Craig Thomas quinlan
Forum Replies Created
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No issues using OD, in fact, this is very common in collaborative pro apps environments. The primary thing to pay attention to is the type of OD accounts you use. There are a few options, but for users who use their home folders for FCP or CS (for project files, cache, render files, etc.) you should be using network managed local accounts. This means that the home folder is stored locally, but your machine is bound to OD and permissions are controlled through OD. This is a great way to work and allows the network admin to leverage everything OD has to offer. You would set this in Workgroup Manager once your machine is bound to OD and tell the home folder to live in /Users/. The first time you log in on the machine, a home folder will be created locally on that machine and you would use it as you would any other home folder.
The main reason you’d want to keep home folders local is performance – if your home folder lives on a network, you have a bottleneck which can adversely affect the performance of your pro apps. For example, in Xsan environments, local home folders managed by OD are the most common choice.
Some people choose mobile home folders, but this can become quite cumbersome with syncing and such, and isn’t necessary for most environments.
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There are ways to get three monitors to work simultaneously, but you can’t use the standard mini-display port to DVI adaptor – you’ll need the mini-display port to dual link dvi adaptor. Here’s the link on Apple’s site:
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4279
This shows all the supported display configurations.
Specific provisions for three simultaneous monitors:
# To connect three DVI displays at once, you must use two Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapters (sold separately).
# To connect up to three VGA displays simultaneously, use the Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter and DVI to VGA adapters (sold separately). -
You can do this in Cinema Tools or After Effects, but if you don’t have them, the ignoreQTrate true in console works perfectly IF you have stripped the audio, as Bouke said.
Just open the h.264 original in QT Pro (you can’t do this in Quicktime X – you need to download qt 7 and open the footage there) and extract the video. Hit Command+J to open the Movie Properties, click the movie track and hit ‘Extract’. Save as self-contained, and import as mentioned.
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Sounds like it may be an HDCP handshake issue. Take a look at this doc explaining the issues with hdmi/dvi hdcp handshaking.
https://www.quantumdata.com/resources/White%20Paper/HDCP_WP.pdf
Is everything in the chain here HDCP compliant? Intermittent blinking or snowy video is characteristic of a handshake issue.
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Shotput Pro will do any digital media card, since it’s just pulling everything off in an unaltered state. It lets you choose between a file size comparison, which is fast, or a byte for byte comparison, which takes longer but is much safer.
There are other products out there, this is just an example of one that I’ve personally used (I have no affiliation with Imagine Products).
Tapeless workflow can be dangerous without a proper transfer solution, and major problems with drag and drop happen way more often than you might think. For how inexpensive this kind of software is, it’s worth the peace of mind.
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There’s software out there that does everything you just mentioned – multiple copies to multiple locations, plus verification, and they’re cheap.
Take a look at Shotput Pro from Imagine Products:
https://www.imagineproducts.com/
There’s also VideoToolShed Offloader:
https://www.videotoolshed.com/product/15/offloader/3
For RED media, a very popular one is R3D Data Manager:
With tapeless media, it’s definitely crucial to verify it when transferring to devices. With this software, you can compare by file sizes/dates/names, and also do byte by byte comparisons to ensure everything made it over safely. There’s other software out there for sure, but don’t rely on drag & drop in Finder if you care about your media being safe, especially if you have to erase and reuse your cards.
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Take a look at SynthEyes. This can be used in After Effects, and I know of many people using this successfully. Much cheaper than its competing products.
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The LHe is an older card but will work just fine in your new machine. The LHi is a great card with more features than the LHi; all depends on what you need it to do.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds of reasons you could have dropped frames. It’s the most common issue people have when editing.
Check System Profiler in About this Mac to make sure that the LHe pci card is running at x4 and not x1. There could be a problem with the card.
What’s your workflow and storage?
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AJA wants the LHe in slot 2 because people were having issues with a/v drifting in HD sequences (and other various issues) when the card was in slot 3 or 4. Slot 2 is x16, so it’s faster than slot 3 or 4 in the new mac pros which are fixed at x4. SD sequences, no problem, certain HD sequences, no problem, but for certain settings, the issue comes up. This doesn’t apply to the Kona 3, which can reside in either slot 2 or 3.
Not everyone sees the drifting issue, but I can usually quickly reproduce the issues, and moving the card to slot 2 always solves it. Your mileage may vary. If it’s working now, then there isn’t a reason to move it until you have a problem.
A quick test can show you if you’ll encounter this drift: set FCP to an AJA 1080i29.97 HD uncompressed sequence setting, external video to all frames, create a new sequence, and insert in a single frame of HD bars and tone from the generators, followed by half a second or so of slug. Copy and paste this a few dozen times, and play through the sequence watching your external reference monitor. You can see a drift where the bars and tone no longer match up after a few seconds. If you don’t see this, then don’t worry about it.
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“When I reboot the computer, the volumes from our Facilis server do not appear. I need to reboot the Facilis and the Mac in order for these volumes to appear.”
At the very least, this is a problem. If your machine kernel panics when accessing the Facilis volume, and the volumes don’t reappear until the Facilis is rebooted, that sounds like it may be the source of the problem.
Some more information would help:
1. When the Facilis volumes fail to appear, are you still seeing the Facilis Tools volume(s), or is everything gone? Do any of the volumes appear in Disk Utility but are just unmounted?
2. Have you tried swapping your Atto 41/42es for a different card from another machine on your Facilis SAN? This would be a good way to see if the problem follows the card. Have you tried swapping the fibre cable or SFPs going to the host from the Facilis or the Fibre switch?
3. Try removing the Atto card entirely and setting capture scratch to a local drive and work that way for a bit. Does the issue occur again?
You may just have a bad Atto card, cable, or some other Facilis issue. I would start there. Having a large project file or a media volume filled too much wouldn’t cause your Facilis volumes to disappear on reboot. Besides, the way Facilis writes its data to disk is a sort of controlled fragmentation algorithm, making free space less relevant. They do this so performance remains the same regardless of free space.