[Bob Zelin]

You state –
if I select the IO LA to capture any DV footage

REPLY – now, I hope that I am misinterpreting what you are saying here, but you do say that when you select the IO LA to capture any DV footage – what is your DV VTR? Are you coming from the DV VTR into the LA via composite, component, S-Video – or are you going directly into the MAC via firewire from the DV VTR or camera? Becuase if you are (and I know that I am probably wrong about what you are doing) – then you are just asking for trouble because you will get conflicts between the AJA I/O LA and any DV Firewire VTR or camera (like a Sony DSR-30 DV VTR).

As you know, the drivers and installers for the I/O LA and the Kona 2 are totally seperate, and are selected independently in the Easy Setups menus.
Perhaps you should for now abandon FCP, and do all of your tests with the Kona Control Panel, and IO control panel, to make sure that all of your hardware is working.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Charlie – you will never get the Apple Cinema Display (or almost any LCD monitor, including the Sony Luma LDM series, the Dell 2405, the Sony SDM-P234, and the HP2335) to look anywhere like the Sony BVM (or PVM) series CRT’s. There is one company – eCinema – that claims to have a critical LCD monitor, but it’s 23″ and $15,000 – so it’s out of my price range. I am told that it is good. There are no “tricks” to make an Apple Cinema display look like a CRT.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Hi –
this is the URL to the WVR7000 (7100) – if you scroll down, you will see the
eye pattern diagnostic to monitor unstable (or unclocked) HD-SDI inputs

https://www.tek.com/site/ps/0,,24-18752-INTRO_EN,00.html?wt=405&link=/site/ps/0,,24-18752-INTRO_EN,00.html

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

REPLYs below –

The facility I work at has bought a tektronix WVR7000 signal test for QC and mastering.

REPLY – the WVR7000 is an excellent scope, similar to the Videotek VTM450 or Leader LV7700 rasterizer scopes, that use a VGA monitor do display the signal.

I’ve been told by the guys who installed it that the SDI o/p of decklink cards doesn’t go well with the input of the test box.

REPLY – the guys that have installed it (are they engineers or techs?) are MORONS. The entire purpose of a hi end piece of test equipment is to examine the incomming signal, and determine what is wrong with the input. If you have a clocking error, you should be able to see the output of the Blackmagic Decklink, and observe the poor square wave signal. This is one of the very reasons you buy a scope.

I’m no engineer but apperently DL cards SDI o/p doesn’t work with inputs that aren’t re-clocked (Most decks are re-clocked) and the tektronix input isn’t re-clocked. Something to do with front and back porches not lining up.

REPLY – your engineers should assist you with this problem, and show you how to use the scope, and setup the Decklink card for you if necessary. SDI or HD-SDI signals that are run a short distance DO NOT NEED TO BE RECLOCKED. Only SDI signals that are run over 300′ need to be reclocked, becuase the square wave starts to break up. Reclocking cleans up the square wave so the digital input can see this signal correctly. This also becomes an issue if you are using cable that is not rated for SDI or HD-SDI, that cannot handle the bandwidth of SDI or HD-SDI. The short cable out of the Decklink will work PERFECTLY into the WVR7000, but if you must extend your lines, use Belden 1505A, or Belden 1694A. I cannot begin to stress to you that EVEN IF THERE IS A PROBLEM (and there is not) – the Tek WVR7000 will SHOW YOU THE ERROR on the scope ! That’s the point of buying it. The comment “the front and back porches not lining up” is ABSOLUTE NONSENSE. These words are used to describe the horizontal sync interval of a composite analog video signal.
You are getting a “snow job” from your “technical staff”.

Anyone using a DL card with a tektronix WVR7000 without problems? Or am I going to have to buy a Kona card if I want to use the box (it’s pretty sexy for OnLining and quality control.)

REPLY – if you were to purchase an AJA Kona card, you would get the EXACT SAME RESULTS. This applies to any SDI or HD-SDI device. May I suggest, and URGE YOU to bring a digital VTR near the scope (or move the scope to a Digi Beta or HD VTR) and send in a SDI signal into the scope and make sure that the scope is working properly (there are lots of buttons and menu’s on a WVR7000 – just like there are lots of setup menus on a Decklink card – and an AJA card). May I also suggest that you tell your technical staff to get THEIR LAZY GOOD FOR NOTHING ASSES IN THE ROOM WITH YOU AND HELP YOU SET THIS STUFF UP. You are probably an editor, and it is not your responsibility to
setup new equipment.

Reclocking – I just love this buzzword stuff.

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
Orlando, FL.

[Bob Zelin]

Keep your block size at 32K (the default) – when I had the bad batch of Hitachi 400 Gig SATA drives, I was told by the SATA host companies to switch to 64K, and things just got worse. Leave it at 32K.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

David writes –
that will be that FCP extreme is going to be completely Apple hardware dependant. It will be X-serve raids or nothing

reply –
I was not aware of this. I guess we will see in a few weeks.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

very simple – download AJA Kona System Test, and run this on your drive array. It will tell you in a few seconds if your drive array is working.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Lars – as everyone is telling you, the HUGE 4210 is the best selection if you want to do uncompressed HD. If you can afford a Sony HD VTR, then you
can afford this drive array. However, if you are going HDV, P2, DVCProHD, etc., then you can easily get away with SATA drives or Firewire 800, for about 1/10 th the price. I have found that most people are more than happy with DVCProHD, and the SATA drives are super reliable.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

the default from Apple is hardware RAID5, and then you use the Apple Disk Utility to do a RAID 50 across the busses of your single XServe RAID. This is the recommend setup config from Apple for HD video, and this is the #1 way that almost every XServe RAID is setup that I have seen. This type of config is exactly what AJA and Blackmagic did when they first had to do HD stuff with FCP (before they got involved with third party drive companies like Medea, HUGE, ADTX and others).

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Dan –
the AJA I/O line has a standard Frame Synchronizer input on it’s composite inputs to stabilize a poor incoming VHS input. I don’t know if the LH has
a frame sync (I don’t think that it does) – SO, you can either get an AJA I/O, or you can get a nice cheap Datavideo Frame Sync TBC for about $300 from Markertek. This will lock up your unstable VHS sources.

Bob Zelin