Config 4

Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.1
Mac OS X 10.4.8
QuickTime 7.1.3
ATTO Celerity driver 2.4.1
ATTO U320 driver 4.0.0
FCP 5.1.2
AJA Kona LS driver 3.3

The 2 systems are connected to a Facilis TerraBlock & they are running fine so far.
The 2 systems has 2 computer displays each, 1 x 23″ Cinema Display + 1 x 17″ Studio Display.

I’m curious if anyone has connect 3 PCIe cards to a Mac Pro, e.g Celerity + Kona + UL5D & what is the slot configuration we should use?

Cheers,
Ben Cheng
The Media Village
Singapore

[Ben Cheng]

Hi,

Thanks for your advice!

Cheers,
Ben