[Flake Shaw iv]

Been in your shoes several times before and, unfortunately, don’t have any magic answers. But here’s a few things I’d recommend:

— If you have Sorenson Squeeze installed, try exporting a QuickTime reference and then running it through squeeze.
— If you’re trying to export to a networked drive, try exporting to your local drive.
— If you can’t get either of those options to work, try splitting it into smaller sequences and then recombine the smaller QuickTime files into 1 using QuickTime Pro.

Hopefully that helps.

[Flake Shaw iv]

Is it formatted Fat32? Fat32 is supposed to be universal, but Mac’s still don’t play well with it, especially with heavier tasks. One way to tell if the drive is mounting, but not being made accessible is to open disk utility and see if it shows up. If it does, you may want to repair the permissions and verify the disk.

I know there is a program for Windows called Mac Drive that will allow you to mount and read OSX Extended formatted drives, but I’m not sure how well it works. It might be worth trying to run the drive in OS Extended if Mac Drive is worth it’s salt.

[Flake Shaw iv]

You can hook up a DVD player to a Mojo with BNC male to RCA female adapters and crash record. You won’t get reliable timecode, but if that doesn’t matter…

You can also try MPEG Streamclip. Its a free VOB converter. Not super efficient, but does the trick.

[Flake Shaw iv]

I believe John is correct about the SDI options for Avid, the mojo is the only interface I know of as well. The “nice” thing about the mojo’s these days is that Avid will overnight you a new one if you do encounter a problem. You just have to be able to convince them that the problem is mojo specific and not a compatibility issue with other gear.

As for FW drives, if you’re looking to go cheap, go cheap enough to buy two of the same ones so you can actively back-up and swap drives in case of failure. The cheapest drives I’ve found are the LA Cie refurbished drives, but I use them for transfer only and don’t work off of them. G-Tech’s G-Raid drives are extremely reliable, but more expensive.

Are you looking for HD or SD monitors? Try local post houses or rental companies and see if they have any older models they will off-load. Sony LUMA LCD series has some cost effective, smaller models. Wouldn’t recommend for on-line, but they do the trick for off-line.

[Flake Shaw iv]

I’ve had similar issues with the Avid codecs, even after they released the intel versions. One way to check and see if the version of the codec you have is actually compatible with your machine is to try and run Microsoft Word or Excel. If the codec is incompatible with your machine, it will crash the program after a few minutes without warning.

One possibility would be to try to get the QuickTime files re-exported without the “use Avid DV Codec” setting turned on. Files exported without the DV Codec will typically play fine on other computers that don’t have the codec’s installed.

[Flake Shaw iv]

One option (the only one I know of) is to get a Keyspan Twin Serial Adapter, averages around $80: https://www.keyspan.com/products/usa28xg/homepage.spml

That will give you two RS422 ports in a single USB adapter. You’ll still need to get the RS422 cables though.

— Flake

[Flake Shaw iv]

We’re using the SAN MP system with Avid MC Soft 2.7 and GSpeed storage for a reality show. It presents several challenges with media management and distribution and there is absolutely no project sharing; but it is fast as lightning. These challenges can be easily managed if you’re diligent in keeping track of where you’re putting your media, renders, etc…

There are drive scanning/indexing issues between Power PC and Intel Macs that are typical of Avid. This is compounded if you create large numbers of volumes (we have 40) with SAN MP, but if you’re all Power PC or all Intel, the issue goes away.

I came in after the set-up had been purchased and installed, so I can’t really speak to what it cost. We purchased from Melrose Mac and They can probably quote.

[Flake Shaw iv]

I cannot even get an EDL to load in EDL Manager much less export. It crashes when I try to open through Media Composer and when I close out of MC and open the bin through EDL Manager.

I have been able to take sequences into older versions of MC with older versions of EDL Manager and successfully create EDLs. 2.7.0 is the newest version I’ve had success with.

Haven’t received word back on the trouble ticket submitted to Avid yet, but have heard from several other editors that EDL Manager is just not compatible with 2.7.3.

[Flake Shaw iv]

Hey Jeremy,

That is something that we have been monitoring closely as well. None of the systems have been updated to iTunes 7 or the new QT. The oddest thing about this is that our connection to the SAN on all affected systems is fine. The SAN is mounted when the computers crash and re-mounts with no problems on the re-boots.

We were at XSan 1.3 on the MDC and all systems during the first crash and then upgraded to 1.4 hoping that would be part of the solution. All systems and MDC were on 1.4 during the second two crashes, but because the first crash occured while we still at 1.3 we haven’t felt we needed to revert back.

Thanks,
Flake

[Flake Shaw iv]

Yes. The schedule tabs on both the MDC and the systems do not show any events scheduled at all. During all three crashes, the MDC has been completely fine. It has stayed on, and is not logging any warning events at all.