[Michael Peele]

RAID 3 uses byte level striping with a dedicated parity drive (all recovery info on one disk).
RAID 5 uses block level striping with a distributed parity drive (recovery info spread across all disks).

Traditionally RAID 3 was used for video editing but RAID 5 works as well.

RAID 3 takes a very small perfomance hit if you lose a drive – i.e. you can keep working with a downed drive.
RAID 5 takes a moderate perfomance hit if you lose a drive and this may keep you from working.

Mike Peele

[Michael Peele]

They probably came formatted FAT32, this causes all sorts of wierdness – Refomat as HFS+
Mike Peele

[Michael Peele]

Just so you guys know…
CineWave has reached it’s End Of Life (EOL).
There is an explanation of this at the Pinnaclesys.com website under support/cinewave.
Regards,
Mike Peele

[Michael Peele]

You will need to connect the headphone/line out (on G5) or your optical out(again on the G5)to be able to hear system sounds, iTunes, CD’s, QT movies, etc.
Get a Y cable that goes from 1/8th inch to dual RCA connectors. Connect the dual RCA’s to your tape inputs on the Mixer and the 1/8th inch plug on the back (or front) of your G5.
There ya go!
Mike Peele

[Michael Peele]

I am assuming you use software to stripe your disks (most likely ATTO or Apples’ Disk Utility). If you have a hardware RAID’ed array, just erase the array when I say restripe.

It sounds like you are close – your data is most likely recoverable. If you don’t need your data, just skip the rest of this message and restripe your array.

TechTool Pro is another disk utility. I tend to have better luck with it finding volumes that don’t mount. If DiskWarrior is able to work on the volume, they are about the same in ability to repair. Nothing beats a variety of utilities when trying to recover a downed volume.

You may have done this already, but make sure to power down everything, disconnect and reconnect your SCSI cables, power on the drives and then power up the Mac. It’s always good to make sure that your SCSI chain is powered up prior to turning on the Mac. Check that your drives are terminated and that the SCSI ID’s are logically ordered and nothing is set to ID 7.

If mounting the drive remains an iffy situation, get all the data off that you need while it is mounted. Once you have transfered the data to another drive, restripe your drives (which erases the array).

If Diskwarrior or TechTool Pro reports lots of errors but manages to recover the volume, you may still want to restripe once you have retrieved your data – just to be safe.

[Michael Peele]

Yeah, what type of RAID (brand and type) do you have?
Is it making any new noises?
Are the lights flashing differently than usual?
Have you tried something like techtool pro on it?
Mike

[Michael Peele]

Hey,
I think maybe you last question kinda nails the situation down.
If you have BetaSP as source, you have main solutions for working with it in FCP. I would not recommend trying to capture on the Avid and edit on the FCP.
1. You can convert the BetaSP footage into DV – either by transferring to tape or using an analog to DV converter.
2. You can capture your footage using a capture card (Kona/Cinewave) or breakout box (IO) into a uncompressed/slightly compressed format.

Your best solution will depend on the type of editing you plan to do.

Highly effected(affected?)video will generally respond better if it is captured uncompressed. This applies even to DV that is captured uncompressed. The uncompressed file format holds more information than DV and allows for more control over the video. For many editing situations, the difference will not be noticable, or can be adjusted for.

Editing in DV requires less space and no extra hardware (except some storage). BetaSP transfers to DV will, if done correctly, be quite close to the original and that quality will persist without degredation throughout the editing process.

If you do decide to use DV, try to have the dubs done on a DV deck that has component inputs – every bit of quality you can feed to the DV deck helps. Once you have the tapes, you can use your DSR-25 for the rest of the editing process.

And if you edit DV and are not satisfied with the quality, you can always export an EDL, and bring it to the Avid, and recapture on the Avid (you will need to then apply effects). BTW, does your buddy actually have the UC capture solution for the Avid? If not then there is no reason to use the Avid.

DSR-45 vs. Kona? I prefer to have both. 🙂 But, most my work gets done in DV format and the Kona lies dormant except for certain work. And remember, with an UC capture card comes the need for drives that can support ~30MB/sec (DV uses ~3.5MB/sec) – basically they need to be bigger and faster (and more expensive).

Hope that helps,
Mike

[Michael Peele]

Have you really rendered everything?

Make sure that you have your “Render All->Both” set to render everything – proxy renders, audio mixdowns, etc. All the “colors” of the render bar should be checked off (err.. checked on?).

The default is set to NOT render real-time capable effects along with a few other types of renders (all of which ARE rendered when printing to tape).

Printing to tape is effectively the equivalent of exporting a self-contained QT movie.

Mike

[Michael Peele]

Seriously though, what I would love to hear is the technical reason why this doesn’t work.
Mike

[Michael Peele]

whew!
🙂