[Jesus Ali]

Thanks Daniel. The main part of your answer, “set it to 640 x 480, Square Pixels” is helpful. But I forgot to mention some stuff.

The television is used as a Monitor for a Mac Mini, placed behind the screen. It is getting a computer monitor signal over DVI. It isn’t getting a television signal, so I can’t set the aspect ratio on the television when it’s in this mode.

The other issue is that SOME of the videos are widescreen 16:9 SD, or are HD to begin with. So that’s why I have to encode the black bars WITH the SD video clips. Because they might show up in a stream with 16:9 material. That’s why I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what the proper pixel count should be on the black bars.

Would you say that you are certain that 720 x 480 source should go to 640 x 480 square?

Thanks for your help!

[Jesus Ali]

If you are testing multiple solutions, I would suggest you try out the KONA 3 PCIe card (XENA on the PC side). It can support Dual Link SDI and 4:4:4 color space, including RGB 10-bit, which from my (admittedly limited) knowledge is as Uncompressed as you can get.

You’re working with the full color value for EACH and every pixel. Photoshop’s 0-255 color space is 8-bit, so you’ll have even more shades for each pixel and no compression algorithms will be applied. And then the major challenges will be have a RAID fast enough to move all those pixels through 23-30 times a second.

Good luck and let us know the best solution you find!

[Jesus Ali]

You should just get an additional FW card and route the External Video through Final Cut, choosing between the IoHD or the Additional Firewire bus (connected to the DV camera).

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/481838-REG/Sonnet_FWUSB2_E_5_Port_Tango_Express_FireWire_400_USB.html

[Jesus Ali]

Andrea, what connectors are you using to connect the XL-H1?

We have the same camera, but I haven’t played capturing 24p with the IoHD.

Jeremy is right, the XL-H1’s 24F (note the “F”, not a “p”) mode is based on video tape pulldown patterns, and on top of that, it is a proprietary method. Tapes recorded in 24F on this camera won’t play in anything except the newest Sony HDV deck or a Canon HV10 or HV20.

If you were playing back the TAPE from the camera I agree completely with Jeremy’s advice.

But shooting live, I wonder if the 24F is even applied to the output signal. I know that the signal is output from the HD-SDI port BEFORE HDV compression is applied, so I wonder if the pull down hints (which are used specifically for recording to tape) are even included in the output HD-SDI signal.

Does anyone know about this specifically?

[Jesus Ali]

Hello Andres,

I had a hard time finding a good value, FW800 and PCI Express.

In the end I settled on value and FW400. And got the Sonnet Tango Express with two 6-pin FW400 ports and 3 USB 2.0 ports. Didn’t need the USB ports but this card ran the same as others with ONLY 2 FW400 ports.

Here’s a link on B&H. The price seems higher now. I thought we got ours around $60. Maybe it’s $75 now because we bought 3 of them! 😉

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/481838-REG/Sonnet_FWUSB2_E_5_Port_Tango_Express_FireWire_400_USB.html

I am sure the price used to be lower because now it is only a $15 difference to get the same card with FW800!

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/545331-REG/Sonnet_FW8USB2_E_Tango_Express_FireWire_800_USB_2_0.html

So far it is working out fine. But we haven’t been using everything at once very much. The students are tentative about committing to HD and a ProRes workflow.

OF NOTE: I have been connecting the AJA directly to the front port 9-pin FW800 plug on the Mac Pro. I connect the Courtesy FW 400 from the Apple Cinema Display to the Sonnet Tango card and I tell students to connect their HD’s through the back of the Cinema Display and not to use any FW ports on the computer.

But I have read that the IoHD max throughput “fits” within the FW400 bandwidth limits. I just haven’t tried it yet. If anything I guess it might limit the amount of ProRes video streams you can run simultaneously, but I wonder how many “additional” streams the IoHD can accelerate at once; does that effectively “bottom out” before the 400 mb/s roof is reached?

Good luck. Jesus

@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

Jesus Ali

[Jesus Ali]

FYI for others: I asked around the school and an IT guy was able to get me a Firewire card he had bought for an old G4 some years back.

I opened up the Mac Pro and tried to get it in and things just wouldn’t fit properly. Before I forced anything into a new Octocore Mac Pro, I went and RTFM, well, the internets actually, and found out that PCIe cannot accept older plain PCI cards. Apparently PCIx (eXtended) can take a plain PCI card, but PCIe (Express) is a very different architecture and incompatible.

So yes! If you need to add another Firewire bus to a Mac Pro or last gen G5, you need to buy a special PCIe firewire card.

The only name brands I could find were Belkin and Sonnet:

FireWire 3-Port PCI Express™ Card for $90
FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 PCI Express™ Card for $160

Allegro Express FW400 for $70
Tango Express FireWire/USB 2.0/ for $90
Tango Express FireWire 800/USB 2.0 for $120

Some other cards show up on B&H and NewEgg from companies named Pyro/AV and SIIG. Has anyone ever used products from these manufacturers?

[Jesus Ali]

Aha! That’s great to hear.
I really didn’t suspect that TC could come from the deck back to FCP over LANC.

And that white paper is very interesting. I’m going to go test it out now.

Thanks Jeremy!

[Jesus Ali]

Jeremy G: You need the Addenda Lanc to rs422 controller called the RS4L.

Thank you, Jeremy. I see that I did ask that already, sorry.
So, the Addenda is the hardware connector for deck control from the IoHD.

But does the connector also transfer Timecode? So the deck can tell FCP where it is in the tape?

If not, how do we transmit Timecode between the deck and the Mac to facilitate the Offline/Online file swap out with FCP?

The HVR M25U does not have SDI or TC BNC connectors. Here is a working link to a pic of the back of the deck (The last link got garbled and did not work.):
https://www.medicalvideosystems.com/Products/Storage/HDV%20Devices/HVR-M25U/hvrm25u_back.jpg

Is anyone successfully achieving Offline/Online Batch capture with this family of decks? I know they aren’t ideal, but they were purchased before my arrival and are what the students will need to work with. 🙁

Also, does anyone know if the Addenda can control the tape drive on a Sony HDR HC1 HDV camera through its LANC connector? Or if the connection is (likely) only for focus and zoom?

Thanks and appreciation as always.

Jesus

[Jesus Ali]

This is not the case when I use the program. On the G4 Powerbook I’m on, I get generally the same read/write speeds (between 18-20MB/s) regardless of codec or write size.

So I can’t replicate your issue, but based on what you’re describing, perhaps the reason is because the program writes 1 frame of DV and then moves on to the next, writes one frame and moves on, so it never needs to “stress” itself and in general writes fewer MB’s per second because it’s writing fewer lines of resolution per second.

Why wouldn’t the write times be lower for writing out 525 lines vs. 1080 lines?

Did I understand your question correctly?
Jesus

[Jesus Ali]

Oh come on… 😉

NOBODY has purchased an additional Firewire Card to add a 2nd FW bus to a Mac Pro or G5 after they started using an IoHD?!?! NOBODY?!

I’m just looking for a little feedback here. Yah, nay? Pro, Con? Lacie? Sonnet? Newer? Garbagetown? FW400 or FW800? Running the IoHD on the card instead of the Apple bus? Making that only a FW400 bus?

Well, I’m just going to have to jump on B&H and order the first thing I see then. Is that what you all want me to do?! Make an uniformed decision? [ shudder ]

Jesus