[Jim Curtis]

Hi Andy, you posted as I was responding to Noah.

I tried the PDW-U1 Drive Unit on three different Macs: two MacPro3,1 – which had different results (one was twice as fast as the other) – and a MacBookPro4,1 (the newest model of Mac that I own). I still got dismal performance copying from the PDW to my internal drive.

Aren’t USB drivers part of the Mac OS? If not, how would one update them? I don’t think I’ve ever installed a USB driver. I installed a USB3 PCIe card on one MacPro, and that required a driver, but I’m fairly certain that was for the card, not USB per se.

Thanks,

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro 3,1; 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.6.8; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; CS5.5; MC 5.5; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (9.0.3); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Monitoring: Kona LHi SDI to AJA HDP2 converter to HDMI on the HP DreamColor.

[Jim Curtis]

Thanks for your reply, Noah.

Sony advertises the PDW-U1 Drive Unit as a “high-speed” USB2 device.

(They came out with a USB3 version Sept. 1 for $5700+.)

USB2 has a theoretical speed of 480 Mb/s. USB1 is 1.5 Mb/s.

The Sony site claims “The Professional Disc’s data transfer rate is 86 Mb/s from a single optical head unit and 172 Mb/s on a dual head deck…”

That’s better than USB1, but still well below the theoretical maximum of USB2; about one fifth (single head).

Still pretty dismal. And as you point out, apparently “the nature of the beast.”

Thanks again.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro 3,1; 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.6.8; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; CS5.5; MC 5.5; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (9.0.3); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Monitoring: Kona LHi SDI to AJA HDP2 converter to HDMI on the HP DreamColor.

[Jim Curtis]

My experience with my LHi and Pr CS5.5 has been disappointing. There’s a lot of lag/delay, which makes editing with an AJA preset and watching the results on my attached monitor a very slow process. Scrolling the timeline is not smooth, very jerky, and there are long durations between the frames that are displayed, even with ProRes footage, for which the LHi is purportedly optimized.

I have taken to working in a native Sequence to do all my off-lining and mixing. And then just copy and paste my sequence into an AJA Sequence when it comes time for color-correction or screening on the big calibrated monitor. Fortunately, this is usually pretty fast, unless I’ve set up Submix audio tracks with effects (and I do this often – it’s one of the things I love about Pr.). Those don’t get copied over to the pasted-in sequence.

I can’t imagine doing this in an ad agency or big edit room environment, where the clients want to see a big screen picture all the time.

There’s a reason that Avid charges so much for their hardware. You get full-time big screen performance with fluid timeline scanning on their systems using their codecs. So, I have just learned to lower my expectations with Pr, FCP and AJA, and work around the shortcomings.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro 3,1; 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.6.8; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; CS5.5; MC 5.5; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (9.0.3); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Monitoring: Kona LHi SDI to AJA HDP2 converter to HDMI on the HP DreamColor.

[Jim Curtis]

Gonar, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with this. All my tapes are single archives. I lay out my folders for archiving so that they’ll be around 700 GB. And if a project is more, I just make two archives on two tapes. I’ve never done any tape spanning. I don’t use the incremental or differential functions either. I like to keep it simple.

You can get more help by joining the BRU PE mail list. This is a user-guided list. But, Tolis employees also will monitor and pitch in from time to time.

General information about the mailing list is at:

https://mail.tolisgroup.com/mailman/listinfo/bru-mac-user

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.6.3; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (8.1.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Monitoring: Kona LHi SDI to AJA HDP2 converter to HDMI on the HP DreamColor.

[Jim Curtis]

Gonar, I know exactly how you feel. Glad to help out.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.6.3; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (8.1.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Monitoring: Kona LHi SDI to AJA HDP2 converter to HDMI on the HP DreamColor.

[Jim Curtis]

Send me your email, and I’ll zip the app and send it to you. That shouldn’t be any violation of agreement. You’re entitled to it. Look on my web site, contact page for my email address.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.6.3; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (8.1.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Monitoring: Kona LHi SDI to AJA HDP2 converter to HDMI on the HP DreamColor.

[Jim Curtis]

Put your tape in, run the app (It’s called BRU Tape Import Tool 2.2), it scans your tape, and puts a catalog where your catalogs are stored.

Then, you run BRU PE, click the Restore or Verify tab, and you should see the new catalog.

It’s pretty simple.

I was out of warranty when they provided the app to me. That may have been partly due to the fact I was criticizing them on their user forum about not having a catalog rebuild function in BRU PE. I was also criticizing them about their paltry 30 day support period. For a $500 piece of software, it should be at least a year, IMO.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.6.3; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (8.1.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Monitoring: Kona LHi SDI to AJA HDP2 converter to HDMI on the HP DreamColor.

[Jim Curtis]

Gonar, it has worked for me. I’ve only used it a couple of times, but I was able to build a catalog from a tape, and then restore the tape to disk. The software was free, but I had to get a download link from Tolis. At the time I was needing it, it wasn’t posted on their site. I wrote to tech support, and asked how to rebuild a catalog, and they replied by sending a download link.

I have suggested they put a catalog rebuild feature into the BRU PE application (like there is in Retrospect). But, they don’t update it very often. Maybe next year. Who knows?

Best of luck,
Jim

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.6.3; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (8.1.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Monitoring: Kona LHi SDI to AJA HDP2 converter to HDMI on the HP DreamColor.

[Jim Curtis]

Quote: I wrote the company for help and they directed me to the manual … the website is absolutely has the most horrible and confusing way of doing things. The manual is written with no regard to “normal” people…I feel like you have to have a math/science degree to understand it.

Try to find tutorials…the same situation. I mean, you would think that they could make a simple video … What’s the deal?

If there is anyone out there, who has a good video of how to use this thing, please post a link! It would help out tons of folks who are under tight deadlines.

End quote.

I have to agree with most of this. I installed the demo of RSMB Pro in AE CS5.5 to see if it could help me with strobing on 24p footage.

The manual is very poorly written. I’ve read it top to bottom at least five times, and I’m still confused by it. Starting a topic, and then saying you’ll finish it later is a poor way to organize the info, IMO.

There’s no mention of how to link AE’s tracking points to the track points in the plug-in. I assume by pick-whipping an expression, but the word “expression” doesn’t exist in their Help document. I suppose you could also copy AE Attach Points and paste to the RSMB Track Point Position, but this isn’t stated either.

The AE “tutorial” on the web site is a simple project file with no explanation about why and how to use it.

A simple video tutorial on the features would go a long way to help sell this product. This is something that a lot of plug developers don’t get. If their plugs look hard to use, or they’re difficult to figure out in a demo, they’re going to fail to attract customers.

And because I can’t figure this out, I’m going to pass on buying this plug in, and use Directional Blur, manual keyframing and figure out my own vectors.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.6.3; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (8.1.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Monitoring: Kona LHi SDI to AJA HDP2 converter to HDMI on the HP DreamColor.

[Jim Curtis]

Quote: I wrote the company for help and they directed me to the manual … the website is absolutely has the most horrible and confusing way of doing things. The manual is written with no regard to “normal” people…I feel like you have to have a math/science degree to understand it.

Try to find tutorials…the same situation. I mean, you would think that they could make a simple video … What’s the deal?

If there is anyone out there, who has a good video of how to use this thing, please post a link! It would help out tons of folks who are under tight deadlines.

End quote.

I have to agree with most of this. I installed the demo of RSMB Pro in AE CS5.5 to see if it could help me with strobing on 24p footage.

The manual is very poorly written. I’ve read it top to bottom at least five times, and I’m still confused by it. Starting a topic, and then saying you’ll finish it later is a poor way to organize the info, IMO.

There’s no mention of how to link AE’s tracking points to the track points in the plug-in. I assume by pick-whipping an expression, but the word “expression” doesn’t exist in their Help document. I suppose you could also copy AE Attach Points and paste to the RSMB Track Point Position, but this isn’t stated either.

The AE “tutorial” on the web site is a simple project file with no explanation about why and how to use it.

A simple video tutorial on the features would go a long way to help sell this product. This is something that a lot of plug developers don’t get. If their plugs look hard to use, or they’re difficult to figure out in a demo, they’re going to fail to attract customers.

And because I can’t figure this out, I’m going to pass on buying this plug in, and use Directional Blur, manual keyframing and figure out my own vectors.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.6.3; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (8.1.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Monitoring: Kona LHi SDI to AJA HDP2 converter to HDMI on the HP DreamColor.