Rhewitt
Forum Replies Created
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The problem? …A C C O U N T A N T S !!
The more they screw you, the more they get paid.
Time to put them in bear suits and let them roam the woods – see how they survive in a cut-throat environment!!
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…like USB was over SCSI
Not really, certainly as far as external/internal hard drives are concerned.
USB has a lower bandwidth compared to SCSI(160 & 320). SCSI is a multi-tasking parallel interface with intelligence built into the controllers to allow simultaneous transfers from multiple drives – a RAID array being a good example. SCSI makes use of the command queueing technology to re-order drive tasks based on feedback from the drives.
While eSATA and SATA still allow RAID arrays, they are a one drive per channel device. Command queueing is available in some forms but this is usually in the drives only.
SATA is an advantage over PATA interface technology but the greatest benefit is the reduced cable clutter and the capacity for future higher speed but is still just as limiting as the speed at which data can be read/written to the physical disks. It is also cheaper to manufacture!
Better than Firewire 400 & 800? That can be machine implementation specific but I see eSATA having better future prospects and has been developed by an larger industry body – this means the capacity for greater adoption, better cross platform support and a lowering in prices.
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What’s the problem?
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Chipset issues mainly come into effect when you add accelerator cards such as the Matrox RTX range. The NForce chipset is one such issue. If you need to add an accelerator for realtime playback with multiple streams and effects – check the manufacture’s supported list first.
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The main difference between the Adrenaline (for MCA, MCA HD and NewsCutter FX) and the Mojos is the interface connectors. The Adrenaline provides professional balanced audio connectors and the space to fit the DNXcel board. Adrenaline also provides multiple, simultaneous video output facilities. The Mojo has just un-balanced RCA audio connectors.
However, if you need to edit HD (true HD) then the Adrenaline BOB is still the best option.
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Ah, seen this one before – or one of several variations of it.
The number one cause we had back in the UK was the Windows User Account being corrupted. If the OS cannot load the ‘usual’ user account successfully, the ‘Default’ user account gets loaded. The Default account usually has the standard XP desktop and the screen layout will spread across both monitors.
You may find your Site and User settings in MCA (HD) not being reflected if they are saved on the errant Windows User account.
The Avid software usually gets installed in the All Users account, assuming you didn’t specify a different install location. Creating a new Windows User account will pickup any shortcuts that were defined for this account.
Give it a try as it’s non-destructive.
There’s also the possibility of a driver issue but this ‘normally’ wouldn’t be reflected in the wrong Windows theme being loaded.
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A Mojo will do the trick and give you greater flexibility for I/O types: 1394, composite, component, s-video and SDI (SDI Mojo only, which also gives SPDIF).
This will also give you greater flexibility when it comes to monitoring.
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Grinner,
Can you describe ‘rockin’. There have been some issues lately with MCA HD V2 and NVidia drivers.
And not a ‘man’ in sight!
Rex.
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It depends on what you call inexpensive.
If it were possible to do this, you would need a large amount of storage and network bandwidth to ingest all your tapes together – 25Mbits for each DV25 tape and more if you’re looking at DV50 or uncompressed standard definition.
You would also need to sync your recordings to keep your timecode together. Even then, you’ll have a mass of ingested media waiting for you to edit. It’s a balance between your time, your storage budget and your requirement to save time.
Avid do make a product called Capture Manager that can do this sort of ingesting but it is part of a broadcast infrastructure system requiring many hi-end systems working together and as such could hardly be described as inexpensive.
On the other hand, how many VTR’s do you have to hand that you can ingest from? Can you afford to tie-up your other systems?
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The only thing that I’m aware of is the option to cache writes to the hard drives. XP (or other OS) will wait before writing to disk based on processor availability, cache fullness and drive availability and will attempt to make as few small writes as possible and instead do a few larger writes to save processor time.
However, when Windows (and other OS’s) shutdown, delayed write caches are written to disk before the PC switches off.
If write errors were the problem, you’d be losing all forms of data, not just renders.