[Daniel Frome]

This is an old thread but I wish to bring a little update for any future readers.

My thunderbolt-to-firewire adapter was also producing bad results: 40-50MB/sec read and write. However, almost immediately afterwards my rMBP began having thunderbolt disconnect issues with all my devices. I’ve talked about this in a few other threads, but the bottom line is that my rMBP had some hardware faults in it. I use a thunderbolt RAID, and in the frustration almost forgot entirely about the bad FW speeds.

Apple swapped me a new model today due to the thunderbolt power issues, and same drive with same thunderbolt-to-FW adapter is now producing 80-90MB/sec speeds — which is exactly the same as traditional FW. I can’t say for certain that this is only due to a faulty port, as my old rMBP had OSX 10.7.4 and this replaced model has 10.8.2 … but if it isn’t the OS it most certainly was the faulty hardware.

Moral of the story: if your FW drive is acting up …you may have a similar thunderbolt power issue that afflicted my rMBP and it needs to get checked.

[Daniel Frome]

Not surprisingly. If you’re into making short, vfx effects heavy content — then pure performance is key. Adobe and Avid software runs better on Windows 7 than OSX anyway (maybe not significantly better… but again “pure performance is key”).

[Daniel Frome]

This is Avid we’re talking about: they don’t come guns blazing with a new paradigm. That being said…

Here is a shortlist of the main additions/changes:

New codecs:
1) DNx80 and DNx100 for DSLR or other 4:2:0 sources or whatever you want

2) jpeg2000 (aka j2k): 10bit 4:2:2 visually lossless at any broadcast resolution. 30-50Mbits for SD. 90-150Mbits for HD. This is a favourite codec for me: since very often 1080p/23.98 material hovers around the 100Mbits data rate and it is better than ProResHQ in terms of quality (which is twice the bitrate).

Under the hood improvement:
– way faster AMA–>transcode processes. Transcoding will now often smother your CPU usage, especially if using the new J2K codec — flatlines even 12 core workstations – and transcodes multitudes faster than real-time (on multicore systems). In general, a quad core i7 will still see slightly faster transcodes into DnxHD than j2k, where as 8 and 12 core machines will see dramatic speed increases in favour of j2k.

– improved quicktime h264 cpu/speed: H264 exporting now uses 4 to 5 cores on average – often finishes 1080p/23.98 renders at about 80% of real-time (single pass, quality-based exports). Also far less crashes when exporting long sequences.

– improved performance with most 3rd party video IO devices, especially blackmagic devices.
overall much snappier response on the timeline, more similar to v5.5 snappiness (there is 1 known bug with ‘fast scrub’ that is being addressed in a 6.5.1 patch, but it is not major).

UI/Workflow additions:
– Avid can now “search and find” batches of AMA clips and automatically relink them, similar to how FCP does this.
– You can now select multiple non-adjacent clips and move them around as a unit, without needing to select the filler between them.

– The Relink window now offers more options for relinking to files of different of metadata.
– You can now turn off automatic AMA volume mounting (but still have AMA enabled).
– You can still use classic XDCAM and P2 import functions while AMA is on.
– full Redcolor 3 and Redgamma 3 support

[Daniel Frome]

Further question about your RAW comments: would it not be possible to relink to say, RED RAW in Avid and then grade as usual? What limitations do you encounter (besides the resolution) when grading RAW inside Avid/Baselight vs a dedicated system like Resolve?

[Daniel Frome]

Thanks for passing this on. I’m doing as much reading and tutorial watching as possible to make my 14 day trial count as much as possible.

[Daniel Frome]

Funny update for you all: They replaced the logic board, but they messed it up. One of my ports is totally non-functioning now. After talking with them again they admitted that “oh, we weren’t supposed to try and fix that model, it basically needs to be replaced.” So here we go again — at least this time it’s just a simple swap.

[Daniel Frome]

Prores MXF will be FINE. It adds a marginal (5-10%) overhead above DnxHD and that’s it. It works solid.

[Daniel Frome]

Since you said it’s a 65 minute prores file, even a ‘fast import’ is going to take a while, depending on the speed of your drives.

“fast import” is akin to a file copy. So, a 65 minute prores file is going be …what, 90GB or so? So, give it some time.

You may want to just AMA link it, which would be instant.

[Daniel Frome]

Can’t do this in Avid exactly how you’re thinking. It’s not how it works.

If you want to do this “inside Avid” then use AvidFX. The interface will be annoying to learn and it’s very slow, but it will do it.

Or just do the camera move in after effects.

It’s a pain, and I wish Avid could do this better, but I’ll just say that there are benefits to it working this way too in different circumstances.

[Daniel Frome]

Hi Gary –
I’ve swapped out thunderbolt cables twice, and (as stated earlier) even replaced the entire RAID unit “just in case.”

I’ve tried various different combinations daisy chaining my ethernet adapter, firewire adapter, and displayport monitor, and also not daisy chaining anything at all.

Sometimes it takes 5 minutes or 5 hours, but eventually the thunderbolt devices will give out. Bummer indeed. We’ll see in 2 weeks when the laptop comes back with new logic board, etc.