[Jay Blanchard]

I guess the Xserve’s not the issue then. To answer the Firewire question, no, we have no Firewire cables (400 or 800) connected to the machine other than the 10ft FW400 cable we have coming from the Io.

I’ve repaired the permissions, so I’m going to try to test it again. Next step is delete the prefs and try a new firewire cable (even though it’s been tested with other devices and works fine). If that doesn’t work, I’ll bug AJA tech support tomorrow.

[Jay Blanchard]

Thanks again everyone for your help & recommendations with our problem.

Here’s the result of our benchmark testing of the XServe (which is our scratch drive for FCP Captures, Audio & Render Files):

XBENCH RESULTS:

Results 160.64
System Info
Xbench Version 1.1.3
System Version 10.3.9 (7W98)
Physical RAM 1536 MB
Model PowerMac7,2
Processor PowerPC 970 @ 1.80 GHz
L1 Cache 64K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache 512K @ 1.80 GHz
Bus Frequency 900 MHz
Video Card GeForce FX 5200
Drive Type APPLE Xserve RAID
CPU Test 124.22
GCD Loop 76.63 2.99 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 205.67 743.77 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 88.24 2.56 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 143.18 2.22 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 248.64 9.95 Mops/sec
Thread Test 83.47
Computation 58.78 793.56 Kops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 143.90 1.81 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 250.41
System 263.14
Allocate 583.14 380.39 Kalloc/sec
Fill 208.95 1663.27 MB/sec
Copy 204.08 1020.41 MB/sec
Stream 238.86
Copy 206.24 1507.64 MB/sec [G5]
Scale 210.79 1555.66 MB/sec [G5]
Add 271.57 1738.06 MB/sec [G5]
Triad 288.06 1760.05 MB/sec [G5]
Quartz Graphics Test 178.42
Line 179.25 4.56 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 133.54 9.39 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 176.95 4.08 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 186.80 2.03 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 253.05 4.12 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 170.57
Spinning Squares 170.57 119.37 frames/sec
User Interface Test 232.43
Elements 232.43 74.76 refresh/sec
Disk Test 264.51
Sequential 161.69
Uncached Write 318.33 132.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 308.59 126.37 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 66.50 10.53 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 301.17 121.68 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 726.59
Uncached Write 1658.46 24.88 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 559.18 126.11 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 795.38 5.25 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 538.61 110.85 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Anything out of the ordinary here? The only thing that caught my eye was the “Uncached Read” speed–is it supposed to be that low?

The results with AJA’s Kona System Test app varied a bit, but I usually averaged around 127 MB/s for write speed and 64 MB/s for read speed (based on a 128.0 MB Disk Whack test).

Please let me know if these numbers are up to par for running the AJA Io at 8-bit uncompressed; thanks!

[Jay Blanchard]

Umm, not sure if that was empathy, sarcasm or envy….could you please clarify Bob?

As I mentioned, we’re using a 1.4TB Xserve, so we have four drives running. I wasn’t the person who configured the machine, but I’m assuming the drives are striped. I agree that there’s no reason why this setup shouldn’t be working, and I’m not sure if the issue is on Apple’s side (Final Cut Pro/Xserve) or on the AJA side.

I’ll do the drive speed tests today & report back.

[Jay Blanchard]

Thanks everyone! We’ll try the Kona tester & repair permissions, delete prefs, and defrag. I’ll be sure to post again to let you know how it’s working.

[Jay Blanchard]

Lee, I work with Carrie & I can fill you in on some of the technical specs. We’re working from a G5 Dual 2GHz machine running the latest Panther update. All footage is being captured to a 1.4 Terabyte Xserve as composite 8-bit uncompressed.

The next steps we’re planning are to defrag both the boot drive and the Xserve drives (although we’ve done very little work on either so far). Would repairing the FCP permissions delete the Io presets? If not, I’d like to try that as well.

I’m also looking to test the drive speed of the Xserve to make sure that the throughput is acceptible for 8-bit uncompressed, but I haven’t been able to find a free app that allows me to do so. Does anybody know of one?

Thanks,

Jay

[Jay Blanchard]

Artbeats has a CD of stock clips including some paint splatters–

https://creative.gettyimages.com/source/classes/FrameSet.aspx?pk=2&source=filmSearch&viewCDImagesSource=filmSearch&productType=1&productCode=ABMA&filmSearchSync=%22paint%22+and+%22Splattered%3aCondition%22%7e0%2c60%2c16833%2c3%2c65535%2c1%2c0%2c0%2c0%2c1350288

Does anyone else know of other similar clip collections?

[Jay Blanchard]

Thanks Adam! Would you mind explaining a bit more how this would be done using bones (what settings & such)?

[Jay Blanchard]

Very interesting–thanks for doing that!

[Jay Blanchard]

Thanks for clearing that up Ron. It seems like a legitimate reason for discontinuing his account.

Just a question though–do you typically send a warning before “banning” someone from CC? I guess I could see Michael’s POV if he wrote some harsh words about Panasonic and suddenly was booted from the Cow: that he was censored. The last thing anybody wants is a censored forum, as it would be completely antithetical to what these discourses are all about.

However, I don’t think that is at all what is going on here, and I think your reasoning is valid. There’s no point in clogging up the threads with copy & paste diatribes and regurgitated information.

[Jay Blanchard]

Does “DVX100A Only” mean “no DVX100P”?