[John Pale]

V6.x pegs all 8 cores on my Macpro during a transcode.

[John Pale]

to work around this once, I put the graphics in a sequence on V2, with a white slug underneath on V1, then used that as my source.

[John Pale]

Import the AAF in symphony in a 23.98 temp project.

Then open the same sequence in a 59.94 project. It should then add the correct pull down using a motion adapter

[John Pale]

FCP to a limited extent can modify a group clip (multi clip in FCP speak) after its created. FCP X has even more options (but a host of fundamental flaws regarding audio).

Avid still has the most rock solid implementation (in my experience), but its more limited. You need to make a new group clip to fix anything after the fact.

[John Pale]

Nope

[John Pale]

BMD has some issues with trimming, sluggishness etc. Scrubbing with caps lock on (audio scrubbing) causes video dropout on latest drivers.
Fairly stable, otherwise.

[John Pale]

if you want to leave it as is, MC will run just fine with the 32 bit kernel. You will stil have 64 bit performance, as OSX can run 64 bit programs in 64 bit mode when you boot using the 32 bit kernel. The only issue with the 32 bit kernel, is driver support. Drivers that are written for 64 bit only, must have the 64 bit kernel or they won’t load. This includes Avid DX hardware, but you aren’t using any on an iMac.

That being said, the approved OS is Lion..so if you want Avid tech support you need to run the supported OS. They won’t help you if you run a configuration they don’t test.

I think the problem with your machine is that Snow Leopard does not include a 64 bit graphics driver for you internal graphics chip. They probably included one in Lion.

Avid includes a script to activate 64 bit mode with the installer. It may not work, if my guess was right about the graphics driver.

[John Pale]

You may want to try to use the terminal to load and unload the Decklink drivers. Drivers are referred to as kexts (kernel extensions)

Kext can be loaded and unloaded during runtime using the kextload and kextunload command lines.

in order to load kext, from terminal write:
sudo kextload kextName (where kextName stands for the kext name you want to load)
enter your password and press enter
the system should reply with a success or fail message.

in order to unload kext, from terminal write:
sudo kextunload kextName (where kextName stands for the kext name you want to unload)
enter your password and press enter
the system should reply with a success or fail message.

Since you may want to do this regularly, you might want to save it as a script.

[John Pale]

You can use Cinema Tools as stated.

To get around the audio sampling rate problem, you can export the audio via Quicktime Pro as a 48k AIFF, and marry it back to the video in FCP (in a 23.98 timeline). Then export a Quicktime same as source.

[John Pale]

I’ve had some nightmarish experiences wit this error using Avid 5.03 on Windows. Could not reliably AMA/transcode any H264 footage (Canon) or Arri Alexa footage. Unlinking and relinking individual clips sometimes worked but in the end, ended up importing…which took an immensely long time and resulted in color shifts that needed to be corrected.

I’ve not seen the error on systems running 5.5 and higher.