John Knowles
Forum Replies Created
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Hey Jeremy,
Tried uninstalling then reinstalling the 7.1 driver but same behavior on the Mac Pro. Swapped out FW800 cable too just to be safe, no dice.
AJA tech support just told me to exchange for RMA, but the thing is the IoHD is running FINE with my MacbookPro. I’ve only done limited testing with a few 720p DVCPHD clips on a FW400 drive (via PCE card) but there’s no dropped frames or glitches; the unit stays online throughout.
Really, really weird. I may do a fresh install of OSX on a new drive and see if that helps. If that doesn’t change anything then… damaged FW bus??
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Did not uninstall first, no. Let me try that and see if clears it up.
No other FW devices, no.
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I pulled the 512 modules (Apple supplied) and the HIGH setting under RT returned.
I cannot play back non-ProRes clips in a ProRes timleline without dropping frames; both the 720p and AVCHD material won’t play without rendering first (despite their bright green bar). But I guess that’s to be expected.
Setting the RT quality to MEDIUM still results in a panic. I don’t know why that’s still happening; although I would rarely set the RT quality to anything other than HIGH or DYNAMIC, I’m still wondering if that’s a fault with my machine or if it’s reproducible on another computer…
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[Jeremy Garchow] Where’d you get that layout?
I’ve seen it several places on the net and it was referenced on LAFCPUG as well.
[Gary Adcock] Also – Pull all of the 3rd party RAM – it is a known issue with non standardized 3rd party ram- use a reputable RAM dealer like Crucial- cheap out on the RAM, and it usually haunts the highend user-
I bought both sets of 1GB chips from OWC; their memory has always worked well for me and it’s not cheapo generic stuff. But I have noticed that Leopard is a lot more sensitive about certain issues (memory, graphics card) than Tiger was, so that may be a factor. Regarding both of your advice on pulling the RAM, I will give it a try when I have downtime.
Regarding format mixing:
I realize that I’ve thrown a lot of different formats into the mix; I was hoping that the open timeline would help with that but I see now there are definite limits. The AVCHD material plays back choppy and out of sync in a true ProRes sequence, and the DVCProHD material can cause major issues if not in a 720p project. I’m going to upconvert everything overnight this week so that it’s all the same.So it’s not the IoHD at all probably, it’s the Mac not being able to handle all the RT duties and output/up- or down-convert at the same time. Where do you think the problem actually occurs though — when FCP calls for the AJA driver, or sends it down Firewire, etc? Because it can play back without problems when Video Out is set to None or Cinema Desktop, but the act of engaging external video equipment (with mismatched clip/Primary settings) causes the panic. I get WHY it’s bad when the settings are mismatched, but I just didn’t expect such a big error to occur; I thought at worst I would just get a green screen or static.
UPDATE: I have an HD monitor now, hooked it up via component outputs this time and was able to reproduce the panic as before (meaning the HDMI is not the problem). The settings were: Primary and sequence set to 1080i29.97, 720p60 clips on the timeline, SafeRT Video Quality set to MEDIUM.
The Video Quality setting is the real culprit here. It cannot be set to HIGH because it’s greyed out, MEDIUM causes the panic when the clips don’t match the sequence (possibly LOW too, haven’t tried it but what’s the point) and DYNAMIC allows playback without a panic. So obviously I have to upconvert all my non-ProRes HQ material but I still need to figure out this greyed out HIGH setting. Guess I’ll try the RAM and see what happens…
JK
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Tell me about the RAM in your machine and how it’s set up.
I have 6GB of RAM: 4x 512MB modules (from Apple), 4x 1GB modules (from OWC)
They are installed as follows: A1&2 are 1GB, A3&4 are 512, B1&2 are 1Gb and B3&4 are 512. I installed the RAM according to this chart: Mac Pro layout
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Perhaps it’d be best to use COmpressor to transcode all of your footage to ProRes before the edit (even @ 720p60). That might help with some of your issues.
I’ll definitely do that, it will help greatly if I don’t have to render a bunch of material in my final sequences. I had no idea all that was happening before it hit the box, the green render bar had me fooled into thinking that it didn’t need to work so hard 🙂
I didn’t get a chance to test today, but hopefully tomorrow I might be able to get a minute and go through your proposed workflow and see what I find.
Thank you so much for trying, I appreciate it (and if you can’t get to it I’ll see what AJA can do as a test). And yes, my clips were all 720p60.
The main issue seems to be a mixed timeline; 720p material in a 1080i 29.97 timeline and outputting at 1080 or 525 to a monitor makes it very unhappy. I just tried a pure 720p60 project with 720p60 clips with 720p 59.94 as Primary, and it all plays fine downconverted to 525i. I could swear I tried doing a straight 720p > 720p output when I had the LCD hooked up to HDMI, will try that again when I get the new one.
Also, and you can do this without any media or gear, just try setting up a new ProRes HQ 1080i 29.97 project and timeline, and see if you can select ‘High’ Playback Quality in the RT menu (not in the prefs). Is it greyed out?
JK
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I have both kinds of footage in my project; I pulled in the 720p footage from P@ files, it was not upconverted off tape. I also have AVCHD footage from a camera as well; that’s the deal with this project, pulling together all the sources and outputting all finals to ProRes HQ
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And the plot thickens…
AJA has recommended that I set Secondary to 720p 59.94 when there is 720p material in my timeline; problem is I cannot monitor that with my current setup until I get another HD monitor in here; I have to downconvert to 525i for now.
But if that setup turns out to be correct, then doesn’t that render the open timeline feature of FCP useless with this device? Aren’t I supposed to be able to drop another format into my ProResHQ sequence and get playback if my drives and machine can handle it? I get the green render bar over my 720p footage and I’m getting at least 141 MB/s off my RAID for 720p, and yet previewing via 525i or 1080i gives me static and a potential kernel panic.
If anyone else here has the right footage and equipment, would you mind testing this for me? Would really like to compare performance to another IOHD unit.
1. Primary to 1080i 29.97, secondary to either 1080i or 525i downconvert.
2. Easy Setup > Apple ProRes HQ 1080i 29.97
3. In a new sequence, drag in a ProRes HQ clip, then drop some 720p60 clips after it and check your playback on an external monitor.What do you see during 720p playback? Static? Green fuzzy screen? Also, are you able to set your SafeRT Video Quality (in the timeline dropdown) to ‘High’, or is it greyed out?
If someone could test for me, would really appreciate it!!
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the question does the IoHD’s other VidOuts work???
I’m able to view HD material down-converted to 525i via the S-video port. I was unable to test the component out with the LCD because I didn’t have the right cables and the client was waiting on me. What I wound up doing was routing the 2nd DVI signal from my graphics card to the HDMI port on the LCD (DVI>HDMI cable) and use Digital Cinema Desktop Preview.
If it is a reproducible issue – please contact support with detailed information.
Doing that right now; I hadn’t heard back from them on Friday so that’s why I posted here over the weekend… -
My system is a fresh install on a new hard drive, same with the Pro Apps. I installed everything a month ago and there are no previous installs of anything on the drive. I’ve had the IoHD since July 2nd and I installed the latest software immediately.
The kernel panic was reproduceable and happened 7 times from doing the same thing: playing back DVCProHD material via the HDMI port. Without the IoHD attached, the system, the drives, the clips, FCP all function normally.