[Steve Tomich]

Thanks for the reply, Jeff. When I run the “Validate Fonts” command, I get a list of fonts that apparently have duplicates. None of these, by the way, are the fonts that I’ve been having trouble with. Armed with the list of duplicates, I then go to Edit>Look For Enabled Duplicates, and the Mac tells me there are no duplicates to be found. Agh.

I have looked around in the various folders that can be used for storing fonts, and the Mac’s fonts seem to be in the proper place (the Local/Library/Fonts folder). When I cross-check the duplicate fonts listed in the Font Validation window with those listed in the Fonts folder, I find no correlation.

BTW, this is all being done with only the Mac fonts active–my FontAgent Pro libraries are all turned off.

So….Still looking for answers. All suggestions appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve

[Steve Tomich]

Thanks for your note, Keith. At least someone else out there has some similar issues, so I’m not completely mad. Anyway, here’s the latest: After some very timely back and forth with Blackmagic support, their rap is that the Mac graphics card (ATI Radeon 5770, 1GB RAM) draws the video onto the Apple Cinema display, and since the video output (which is definitely the BM card, of course) is fine, then maybe it’s not the Blackmagic card after all.

To BM Support’s credit, we did go over drivers, other apps that might conflict, etc. The tech I worked with was very helpful. For a while it looked like the onboard Matrox CompressHD board might be the culprit, but no.

So, we’re still where we left off, in terms of frozen monitors. This does happen in multiple rooms, with the same shared footage, the same rev of Avid, the same kind of CPU/gfx card/BM hardware, so I just don’t know what could be causing the problem. Anyone else have issues with Radeon 5770 cards in a Mac running Avid?

[Steve Tomich]

Thanks, Shane. Just checked the Duck website. Since we don’t expect to be doing many of these particular FCP-to-Avid transfers (long story there), the Pro Export software is not an option. What weirds me out is that I was under the impression that once a codec–any codec, not just DNx– is available to any Quicktime-based app, it should be able to make a movie without artifacts, all by itself.

Perhaps that sounds naive, but I cling to my dreams….

Steve

[Steve Tomich]

Thanks, John. Yer right about the progressive frame/field ordering issue, it is progressive all the way thru, but the kind of artifacting reminds me of field-flipping.

The FCP editor exported from his timeline, not from Compressor. And I looked over his shoulder at the settings, which were very basic–just defining the type of DNx (145, 8 bit) and the frame rate, and that’s about it. He did have the colors set to millions+, so there was an alpha channel included in his original export, but beyond slowing things down, I can’t imagine that would screw up the video quality.

Still working the case,

Steve