[Jason Porthouse]

Don’t know if you’re UK based, but I echo Bob’s advice. Depending on where in the Middle East you’re talking about, I’d hook up with a reseller to spec and supply your suites. It does sound like you’re in over your head – and that’s not in any way a criticism, just an observation. Getting help now from a professional will pay dividends in the future.

For instance – I wouldn’t build an 8-seat edit setup without shared storage. You may find that it’s not any more expense than individual storage, especially for the format’s you need – and even if it is, the flexibility it would allow you should you ever need it (which, if it’s there, would be sooner rather than later) will pay for itself the first time you use it.

So, talk to a good reseller. If you’re UK based then Quad Logic in Bristol are good (no connection, just happy customer) and they may well be able to spec, supply and install. Your boss will be happy, and you’ll be able to concentrate on making programmes rather than thinking ‘If Only’

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

My own experiences with FCP crashing have lead me to conclude that there is a big difference between the ‘theoretical’ capabilities of any given hard drive and the reality. My problems with running XDcam from a FW800 drive would seem to uphold that – theoretically it should be fine, but in practice things get funky.

If you can RAID a couple of SATA drives (RAID0 would be fine if you have a good backup strategy in place) you may well see a marked difference in stability.

Having said all that, I’ve spent the last 5 years cutting for a cilent on a Dual G5 with a mix of G-SATAs and Lacie FW400 drives and honestly cannot remember when we had a crash, so there is obviously some voodoo going on there…

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

OK, it was a sequence cut in DV, from DVCam PAL source. I copied and pasted the sequence into a new sequence set up as ProRes using the preset, modifying it to playback using my Blackmagic Multibridge Pro. Tried to render (a mix of PinP over graphics produced to PAL size) and supers & rolling caps using Boris. A few light CCs and crops. Nothing heavy. Got the message, scratched head, switched rendering to 8-bit et voila, it worked fine. This was for render and export.

Odd, no?

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

As a linked aside, I had this very message the other day trying to render a ProRes (non-HQ) sequence, as set from the easy setup (sequence presets). I got the message on render and export. Only way I could cure it was to turn rendering to 8-bit in the sequence settings. What gives??

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

[Wayne Carey] “Your hard drive is too slow for this. It would be fine with XDCAM HD 4:2:0 flavoring but not for the new 4:2:2 flavor…. “

Yes, it makes total sense. I’d had a similar problem with the XDCam EX from an earlier project though. It’s a classic case of upping the ante one end without taking care of the other.

Thanks all

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Wayne,

Sorry for the confusion. I’ve received the media on an HDD from the production company who’ve ingested it from EX1s(20%) and the F700 (the rest), using the latest Sony software. They’ve then cloned the drives and sent one to me.

I’m using XDCAM HD422 25p CBR setup, modified to use my Blackmagic for monitoring purposes.

Hope that clears it up!

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

I’m tending to agree with you Walter, whilst FW should theoretically be fine, I think there’s the possibility of the buses choking with data and causing a crash. I’ll have to do some jiggling around and make space on my RAID, and see if it solves the issue…

Victor,

Absolutely sure, there’s nowt on there but OS and apps. All media and related files are on separate drives or RAIDs.

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

[Wayne Carey] “s it a Mac Pro or a G5? How much RAM? What version of the Sony Software Transfer program do you have? Do you have the latest drivers from Blackmagic?

[Jason Porthouse] “Any suggestions/fixes/workarounds aside from disabling thumbnails (I have in the sequence settings, I really need to use them in the bins though…) ”

Why do you have to use the thumbnails? Are you logging your media with proper descriptions?
“

Wayne, its a Dual Xeon 2.66, ATI1900, 4g RAM. No Sony software, just media on a drive. Latest BM drivers (I’ve tried earlier ones to no avail).

Thumbnails are useful to me for 2 reasons; primarily on this project because it’s been logged in cam (all clips are called FOOD00000 where the 0s are ascending. Yeah, I know, but try getting the producers to spring for a couple of days editing the names…) and I like visual. Helps me get a handle on the footage in the absence of naming and logging, something that we can no longer insist on.)

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Walter,

I agree, and will be trying to port across to a faster drive ASAP.

Andy,

It seems to give two different types of crash. The first is on switching to Thumbnail view, or opening a bin that’s already thumbnailed. On drawing the thumbs the program crashes – though not always. List views don’t crash, and trashing the cache or moving it doesn’t seem to help. I get an error message post crash (the ‘FCP has quit…’ one, with no report or definite error)

The second type of crash involves moving around the timeline. Any quick scrolls across the footage and sometimes (only sometimes) it just bums out to the finder. No warning, no ‘FCP has quit unexpectedly’ – nada. Again, seems to happen more frequently if thumbnails are on in the TL (I can live happily without these)

I only get this with XDCAM, and it would seem that material originated in 25p as opposed to 50i is worse. Regular HD (ProRes), HDV, Uncomp SD – solid as a rock.

*sigh*

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

This would do the job, you’d need the component card (about $270) to go with it though for the best quality.

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*