[Bob Zelin]

Perhaps you should consider an AVID Adrenaline. Check out some of the user forums, to see how responsive AVID is on their own bugs. Check out some of the complaints from users on these forums. Oh, the turnkey system with a HP xw8200 will be about $40,000, not including manditory AVID assurance, but that’s ok – you can afford it.

The AJA I/O is about $2000, with FREE support – but why do this – you don’t need the money for anything else, do you? You like spending $4000 for AVID annual Assurance, don’t you. You liked the fact that AVID won’t send you an Aladin or Genie 3D card unless you pay full price. You like the fact that if your ABVB card failed right now, they would be happy to sell you a replacement for $3000. Naah – forget the AJA I/O with free support and free software upgrades forever – you don’t want a piece of crap like that. And I know that you don’t want that money in your bank account. Buy the AVID product.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

come on Kaspar, you are driving us crazy here – there may not be a PCIe SATA card, but there isn’t a Blackmagic PCIe HD card either (to my knowlege) – it’s the Blackmagic Decklink Extreme only for now. And that doesn’t to HD – certainly not 4:4:4 HD !

But be assured that Blackmagic (and the SATA companies) will have PCIe cards coming out SOON. In the meantime, a single Sonnet Tempo eSATA 8 port card can handle 4 Terabytes of storage, and you can use TWO cards in the MAC, so you can have a 4 Terabyte mirrored situation if you like. That’s still a lot of storage (and it’s still a lot of money !).

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

you know that I had to have a smart ass comment here –

What about Apple’s FCP ad’s that would show a complete edit suite with Sony DVW-A500 Digi Beta, etc., and say “the $50,000 edit system, now $999”. Is this truth in advertising? Was anyone that viewed that ad surprised when they ordered Final Cut Pro, and only received a CD and a manual, instead of $200,000 in hardware ?

But my favorite was from an old electronics magazine, where a tech support guy repeated the comment of an irate customer. The company sold accounting software. “The box said that it was a COMPLETE accounting system for $35 – it didn’t say anything about needing a computer !!!!!”.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

HUGE Raid’s are amazing. I don’t deal with dual link, and I am a huge SATA fan, but whenever I have a customer that needs to do uncompressed 10 bit HD (4:2:2), I ALWAYS specify the HUGE U320-RX. I am sure that the 4k fibre HUGE arrays are teriffic.
I am not an XServe RAID fan, from experience. This does not mean that the product does not work.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Kaspar –
I have no personal experience with this, and I am probably wrong about this, but I believe that I have read that you would need 2 FC cards and 2 Xserve RAID chassis striped together to get the performance necessary to get uncompressed 4:4:4 for large file playback (a half hour show, for example). But this is something that I read from another user forum, so I don’t know how accurate this info is.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Kaspar is correct – unless you have a RAID 3 or RAID 5 (or RAID 50) system, the typical Apple/ATTO RAID 0 striping configuration will not help you, no matter how many partitions you set up. You can do RAID 1 (disk mirroring), but almost no one is willing to do that, becuase you lose 50% of your drive space (500 gigs becomes 250 gigs).

With that said, with the exception of the Apple XServe RAID (that uses Hitachi SATA drives), I have NEVER seen a SATA drive fail since I have started using them in April 2005. Now, less than a year is no great track record for long term performance, but SATA’s from Hitachi and Seagate have so far shown themselves to be pretty damn reliable. It is bizarre (and I don’t know why) that the only dead Hitachi SATA drives I have ever encountered have been from Apple XServe RAID systems, that “theoretically” have “hand picked” SATA drives by Apple.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

you ask –
Striped using disk utility. Is there anyway to partition OS X raid volumes into multiple volumes? I couldn’t see any way to do that.

REPLY – I am not aware of any way to use Apple Disk Utility to create partitions on a RAID 0 configuration. However, the easy way to do it is to purchase ATTO Express Stripe (www.attotech.com), which will easily allow you to partition your RAID 0 configuration.

I have asked Apple Tech support 2 different times how to do this, and I was put on “eternal hold” both times, after the Apple “techs” said “yea, I think it can be done”. Eternal hold to me means being put on hold for over 1 hour. At that point (twice), you get the impression that no one at Apple Tech support knows how to use Apple RAID Utility (I was asking about an Apple XServe RAID, which I no longer use, since all the SATA stuff has become stable).

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

you did not receive a response, becuase most professionals never took the Matrox line seriously. Even when Matrox had a deal with Discreet for the Digisuite card set, their support was non existant (and Discreet refused to discuss the Matrox hardware if you had a problem). Bottom line is that with excellent products on the market from AJA, Blackmagic, Aurora, etc., and with professional solutions from companies like AVID and Sony, Matrox is the cockaroach in the mix. You wander around these trade shows, and see companies like Matrox, and have some prior experience with dealing with companies like Matrox, and you say “who buys this crap anyway”.

Another excellent example of this is Bluefish, which is really Digital Voodoo. Everyone who has been dealing with FCP for a long time has dealt with Digital Voodoo – long before the original AJA Kona card. Digital Voodoo was SUCH a nightmare to deal with, that the company had to “hide” behind the Bluefish name, and even with amazing specifications in the Bluefish cards, NO ONE CARES, becuase no one needs that kind of abuse. Without knowing anything about Matrox Axio, I do know one thing – AJA support for their products is AMAZING, and Matrox support for their products is TERRIBLE. Will support for the Axio be different – will Matrox be more responsive, and respond to bugs, and changes from Apple – I don’t know, but I would not want to be the one to find out.

This is a pro AJA forum, but with all the grunting, there is nothing wrong with products from Blackmagic and Aurora. And there was nothing wrong with the Pinnacle Cinewave line either, until Pinnacle pulled the plug. But Matrox – “forgetaboutit”.
One thing is for sure, Apple screws with FCP and the OS, and if the hardware company isn’t willing to respond almost instantly, you can take your wonderful hardware and shove it up where the sun don’t shine.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Steve –
I don’t sell anything – but as a systems integrator, it’s tough to recommend in good faith that someone should search around for an “old G5” when there will be no computer next year to plug the old card into.

The problem here is that it APPEARS that Apple is control of this situation. It may be tough to get a “tried and true” system 2 months from now, if Apple no longer sells the “old” G5’s, but the new cards are not available yet.

This, of course, makes the AJA I/O box even more attractive. Platform independent.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

I cannot agree with you – although AJA is the #1 support company right now, all the companies you mention offer FREE support. Want abuse – buy an AVID product, and pay thousands for “customer assurance”, while getting “newbies” to answer (or not answer) your questions. As AJA grows as a company, and a “consultant” says to them “may I suggest that you charge $2000 per year per AJA product for support” – is the day that I stop using AJA products.

Many people on this list are unaware of the fact, that if you own an AVID product, and don’t PAY for support – you ain’t gonna talk to no one on the phone from AVID. And I don’t mean $39 bucks.

Bob Zelin