[Bob Zelin]

Sony is going to discontinue the BVM CRT series soon, so you can spend your $35,000 on it, and it will be obsolete. You should look at the Panasonic BT-LH series for LCD’s that can properly handle SD material, as well as HD, but I agree – just find an older CRT monitor for your SD applications – that will be the cheapest way to go.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Hi –
you probably know this, and I don’t know what your drive array is, or which Sonnet card you are using, but if you are using an E4P or X4P, it takes time for the Port multiplier chassis to scan the 5 drives. This means that the drives won’t mount until the computer is booted up, sometimes for 30 -45 seconds. You can watch the lights cycle 1,2,3,4,5 – after all 5 light, the drive array mounts.

I bet the first thing Sonnet tells you to do is update your firmware (which I doubt will fix anything if you had a working system). Certainly do these tests with the card in slot 2 or 4, and with no Kona card in the system.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

using the Firewire cable going to your AJA I/O, plug this very cable into a firewire drive (and don’t tell me you don’t have a firewire drive, or other firewire device – if you don’t, then go out and buy one, and return it after these tests). Does your drive mount ? If it does not, change the cable – does it mount now ? If it mounts, and your AJA does not, you got AJA problems. You should UNINSTALL and then REINSTALL the AJA drivers, and forget FCP for now -just launch the AJA Pro IO Control Panel utility – does it see the AJA I/O ?
If not, call AJA. If it does see the Pro I/O Control Panel, but FCP does not see FCP, start from GROUND ZERO. Reinstall everything.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Jason –
there are no pitfalls with 720p. 720p is fantastic, the DVCProHD codec is fantastic, and many people prefer the look of Panasonic Varicams at 720p, to Sony CineAlta’s at 1080i (I am not trying to start a format debate here – the CineAlta is fantastic too). If you are working with DVCProHD, and a Panasonic AJ-HD1400 VTR, you can just stay native 720p, and everything will work just fine. Almost no one can tell the difference. Most people I know NEVER use uncompressed HD – it’s either DVCProHD, or AVID codec’s like DNxHD 145 and 220.
Uncompressed is for the wonderful world of feature film production – and plenty of those guys work with the Panasonic Varicam.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

come on steve – he should be able to boot up the system without issues. I would be curious (and I forgot to ask) – if he shuts down, and boots back up, 7 or 8 times – does it work every time ? Becuase if it does, and it only “fails” when it’s off overnight – I wonder if other external devices are left on, and are hanging up, and causing problems.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

the write speed seems a little bit slow, but before I jump to conclusions, just for everyone’s sanity, record about 20 seconds of video on your internal drive, or some FW800 external drive. You won’t get solid results, but it should work for a little while (and then you would get the drop frame error with the internal). I want to do this to compare the results to your external HUGE drive array.

I hate pointing fingers (at the HUGE) if that is not the problem.

Bob zelin

[Bob Zelin]

yes, it will work fine, but it’s still DVCProHD, not HD Cam, or uncompressed HD native. This is a native 720p deck, but it can record at 1080i (and it’s 59.94, not 60). Buying a $25,000m Panasonic VTR is not a cheap way to do Sony HD layoffs.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

I had the same problem – I said “there is nothing wrong with these tapes !” – and after trying several tapes, and another VTR with the same problem – it wound up being that the DRIVE ARRAY had a problem, and was too slow. Run the AJA Kona system test, and report back your results. I bet it’s your drives. Also please list exactly what resolution you are working at, and what drives you are working with . I had this problem with an XServe RAID with 14 drives ! If you are familiar with the usual error messages, you are now saying “this guy is crazy – slow drives report the dropped frame error message”.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

I agree – buy a cheap audio mixer – under $200 – for audio monitoring – it will work great, and do exactly what you want.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

put the sonnet in slot2 and the AJA in 3 or 4, and see what happens – see if there is a slot issue.

The sonnet works fine in slot 2

Bob Zelin