[Bob Zelin]

Your problem is not fixed. There is something wrong with your XServe RAID. The XServe RAID is a very fast unit. I use SATA drives all the time, and one
SATA drive gets about 60mb/sec (both read and write) and 2 SATA drives striped together get 120mb/sec with burst speeds up to 135mb/sec.

I worked on an Apple XServe RAID the other day with “only” 6 drives in it, and I got 230mb/sec performance. Your drive array is barely moving. It’s making me question if your drives are in a RAID 5 configuration at all, and if all of your drives are being used. It is my opinion that if you do nothing (becuase it’s working), as your drive array gets more and more full, you will start to get “drop frame errors”. Using RAID Admin, you should rebuild the RAID array, and then use Apple Disk Utility to reinit the drives – if you have drives on both sides of the XServe, stripe both sides together. You ABSOLUTELY will get dramatically better performance from an XServe RAID than 74.8mb/sec, even if you only have 4 drives stripped together.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Because there have been great deliverly delays in the Multibridge product, many people, including myself, have not seen a HD Multibridge Extreme that works. This does not mean that Blackmagic products are not excellent. However, you are on an AJA forum, and most of these users have experience with AJA products. I can assure you that the AJA Kona 2, AJA Kona LH and AJA Kona LHe DO WORK without question, without bugs, and without aggrivation, as long as you have the correct drive array to handle the speeds that you want to capture. You will almost never see a post on these forums that say “AJA SUCKS”. AJA products work as advertised.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Nick –
the older Apple FC cards ran at 66MHz, so unless you just bought it, put the Apple FC card in slot 2 or 3, and the AJA Kona LH in slot 4. I ASSUME that your drives are striped as one big RAID array, and that you have more than 4 drives stripped together (since you say that you have 3.5 TB, which if you have at least 7 drives, you should have no trouble doing DVCPro or SD uncompressed). With 7 drives (or more), you should have NO PROBLEMS doing DVCProHD either. I ASSUME you have used EASY SETUP to setup your FCP, and not manually selected things from the Audio/Video and Sequence settings – correct ?

Certainly, right now, use the AJA Kona System Test in the Kona Utiiltes folder, and run it. Select 10 bit 720×486, and pick a 4 Gig file size. What are your read and write speeds ? If for some reason you can’t find AJA Kona System Test on your MAC, download it NOW from the aja.com/support site.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Bob Zelin is NOT a reseller. I am an installer, I don’t sell anything.
No matter what, have someone qualified to build and install your system, because if you buy either Blackmagic, AJA, or anything else, this stuff does not just plug in and start working. If that is what you want (and don’t want technical help) – go firewire, and forget doing quality work.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

David is corect – you have a card slot or drive issue. Specify what drives you have, what host controller you have, what card slot order you are using.
We will tell you if they will work with 8 bit uncompressed.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

In my opinion, you will be much better off with a SATA solution – G Tech, Firmtek, ProMax – so many great solutions. But plenty of people use Firewire 800 drives very successfully, so Firewire 800 from G-Tech or others will work as well. You are pushing 10 bit with FW800, but 8 bit uncompressed will work just fine. Again, SATA is a superior solution, and very stable.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Arlene, this is the question of the hour. And while the smart person is answering this question, please also tell us about Firewire 800 PCIe cards.

Thanks –
Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

ok, if it’s too drastic, then go to http://www.apple.com under support, and search for “uninstall Final Cut Pro”. There you will find a 2 page long document on how to uninstall FCP manually. Do this, and then reinstall FCP, and then reinstall the AJA drivers, and try it again. And if this doesn’t work, then you just lost 2 hours, and proceed with what I suggested in my last email.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

the only way you will resolve these issues is to do a CLEAN RELOAD of your OS, and then FCP, and then the AJA drivers (NOOOOOO !!!!). You should do an “erase and install”, wiping out the internal hard drive. I know what a pain this is.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Although I have done both, the “correct” proceedure is to install the editing software first (Premier, FCP, etc.), and THEN install the Blackmagic drivers.

Bob Zelin