[Rob Womack]

One of the problems with using hard drives for long term storage is that if they sit idle, the components can sometimes fail, or so I have read. I recently bought a Drobo, and it seems that this might be a viable solution for long term storage. Granted, mine is up most of the time, but how likely is it that more than one of your drives is going to go south at once, without some kind of extraordinary event causing it, i.e. a flood or EMP?

Robert Womack
Creative Bridgekeep
http://www.CurrentMarketing.com
“Louisville’s Leading Interactive Marketing Agency”

[Rob Womack]

There is a great article on Ken Stone’s site regarding this topic. Incidentally, High Quality video on YouTube is in the H.264 format, so, it makes more sense to render out using that codec.

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/you_tube_redux_gary.html

Robert Womack
Creative Bridgekeep
http://www.CurrentMarketing.com
“Louisville’s Leading Interactive Marketing Agency”

[Rob Womack]

UPDATE
——-

Heard back from Customer support. Apparently, this happens when your OSX account does not have permission to write to root/Library/Preferences

They also sent me the Permanent Key, so I haven’t checked this to see if it worked, but I’m puttin’ it out there. the Permanent Key stopped the madness.

For some reason, the plugin checks for a permanent key frequently. Once a session, or once every 24 hours would seem to be enough, but I guess they’re afraid someone is going to pull something sneaky.

Robert Womack
Creative Bridgekeep
http://www.CurrentMarketing.com
“Louisville’s Leading Interactive Marketing Agency”

[Rob Womack]

FYI –

Redefinery.com has this jsx script that will do the trick for you:

https://www.redefinery.com/ae/view.php?item=rd_MasksToShapes

[Rob Womack]

Why Pacifist? I found a post on apple’s forums (https://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=886460&threadrate=1&messageid=4217942) and reiterated in a couple of other places, on downgrading Quicktime 7. All recommended downloading Pacifist and force installing using that. Considering that they claimed success, I decided for expediency to follow suit. It worked though, so it’s not really an issue.

Secondly, I did fully render each timeline and also output each one as a standalone 8-bit Uncompressed movie, but with the same results.

I did receive a call from an AJA tech late yesterday who recommended zapping the PRAM, and uninstalling, then reinstalling the AJA firmware, neither of which I have yet tried. Zapping the PRAM seemed so OS 9, I never considered the efficacy of it on OSX. I will try these and post my results.

[Rob Womack]

My issue has been resolved, at least temporarily. Without any clue as to why the audio keeps dropping out, I am listing here the steps I took to at least make the two dubs I needed today for anyone else who is having similar issues:

1. Downloaded the Quicktime 7.1.6 installer, and mounted the disk image
2. Downloaded the OSX 10.4.10 Combo updater, and mounted the disk image
3. Downloaded Pacifist 2.0, mounted the disk image, then started the app.
4. Clicked open package and selected the Quicktime installer;
5. clicked the unlock button in Pacifist’s interface, then selected the QT installer and hit Pacifists install button
5. Installed the 10.4.10 Combo updater and rebooted.
6. Downloaded the AJA IO uninstaller, and uninstalled the AJA drivers
7. Downloaded the AJA V3 drivers and installed them. Rebooted.
8. Opened FCP again and put Bars & Tone on the timeline, adjusting the audio levels for the Beta Deck
9. Laid down the slate and spot, followed by 10 second slug on the timeline.
10. blacked the tape using Edit To Tape, set my In point, then setting the Edit To Tape to Editing mode rather than Mastering, grabbed the timeline from the bin and dropped it on the Assemble Edit popup in the Edit To Tape window.

Pain in the ass, but after two false starts where the audio mysteriously dropped out again, I was able to make my dubs. In Mastering mode, the audio dropped out randomly 100% of the time.

Receiving no response from AJA to either my emails or phone calls, I am seriously considering upgrading my system’s capabilities with another manufacturer. The IO LA has served me well until I switched to Intel. It may very well be that it is a hardware issue with the breakout box or even possibly the audio in cable has a short. I don’t believe it is a widespread problem, and is most likely confined to my system, since there is no mention that I could find of anyone experiencing the same issues. But the deafening silence from AJA that greeted my inquiries was not reassuring in the least.

[Rob Womack]

I’ve now reverted back to Quicktime 7.1.6, uninstalled, then reinstalled AJA IO V3 drivers and still experiencing random audio dropout on Edit to Tape.

Anyone with any other suggestions (other than switching to BlackMagic, which I am becoming ever more tempted to do)?

[Rob Womack]

That’s what I was afraid of.

As I understand it, to downgrade without reinstalling the OS, I run the 7.1.6 QT installer, then the 10.4.10 combo. Have you heard of this, or know of a more reliable way to downgrade?

[Rob Womack]

No such things as dumb questions.

I did uninstall, then reinstalled after switching machines.

Not sure which software you are referring to, but I have installed all the Pro Application patches to FCP Studio and am running FCP 6.0.1, and the Aja IO driver is the latest one they have posted (Io Driver V3 for Io/IoLA/IoLD (13MB ZIP archive) – Release Date 4/4/2006).

[Rob Womack]

I actually have not tried trashing the prefs, but I’ve tried steps 1 and 2. I’ll give that a try, thanks.