Apple Systems guy, DP, Final Cut Pro, feel free to ask a

[jklimeck]

Finally Unicornation is back up.

Wonderful to see a such a community of MOTU / Mac guys.

Long time DP user, now on DP 4.5.

Used to work for Apple on Final Cut Pro 4 QA team, long time DP user, Apple / Mac Systems guy.

Working in Los Angeles for major TV Production company doing relality TV, Administrating all Apple Xserves, XRAIDS and 45 Final Cut Pro 4.5 workstations., etc.

I am a Apple and Mac OS X expert as it applies to pro video and audio.

I would love to help/be involved with making people's Mac OS 10.3x, DP 4.5 experience a great one.

Feel free to post, best way is email or iChat

macguitarman@mac.com

<small>[ January 13, 2005, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: macguitarman ]</small>

[wynsmth]

I have a question for you. I have 2 computers, a Quicksilver dual gig G4 with an Atto ul3d card & a dual 2.5 G5 with a ul4d card. I have had nothing but problems with SCSI in OSX.3.x. The G4, every time I try and update the Atto driver, it fails, forces a restart & wipes every last piece of data of ALL hard drives that are mounted. This has happened 3 times now. Atto tech support is too busy blaming everyone else or denying it could happen to be of help. The G5 I can't even get the SCSI drives to mount consistently. Is SCSI dead in OSX? I notice Apple doesn't even offer SCSI any more on their website. Any info on how to get this working or whether I should bail on SCSI would be appreciated.

[jklimeck]

What's up.

I know you would like to hear that there is a fix for the driver situatioin with ATTO and their SCSI cards.

There may be a fix, but finding the fix may take time and ulitmately either you find out there is no fix or as is happening ATTO denies the issue (or blames others), etc.

Either way you want it resolved, and quicker than its going, I would surmise.

So my advice is if you are tired of playing detective (and you probably are) dump SCSI , get a Serial ATA Seagate, Hitachi or Maxtor drive (I ususally avoid Western Digital).

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_serial_ata.html

Some guys are still "messing" with SCSI, and we used to use it at Apple for HD on Final Cut.

These days on a G5 one can do SD (Standard Definition) Uncompressed video on the internal drives (Serial ATA 150 MB).

Not that you will be doing that, but what I recommended above will handle audio in DP just fine.

The other consideration is at some point look at the COI (cost of investment on your G4) and eventually go with a G5.

Especially if you will be doing Mach Five, Mach Five brings most G4's to it's knees, but not the G5.

The G5 has a dual 1000 Mhz bus while the fastest G4 has a 167 Mhz bus, this you feel when doing any audio / video.

email or ichat me,

macguitarman@apple.com

<small>[ January 15, 2005, 09:03 AM: Message edited by: macguitarman ]</small>

[wynsmth]

Thanks for the reply. The G5 is at our studio & we just bought the ul4d card & have a number of Glyph SCSI drives that are probably now worth very little so I would like to find a way to make it work rather than take a bath on the Glyphs. We do also have a firewire 800 drive we can use in the meantime. The G4 is at my home & will eventually be replaced by a G5 but not anytime soon. Lack of funds. Fortunately we only do audio, no video or softsynths, no MIDI at all. At least I only have the 1 SCSI drive at home so it won't kill me to get rid of it and replace with something else but it would be nice to get it working. If you have any ideas, let me know & thanks again for the response.

[Timeline]

Wayne,

I use a UL4S 320 PCI card on my G5 and it works flawlesly.

I think the older cards had issues but the new one is the bomb.

I use Cheetah 320 15K spin drives and get 60 tracks at 96K 24 bit.

SCSI is far from dead and is still faster than a SATA drive by a factor of two with the setup I have.

Would be happy to demo it for you sometime.

Using SCSI in a G5 must be done externally with a termination.

Someone like Sonnet tech may at some point make a DC converter plug for the SATA pwr feeds but for now they only make an ATA to SATA converter that is all potted together as one device. It wirks ok. I have one but a bit slower than a hi end SATA drive.

Hope this helps...

Off to Nashville for overdubs.

Gary Brandt
Engineer/Producer

[jklimeck]

Still though, Serial ATA is by far the choice today.

I know what I am talking about when I say this.

I do professional consulting on Final Cut Pro, with Xsan , Xserve RAID, and Xserve.

The Xserve RAID is ATA 100, not even Serial ATA and we can do HD on these, 120 to 140 MB read / write. (bearing in mind it is a RAID in order to get the thruput).

SCSI to me just doesn't make sense any longer.

Of course it can still be used, anything can be used.

We won't even consider SCSI, why?, we are doing cutting edge Apple , XSan, X RAID, SD and HD video stuff, in major TV production facilities.

All I am saying is it is no longer needed. I won't use it, why bother with the hassle, when you are getting the I/O.

Of course I realize, most people will not buy a XRAID at 10 K or more, but you can get make your own RAID from Mac Gurus, Serial ATA, and its quick, it can do HD video, and if its good enough for HD video, it is for audio.

jk

<small>[ January 14, 2005, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: macguitarman ]</small>

[harryfrishberg]

Originally posted by macguitarman:

I would love to help/be involved with making people's Mac OS 10.3x, DP 4.5 experience a great one.

macguitarman@mac.com

Great to hear! - I am a long time FCP user, but a first time DP user.

How hard would it be for MOTU to include XML import functions to DP (ala Logic 7)? Would there be any benefits over OMF?

Thanks!

[jklimeck]

Not sure how hard it would be for MOTU to do that.

I would think XML eventually has to make it into DP at some point.

At Apple on FCP 4, XML was put in as an answer or eventual replacemant for EDL (Edit Decision List).

XML is more robust and can contain more information than EDL, such as Time code in / out points, music cues, info on plug ins, settings etc, custom developed plug ins / sofware for companies like Pixar , ILM, etc., very cool, very extensible, and powerful.

Now on OMF, not sure that XML replaces OMF (which is Avid /Digidesign's) Open Media Framework Interchange, and it seems AVID / Digi now has a new format to eventually replace OMF.

But it would seem XML would be the ideal choice to handle all of this type of metadata (data about data) in points, out points, where tracks start and end realtive to time code, etc, you name it, but does Avid / Digidesign wish to adopt XML (a universally used standard) in place OMF?

<small>[ January 15, 2005, 09:05 AM: Message edited by: macguitarman ]</small>

[jklimeck]

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_serial_ata.html

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/satakits.php

<small>[ January 15, 2005, 09:21 AM: Message edited by: macguitarman ]</small>

[jklimeck]

After paying a short visit and reacquainting myself with Mac Gurus, I found out one of the best performing hard drives is in fact a Western Digital 10k rpm Raptor (on the high end).

On the low end Western Digital doesn't seem as good.

http://www.macgurus.com/cgi-bin/ccp51/cp-app.cgi?pg=prod&ref=WD740GD

<small>[ January 16, 2005, 07:21 AM: Message edited by: macguitarman ]</small>

[wynsmth]

Actually, the UL4D is in the G5, does not work at all. The UL3D is in a G4, works sometimes, very inconsistent. Every time I try and update the Atto driver, it fails, giving a dialog box saying it failed, close out of that & I get back to the desktop with the beachball of death. Upon restart, ALL data on ALL drives is GONE. All I can say is F*#&*#&$%*K Atto! I give up. Time to move on. Avoid like the plague.

[studiodog]

My main audio drive is a 60 gig Western Digital. Cost about $100 or so.
It's solid as a rock, never a problem. Same goes for my Maxtor and SeaGate. I've got two 25 gig Maxtor's that are least 6 years old and still working fine.

[Tipph]

Hello,
I just purchased a MTP-AV after struggling with my old studio 4 for some years.
I am not able to get past a basic setup HELP PLEASE!
I am using a G 5 /3 gigs/ 160 HD OS 10.3.7 Outboard gear = Korg M1- Yamaha DX7 -Yamaha RY 30 Drum mach. Kawai sound module - Proteus sound module
WhenI tried to use Free Midid from the install disk, it never showed up on my computer. I looked in almost every folder in OS X and OS 9.
When I called Apple it was like I should have called one of my second grade students ...as I was giving a lesson in MIDI to the tech.
I tried to use the Apple MIDI setup .
When I went to test or scan the setup got nothing.
The MTP AV does show up as being connected in the system profiler. I think I may doing something wrong with the settings at the front of the MTP.
Please Help!!!!!

[jklimeck]

I e-mailed you, check that e-mail

Yeah Apple Care knows very little about MIDI, amongst other things.

Basically, Free MIDI is now gone, in OS X, Apple uses Core MIDI, much, much better.

You have to use Audio MIDI Utility in in Utilities folder within your Applications folder.

[dickhauser]

This is a copy of a post that I put in the Post Production board, but it seems like something you might be able to help with.

I'd like to process a DP file using Ray Gun Pro. However, when I export from Raygun, the file (exported as raw audio uncompressed) has the extension aifc so DP won't deal with it. I wrote an email to Arboretum and got back this reply:

It seems that the "c" in aifc stands for compressed which may explain why DP doesn't want your exported files. You'd need to check your Export options (all QuickTime based stuff) and I am pretty sure the solution should be found there.

Do let me know if you still need assistance to solve this problem.

I was irritated that the reply was a bit glib, but am trying to find settings in Quicktime that might affect audio export in another app, and can't find any. Can anyone offer a bit more thorough explanation? Monday, if I've not figured out the answer, I'll respond back to arboretum.