[Jim Curtis]

Uh-oh. At the time, the Barracudas were being touted here and there as one of the best around. I happen to have bought 8 of the “fiascoed” model of Seagate Barracudas, although my serials are outside of the range of serials published by Seagate as the problem drives. One has failed, and I got a free replacement. And it was swell how the HBA secured my data and started rebuilding the RAID the instant I installed the fresh drive.

Is there a way of determining if I’m having an issue with latency?

Other than the total system lockup I was having with my bad HPT HBA card, the unit has been behaving itself, and giving me satisfactory results with the AJA disk speed tests.

The main issue I’m having with my replacement card is that the date gets confused when I reboot, and I have to set the time manually if I want my programmed Verify and Health Inspector tasks to run as scheduled. That’s not a deal killer in itself, but may be a portent.

I looked at the ATTO R380 on their site, and they do indeed say they offer a “User friendly GUI-based configuration utility,” which I’d much prefer over an EFI-boot scheme. Areca has a Web browser RAID manager as well. This is all very encouraging.

I appreciate everybody’s advice, including the stern lecture. :0)

Bob, no offense, but your tone reminds me of some of the nuns who terrorized me into excellence as a youngster. It’s something I didn’t appreciate at the time, but came to many years hence.

Thanks again, everybody.

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]

I didn’t know that about the firmware mods either. I can now certainly see the advantages of getting all your parts from a single vendor. I had no idea that a RAID was such a persnickety and delicate proposition.

I’m curious about “the Seagate thing.” Are they crap, too? I bought a model with a five year warranty. I thought that was a good bet. I’ve heard countless times that all drive makers make a bad disk here and there. There was a big Seagate fiasco earlier this year or late last year, when they sold thousands of bad drives.

If you don’t mind elaborating, what other lessons have you learned?

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]

I think I get it, Bob. The sardonic treatment.

I’ll admit I was a babe in the woods when I put this RAID together. I didn’t know much about them, and I bought the whole works on the basis of an article by a man whom I still consider to be a trusted source.

So much for your mind reading powers, Carnac. Does it make a difference where I bought my Barracuda drives?

I didn’t know what better HBA cards were available at the time. I have since researched RAIDs for days and days while trying to understand what it all means. And even after all that research, it appears that HPT has the sweetest management interface for the Mac. If I’m wrong, somebody please correct me.

I see that some of the competitors use EFI based management schemes, which seems kind of user-unfriendly contrasted to one that sends you condition emails, and lets you monitor your RAID 24/7 using a browser while booted into the OS you use to edit and stuff.

Maybe that’s not important. I’ve worked on Avid RAIDs for years (which I know are mostly if not all ATTOs) and never had to do any management on them – that’s what the engineers were for. So, maybe the management interface isn’t important. That’s part of the reason I’m exposing my ignorance here. I’d like to learn. And I don’t even mind you mocking me here publicly, Bob. As long as I can learn something from it, that’s quid pro quo.

I have to say something in defense of Enhance Technology: Their enclosure is cheap, but they have given me fast and friendly and fair customer service. They took my calls, called me back, double-teamed me with an engineer, when I had some questions. I’m impressed.

Areca and ATTO, then? Any reason to favor one over the other?

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]

I have the LHi. Some times my audio stops working, too. It’s usually fixed by relaunching FCP or rebooting. Just a bug, I suppose. It comes and goes, and I haven’t noticed a pattern yet.

I also have a Tapco LinkUSB audio interface attached. So, I can just change my audio prefs in FCP to use the LinkUSB and bypass the Kona, if relaunching or rebooting don’t fix it.

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]

Epilog: I decided that trying to work with SnowLeopard is a bad idea. It’s just too new, and not all my software is going to work on it (Adobe CS3 is a must.). So, I think the wise course is just to avoid booting into 10.6 for any NLE or MoGFX work.

BTW, I upgraded my 10.5 OS to 10.5.8 and the Kona CP to 7.0.1, and I no longer get the Firmware update message when I boot 10.6, which I only do when I want to run DiskWarrior on my 10.5.8 drive.

So, to the point of my OP, the solution was not to mix 10.5.5 with 10.6.

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]

All the problems I reported here seem to have been fixed at this point. I’m getting smooth playback from my 1080i material, and viewing in 709. So, no need for the Gefen box with this footage. I’m not planning on using the DreamColor for NTSC, so I wouldn’t need the box for that.

I did find the Gefen on-line for as low as $1109, so even if you add that to the equation, this monitor costs around $2K less than the Grade-1 FSI. Only about 5% of my work is color-grading; I mostly do editing, motion graphics, sound design/mixing, and DVD authoring in my home office.

I’d like to see it up against the FSI. My previous HD monitoring rig was the MXO and 23″ Apple Cinema Display, and the LHi with the DreamColor is more responsive to edit with, the picture looks much nicer, and my system freaks out less when switching applications. The only negative at this point is that the LHi card seems to be causing FCP to crash fairly often (say once an hour). I save often.

MacPro (Harpertown – Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.5.6; QT 7.5.5; FCS2 / FCP 6.0.5; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3; Primary display: 30″ ACD; Secondary: HP LP2480zx DreamColor via HDMI to LHi and DVI to MacPro.

[Jim Curtis]

OK, I’m getting somewhere now. I monkeyed with the LHi Control Panel, and changed the HDMI Output to RGB 10bit; Output Video Range to SMPTE Range.

My CP looks slightly different from the one you posted, Gary. Thanks for that. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

I changed FCP View to 1080p59.94 a 10 bit (1920 x 1080), and lo and behold, my monitor switched to the mode that allows me to set the color space, and looks like a proper video image. This is progress.

The only issue now is that the playback is a bit jerky, and I’m seeing fields. But, maybe if I try some other settings, I’ll get the playback to smooth out.

I didn’t know about the option key function, Jeremy. Thanks for the tip. I’ll look into it.

Thanks for the replies.

MacPro (Harpertown – Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.5.6; QT 7.5.5; FCS2 / FCP 6.0.5; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3; HP LP2480zx DreamColor display

[Jim Curtis]

“You can change the rendering intent of the HDMI in the Kona Control Panel, have you tried that?”

I think so. I have my windows arranged so I can keep an eye on the LHi Control Panel.

No matter what I set the Primary or Frame Buffer to in the Control Panel, as soon as I switch to FCP, the LHi Control Panel changes to my Sequence Settings in FCP.

I also tried setting my Sequence to Field Dominance: None, hoping to fool the LHi, but I guess it’s smarter than I am.

MacPro (Harpertown – Early 2008) 2×4 3GHz; 32G RAM all the same brand; 10.5.6; QT 7.5.5; FCS2 / FCP 6.0.5; Kona LHi in PCI slot 3; HP LP2480zx DreamColor display

[Jim Curtis]

I don’t know what I did, but it’s working now, and the audio is staying in sync with XDCam EX footage.

I was experimenting with different footage I had on my drives. SD NTSC was working great. HDV 720p material was working great. I made Presets for each in the AJA Control Panel. So, with those successes, I tried loading up the same two XDCam EX projects that were out of sync before, and this time they were playing in perfect sync. I guess toggling around settings in the CP did something to reset the card or something. I have no other good explanation. Magic, maybe.

I left the LHi in PCI Slot 3. (4x)

–

I do have two other slight issues with the card, though: When 525i (NTSC) is chosen as either the primary or secondary output via YC analog, the image is slightly washed out, including the color bars generated by the LHi when FCP isn’t the controlling application.

And the card doesn’t seem to be using all the raster on my CRT (Sony PVM-9L3, which has been very trusty about displaying a well-calibrated image). IOW, the LHi seems to be scaling down the image to the YC output. I see the entire raster even when the monitor ISN’T in Underscan mode. With other inputs, there is normal TV cut-off. But with the LHi, I’m seeing a black border around the image in normal scan mode.

[Jim Curtis]

I, in fact, did not know where Expansion Slot Utility was, but I found it with my trusty EasyFind app.

When I launched it: “Expansion Slot Utility is not intended to run on this system.” I don’t think any of my slots are 1x.

Between my first post, and getting your reply, I swapped PCI cards, putting the LHi card in Slot 3 (4x), and returning my RocketRAID card to Slot 2 (16x), where it was working great before I installed the LHi.

(BTW, my external RAID 5 is off for these tests. I’m using my MacPro internal software controlled RAID 0 for my testing.)

There was no change to the audio sync problem after swapping slots. Still drifting.

I loaded an hour-long DV NTSC Sequence into FCP, and it’s playing in sync for long periods. So, this issue seems to be related to XDCam EX at the moment.