[Ned Soltz]

Say that skinny word again… I love it when you talk skinny.

AJA just sent me a new Kona 2 card, which I’ll swap out tonight after I get all the paying stuff out of the way. It’s terrible when business gets in the way of troubleshooting hardware.

We actually suspect the card since I did boot up from an external disk with 10.3.8 and still could not get analog component video or audio from the K Box or the Kona.

Ned

[Ned Soltz]

Missed seeing you, Walter.

I agree that the next best thing to seeing Marco and Gary mix it up was watching Final Touch HD in action. I have a copy of it and will be writing a review together with a local colorist who will be running the thing and sharing is opinions. But I was totally blown away and, as I remarked in another posting, it’s not quite time to put the DaVinci’s on eBay but this product is a major advance in desktop technology.

Otherwise, I did win a nice little 320gb gRaid at FCP user group; our Dallas FCPUG honcho Major Lytton won the Kona 2 (and he is already a Kona user). And, Marco, make that 104 pounds since I lost another pound from all the walking at show and around Vegas.

Personally, I did not consider NAB dull, possibly because I was so busy that I did not even make it to the North hall (told the wife we didn’t need a new tower this year anyway). The most awesome piece of hardware, though, is that Panny HDX200. For my application of run-and-gun documentary work, the P2 is not the best storage option. So, I hope by the time the camera arrives, Focus or another developer will have shipped a direct-to-disk option for DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO HD. Since Focus has already announced product for the JVC, I suspect that we will see an option that will not require purchase of the P2 cards in order to take advantage of anything beyond DV25.

And, of course, always good to see our gracious hosts Ron and Kathryn.

Ned Soltz
(Who now weights the same as at 18 despite the years adding 3 inches to the gut)

[Ned Soltz]

The BIG CAVEAT that I am noting in my article is the inherent risks in a JBOD such as this. I tell anyone who pays to listen to me that storage is one area in which one should not look for the cheapest solution. Having said that, the speed is impressive and it certainly is a low-end solution that some users might consider. I did add another 4 drives last night by building another BurlyBox and reformatting the raid to include 8 drives. I am getting something like 360 mps read and 250 write using Disktester. Again, this is with an empty disk. It will start filling up this week. But, when you consider 2 tb for around $1800, it is a far better solution than those who will plunk down $2295 for that LaCie 2tb model (firewire, at that). Of course, in the process I broke one drive and broke 2 sata connectors. I am not exactly the world’s most coordinated component assembler. But the raid is terrific and I have high praise for the Sonnet card.

Ned Soltz

[Ned Soltz]

Exactly… Sonnet, for example, sent me benchmarks that they had done based upon Disktester and an empty drive. The Kona test simulates actual frame sizes and rates and the real world test occurs when drives are full, as you point out. My guess is that this homebrew JBOD will not hold up under those conditions. I am prepared to be plesantly surprised, however. Please do keep us posted, Bob and, if you have anything to add and would allow me to do so, I’ll quote you in my article.

Ned

[Ned Soltz]

Thanks, Bob, for the report.

I’m just a couple of days behind you. Have a 4-drive SATA raid running now from the eSata card and am just building another 4-drive box. Get two more drives on Monday and then will fire everything up.

I’ll be doing some tests capturing from Z1 component to SDI and then into Kona 2. Will try DVCPRO HD codec and then 8-bit uncompressed.

Keep me in the loop.

Thanks

Ned Soltz