[Dan Silber]

The choppy playback, etc I was describing is happening using a direct Thunderbolt connection – NOT 1G. I am not testing 1G vs 10G. I wanted to see how the Areca performs with the mac mini before the mac mini acts as a server. And currently it performs poorly. I was asking in the forum about ideas why that is the case.

Thanks,
Daniel

PS: I don’t know what you mean by “Interstellar”, but I am not from there in any case.

[Dan Silber]

see, it’s not so easy to do this yourself, is it ? #
Never thought it would be, but I didn’t think it would be impossible…

I understand all your points – at the moment I am checking the very basics and there are issues already.

I have taken the entire 10GbE network out of the equation and am checking the Areca ARC-8050T2 and MacMini (late 2014 with TB2) ONLY.

– I can play 4 HD streams in ProRes with only a few jittery hiccups during playback in this most basic configuration. Surely playback should be smooth – but it isn’t

– when I simultaneously duplicate a folder on the RAID using the finder (ca. 20Gb), HD playback performance plummets to unusable, sometimes coming to a standstill before “catching up” by playing the stream 4x-5x speed

Any clues? Or should I try a QNAP TVS-1282T?

Thanks!

[Dan Silber]

Thanks for the NFS tip, will try that in due time.

The AFP problem was an issue I isolated down to the QNAP. When backing up 1-2 TB over night, I would get random i/o errors. Not sure about the netatalk, but we had updated to the latest firmware.

And yes… I meant MB/s not GB/s 🙂

Thanks!

[Dan Silber]

Same problems here using PP CS5.5. Had the same problem with double mono tracks in timeline. They would only be exported as a single (!) mono track in the OMF. Solution: Delete all occurrences of that media file in all sequences so that you can change the properties from dual mono to stereo in the original file in the browser. Then re-cut the file onto a stereo track in your sequence. That workaround fixed the OMF export problem for me.

[Dan Silber]

I am interested in that as well… any news?

[Dan Silber]

Be sure you have at least FCP version 5.1.2

Choose “HDV 720p25” for capture and as a sequence preset.

If you encounter the problem if erratic clip “shredding” during capture, you may need to update your JVC firmware.

From JVC: “Certain NLE’s (ie Final Cut Pro) have experienced issues with scenes being broken into shorter segments (clips) during capture. This upgrade addresses this issue.”

https://pro.jvc.com/pro/special/HD100_upgrade/hd100_upgrade_faq.html#ques11a

Apparently, you need to have at least:
GY-HD100/101: 16-04 oder 19-03 oder 04-01
GY-HD110/111: 01-03
BR-HD50 01-06

Good luck!

[Dan Silber]

Hi Oliver,

you’re right, it is pointless to go into a “platform war discussion”.

I just don’t understand why Apple doesn’t add a few features that could save time and hassle, such as being able to add markers & comments during capture. (I am off to work in a few minutes to capture 15+ hours of footage and would like do be able to do that instead of twiddling my thumbs).

They make all their iApps immensely user friendly (I love “Pages” btw), but I feel that if they paid a bit more attention to these forums, their Pro Apps could be improved as well. “Pro” doesn’t have to mean “clunky”…

Anyway, thanks for the discussion!

[Dan Silber]

Walter and Oliver: If you say you know first-hand that Apple DOES monitor forums, I’ll take your word for it. Sure, if there’s an obvious technical bug, they have to fix it. I know they’ve done this only recently, when some users had issues with 5.1.3 and their redgiant software plug-ins: Apple reacted quickly and released 5.1.4 to fix those issues. I am aware of that.

Walter, you write that “Just because they may not respond to your feedback or you don’t see your ideas implemented, doesn’t mean they don’t care.”
Yes, that’s exactly what it means, let me explain my point:

It seems to me that Apple is eagerly catching up to Avid in terms of “technical specifications” – bullet points of what the software can do: ie support for camera or resolutions xyz, multi-cam editing, open timeline, etc. Apple has added plenty of technical features during the last years, that’s out of the question.

But: It’s still a clunky piece of software to operate. It’s missing at least a dozen VERY basic features and has annoying bugs, which make it feel like “Prosumer” software rather than professional editing software. It’s like it’s half-there and stagnated since version 4.

Why can’t I place markers and add comments during capture? Why can’t FCP output the timeline timecode to a deck? Why do I have to buy the plug in “BigTime” to get a BIG timecode window? Why does it take 3 steps before getting a dissolve in the position and duration I want? Why does placing the first audio keyframe in the timeline reduce the level by 1 dB? Why is assigning audio outputs a matter of hidden contextual menus next to the track’s name? Why is the media management not 100% reliable?

That’s what I mean by Apple doesn’t care about editors requests. Simple requests that would make editing on FCP itself easier.

Or am I missing something, Walter? From version 4 to version 6, what suggested improvements that have been discussed on Creative Cow have made it through to Apple?

[Dan Silber]

That’s one thing I won’t waste my time on.

I’ve sent quite a bit of feedback to Apple directly as well as posted on the apple.com forums. They don’t care about customer feedback, they just aren’t interested. Apple dismanteled their own forum staff (that’s customer feedback 24/7) a year ago: https://www.appleinsider.com/articles/06/07/31/report_confirms_dismantling_of_apple_forum_staff.html

By the way, I lost render files using FCP 5.1.4 after consolidating a project using media manager, having checked to include render files. They were there, but FCP ignored them. That was a 11 hour render on a G5 (!).

I used to have high hopes that Final Cut Pro would one day grow up and be as reliable in terms of media management as Avid MediaComposer was 10 years ago, or even Discreet Edit. I’ve gone from version 3 to 4 to 5… and I’ll leave it there for now.

It’s a shame Apple missed the boat on providing us editors with the major overhaul in version 6 that I’ve been hoping for: intuitive and reliable media management.

[Dan Silber]

From JVC:

What is the difference between GY-HD100E and GY-HD101E?

The FireWire (IEEE1394) port on the GY-HD101 allows input as well as output of the digital signals HDV (High Definition) and DV (Standard Definition). The GY-HD100 will only output. This is the one and only difference.

https://www.prohd.net/tech/prohd2/checklanques#1