[Jim Curtis]

I found time while rendering my real job today to transcode a few h264 clips to ProRes in Adobe Media Encoder, but I can’t test whether the time-code gets copied, as I just discovered all the h264 clips from the DP start at 00.00.00.00.

I don’t know what he did, or what his process was to convert his files to h264, but I wrote and asked him to just send me the entire media folder next time, and not do me any favors.

Good thing I asked them do clapper slate, or I’d be in trouble.

He turned on his camera mic, but it picked up a very loud hum. I am going to demo Plural Eyes, and see if it can still sync the double system audio for me.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; Dual Boot: 10.6.3 & 10.5.8; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (7.5.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor (A) via AJA HDP2 SDI to HDMI converter and (B) DVI from MacPro.

[Jim Curtis]

That’s a great tutorial, and I watched it when I heard I was going to be cutting 7D footage. I recommended ShotPut Pro to the DP, based on this video, but the DP dismissed it, saying it’s not necessary. I guess he likes living dangerously.

This is pretty ironic, but I’ve that Premiere Pro CS5 edits h264 footage perfectly without transcoding. Ironic, because FCP doesn’t.

Anyway, what about using PPCS5 or the Adobe Media Encoder as a batch converter to ProRes? The CS5 release has pretty extensive metadata support. Has anybody tried that? I wonder if the code could be preserved that way.

I can test it later, but I’m pretty busy at the moment trying to get a spot out today (not with this 7D footage).

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; Dual Boot: 10.6.3 & 10.5.8; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (7.5.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor (A) via AJA HDP2 SDI to HDMI converter and (B) DVI from MacPro.

[Jim Curtis]

I’d heard of it, Jeremy, but this is my first 7D experience; I hadn’t looked into it. I have now.

It looks well worth $49. Do the copies it makes retain the original time-code? I’m not clear on that from the RG site.

Our crew used a smart slate, but I asked them to clap it anyway, just for old-school redundancy. My reading on Streamclip and Compressor told me that using anything other than Log & Transfer would reset the code on every clip.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; Dual Boot: 10.6.3 & 10.5.8; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (7.5.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor (A) via AJA HDP2 SDI to HDMI converter and (B) DVI from MacPro.

[Jim Curtis]

Thank you, Rafael.

Jeremy, I tried Log & Transfer first, with a fresh install of the latest Canon 7D plug. It wouldn’t recognize my files.

The DP gave me h264 QT movies on an external drive in a folder named “Card 1,” etc. Wrong file structure, I suppose.

Compressor was taking forever with the spinning ball, crashes, and general slowness.

MPEG Streamclip did them quickly and without delays.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; Dual Boot: 10.6.3 & 10.5.8; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (7.5.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor (A) via AJA HDP2 SDI to HDMI converter and (B) DVI from MacPro.

[Jim Curtis]

Hi Geoff,

What you need is an AJA HDP2 Mini-Converter and a DVI-to-HDMI cable.

Go out of your LHi via HD-SDI to the HDP2, and from there, DVI to the HDMI in your DreamColor.

Remember that the DreamColor only displays Deep Color, 709/601 in 60p mode. So, the HDP2 will take care of that, and convert your 24p or whatever other frame rate to 60p for display.

These are my settings for the HDP2:

Video Format: 444 RGB
Deep Color: On
Color Range: SMPTE
Scaling: Scale
SD Format: Anamorphic
Output Format: 1080p – 60/59.94
HDMI/DVI: HDMI

I get simultaneous downconvert to NTSC with my setup, which I find valuable when color-correcting.

Best,
Jim

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; Dual Boot: 10.6.3 & 10.5.8; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (7.5.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor (A) via AJA HDP2 SDI to HDMI converter and (B) DVI from MacPro.

[Jim Curtis]

Bob, I’d advise you against gambling. I did do a fresh install of 10.6. I had to, because my boot disk wasn’t formatted Journaled. I am running 7.5.1 of the AJA CP, and I did uninstall the old drivers first. What I have not done is trash my prefs, which likely got copied over by the 10.6 installer. I will try that next, and see what happens. So, although I may be alone with my problem, I do have you to chastise me when I get off track. I appreciate your tough love.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; Dual Boot: 10.6.3 & 10.5.8; QT 7.6.6; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3 (7.5.1); Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor (A) via AJA HDP2 SDI to HDMI converter and (B) DVI from MacPro.

[Jim Curtis]

Yes that helps a lot. I took your advice and searched the forum for the other HDP2 threads. I’ll order one immediately. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.5.8; QT 7.6.4; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3; Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor via HDMI to LHi and DVI to MacPro.

[Jim Curtis]

Thanks Jeremy.

Why do you suggest the HDP2? Wouldn’t the AJA Hi5 3G converter be the better choice for me? Since the HP needs a HDMI 1.3 or DisplayPort input to go into DeepColor mode, seems to me that would be the way to go, no?

Anyway, I’m getting the HP to work in 709 as long – as you pointed out – I’m in progressive mode for video out. And if I have my View settings in 29.97i, I get both displays working, but the HP is in Full Gamut mode, and so the color isn’t accurate.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.5.8; QT 7.6.4; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3; Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor via HDMI to LHi and DVI to MacPro.

[Jim Curtis]

Responding to my own post:

I trashed FCP Prefs and reinstalled the CP software. That fixed the Secondary (NTSC) display issue. But, my primary monitor, an HP DreamColor connected via HDMI, won’t go into Rec 709 color gamut with either FCP or AE now. The monitor switches from 709 to Full Gamut when I switch from the LHi Control Panel to either FCP or AE.

I also reverted to 7.1 of the CP, and the issue persists. So, that rules out 7.5 as the culprit.

So, long story short: Never mind. This is probably NOT a bug, and is likely a specific problem with my system. I’m going to reset the Kona PCI card, and reinstall everything if I have to. False alarm. Apologies.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.5.8; QT 7.6.4; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3; Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor via HDMI to LHi and DVI to MacPro.

[Jim Curtis]

Sister Mary, I think I was in one of your Catechism classes. I still have sore spots on my head from your knuckles.

I do have a 58 minute Avid HDV doc on my RAID right now. That’s just a couple of minutes shy of your 60 minute test.

I just ran the sequence again last night, for the first time since I installed the new HPT HBA. It played the whole show without stopping. I don’t know if you’re implying that 60 is a magic number or not. I could add another ten or sixty minutes of out-takes to my sequence, and run it again. I think I will. I’d welcome a Sister Mary Bloodletting class Stress Test before I start another big job.

Whatever you do, Bob, don’t change. I’ve read quite a few of your posts now on the Cow, and I’m very entertained, as well as informed.

I’m an Avid Expat also. I co-opened a sales office in Dallas in ’91, and after a year, I had to get out of doing demos and get back into editing. All the MCs we sold had ATTO cards and I don’t recall any problems with them outside of SCSI termination and cabling mostly. But they weren’t even RAIDs at that point, just Ultra or Fast & Wide to support AVR27. By the time 1:1 and RAIDs became standard, I was working for places that had other people maintain them.

I’m a relatively recent convert to FCP, and built my own system after hoping beyond hope that the latest Avid DNx line would be reasonably priced viz the competition from AJA, etc. Now that I’ve been cutting mostly on FCP for about a year, I’m thrilled with it, and find that FCP trounces MC on many features.

You’re right about another thing: I’m cheap. But only in the sense that I would rather buy quality stuff, like my Lexus, because it generally works out to be the cheapest in the long run. And that factors in my time, which I do value. And I’ve lost a lot of it due to this HPT Waterloo, and learned a valuable lesson.

I’ve read here on the CC that AJA will cross ship their PCI cards in case of a defect. Does anybody know if any of your preferred HBA vendors will?

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro (Harpertown-Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.5.8; QT 7.6.4; FCS3; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3; Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor via HDMI to LHi and DVI to MacPro.