[Simon Sommerfeld]

Hi Todd,

I’ve transferred to computer directly from P2 card via the P2 Store many times and never had a problem. The blinking light on the P2 Store is fishy, can’t see anything about that in the operations manual. It is normal for the Power light blink upon startup while the hard drive is spinning up so maybe there is a problem with the actual drive? Sounds like you need to send it in to Panasonic.

Best,
Simon

Simon Sommefeld
Redwood City CA

[Simon Sommerfeld]

Hi Paul,

I’ve had something similar to what you’re describing happen with a Kona2. I tracked it down to a setting in the Kona control panel. One of the Kona SDI inputs fed from a deck was selected as the input source but the deck wasn’t turned on. Darn thing caused static in the audio. I deselected the SDI and the audio was clean. Could be a different scenario from you, but worth looking at.
Best,
Simon.

Simon Sommefeld
Redwood City CA

[Simon Sommerfeld]

Wilco on that!

Best,

Simon.

Simon Sommefeld
Redwood City CA

[Simon Sommerfeld]

Hi David,

Yes, KONA 2 is SDI I/O , just like the KONA 3. It’s more or less the same as 3 (missing a cross conversion I think, and doesn’t do 2K) but it is only PCI-X

I’m feeding a downcoverted 525i 29.97 signal to a Hi Res SD CRT monitor via SDI. I’ve just started working in HD and must get myself a proper HD monitor for that…. Any recommendations?

Anyway, I’m golden again – up and running 100%.
I managed to find and trash a few stray KONA 4.0 driver files on the system. This has allowed me to reinstall 3.4 OK. All of the 720p 23.98 prefs are there again and I have my external monitoring back and all, Amen!

All this has fried my brains a little I’m afraid…. I think a quiet sit down with a beer is in order.

David, many thanks to your quick responses and kind offers to help, even while on walkies!

All the best,

Simon.

Simon Sommefeld
Redwood City CA

[Simon Sommerfeld]

Cheers David,

I would never come between a man and his best friend!

Just post me your wisdom when you return. I can live without external monitoring for a while. I’m up and editing again so no worries.

Best,
Simon.

Simon Sommefeld
Redwood City CA

[Simon Sommerfeld]

Thanks for your speedy response David.

I’m unable to playback without the system choking on the 1080psf sequence preset that FCP 6 has chosen in leiu of 720p.

No, unfortunately I did not uninstall 3.4 before installing 4.0. I didn’t see anything informing me to do that. I did use the Uninstaller in 4.0 before reinstalling 3.4 however, but when 3.4 is installing it gets to a point where it says “there is nothing to install”. So I’m stuck with using 4.0 or nothing. I’m going to have to get back to 3.4 somehow.

I’ve actually just nixed using the KONA presets and am using the stock FCP DVCPro HD 720p24 preset. My timeline is running again but I’ve got no external monitoring.

Best,
Simon

Simon Sommefeld
Redwood City CA

[Simon Sommerfeld]

Thanks for your reply, Wayne.

Sorry, but are you sure you’re not referring to the XL1 or Xl1s? They worked in the frame mode as you mentioned. The XL2 does actually shoot in progressive (not frame) mode and lays it out to tape over 29.97. In 24PA (advanced) mode it flags the pulldown for removal in post.

The project I’m posting should be shot in HD of course, and I’ve advised that, but the director owns the camera and that is the camera he’ll shoot with. So, I’m exploring the best options for working within these parameters.

Best,
Simon.

Simon Sommefeld
Redwood City CA

[Simon Sommerfeld]

Thanks Jeremy and Gary for your help,

I’ll call AJA and ask them for workflow suggestions and also use Gary’s suggestion and remove the pulldown with CT. Thanks for the batch capture tip.
Speaking of horsepower, I’m running an original G5 dual 2.0. Just hoping it can handle the 1080i 60.

Best,
Simon.

Simon Sommefeld
Redwood City CA

[Simon Sommerfeld]

Thanks for your reply, Jeremy.

So, I guess my options are to edit it at 30 in DVCProHD or at 24 on a DV25 timeline?
What about 1080p? Is it possible to bring the footage in at that? There are sony psf settings for 1080 at 24 which I experimented with but of course that didn’t work. I could stripe a RAID that can handle the data rate.

In a general sense, I’m still confused about the relatioship between the Kona Contol Panel settings and FCP project capture/project settings. Specifically, how to set the Kona Primary Format and Secondary Format relative to FCP settings.

Best,
Simon.

Simon Sommefeld
Redwood City CA

[Simon Sommerfeld]

Thanks for your info, Bob.

The latest: In the time between my last post and your reply, I updated my Kona2 drivers. Don’t know if this in particular has helped the booting and mounting problems, but everything is working OK for now, so fingers crossed it will stay that way. Kona has always been in slot 4 (3 didn’t work at all) and am not using port multiplication.

The history: The system worked great until the addition of the Kona2. Soon after, two drives (non RAID) got corrupted data (they are shot), the computer often wouldn’t boot (totally black screen requiring hard shut down), all drives on the card often wouldn’t mount and the Sonnet card started malfunctioning and required replacement (green and amber lights showing where they shouldn’t). Even with the new card there were still the odd booting and mounting problems. I’ve systematically disconnected the internal and external drives and pulled the cards to see what gives and have come to the unscientific conclusion that the cards “sometimes just don’t play well together”.

The system:
G5 Dual 2.0 (8 slot RAM model)
4.5 GB memory
Sonnet Tempo PCI-X eSATA 4+4 card in slot 3. The card has 4 internal and 4 external ports and is running four internal SATA2 drives (two are RAID 1) and four external SATA2 drives (two are RAID 0)
TransIntl Swiftdata 200 – 3 internal drive expansion bracket
Sonnet Fusion 400 external chassis (not port multiplied). This card, (the only internal/ external card non PM card available) is no longer sold by Sonnet because of Euro lead-free legislation (or so they tell me).
Kona2 in slot 4. Newly updated to latest drivers.
AJA Io. Newly updated to latest drivers.
OS-X 10.4.8
FCP 5.0.4 (non Universal)

Best,

Simon.

Simon Sommefeld
Redwood City CA