Realistic Track count with Mojo

[110 ohm]

We are considering an upgrade for one of our dubbing stages. We currently have two HD3 systems with Protools 5.3.1 on os9 with Mac G4 933 / 1 Gig of Ram. For picture we are using a Doremi V1.

I am considering a switch to a Mojo system with associated upgrades to PT 7 / OSX / G5.

I have two questions.

1. How does the picture quality of the Mojo Rate to a V1. I would assume it would be similar to a DVCAM deck when using the DV25 Codec.

2. How many tracks can the mojo system realisticly handle. I have read the compatibility specs. and they state the max is 48 Tracks. Does that mean all tracks including aux's and busses or is that strictly audio tracks with material playing.

I know that digi usually errs on the side of caution with track count, so I am looking for some real world experience with the Mojo. We are currently running between 50 and 60 tracks on the system that would be upgraded to the Mojo. It will provide the playback for the Dialogue / Music for various feature lenght films.

Thanks for any Advice.

Jon

[Richard Fairbanks]

Of course you know the answer depends on a number of factors, like session bit depth, sample rate, drive interface/speed, number of drives in use (more is probably better), video compression rate and video drive type (array?) and speed. It just is not very simple to give simple answers. Having said all that, for a normal 48/24 session running audio on single 10K SCSI with DV25 video from a SCSI array, I have no problems playing through a fully automated session with, say, 40 audio tracks, several MIDI, two dozen auxes. To tell you the truth I usually split to a second audio drive long before I have problems so I don't really know what the limit of my system is. I can say the video drive makes a big, big difference in performance. With a new G5, and quick/supported drives, and a MOJO you should have no trouble with your current session sizes. You know post doesn't need all tracks withe extreme edits playing all the time. The bigger problem becomes which plugins you are using. Some of them seem to interfere with screen redraws and general performance more than others. I've had particular problems with EQIII, for instance. Sounds good, but man o man, when a couple of parameters are in motion it can really bring my system to its knees! I haven't run into disk access problems but my screen gets mightly sluggish. MOJO makes it worse.

Hope this helps your decision. In terms of quality, MOJO is capable of excellent standard def especially uncompressed! You get excellent picture-follows-cursor performance, better than anything else, but give away some system "snappiness". For my normal work it is great, but I know my system will never be able to run 100 tracks with MOJO. For that, when it happens, I'll rent a V1!

[110 ohm]

thanks for the info.

I will be more specific on what I plan to use.

Mac G5 DP 2.3 gHz 2.5gig ram
Audio split over two 10k RPM scsi
48k/16 bit
Video on internal SATA drive at DV25 (approved by digi)
Procontrol
Waves Gold Bundle
Sony Oxford

Our current systems tend to be quite slugish and I was hoping that the upgrade to G5 OS X would help. Hopefully mojo is not too much of a hog.

thanks,

jon

[Richard Fairbanks]

I have a very similar system, except that the G5 is dual 2.5, same amount of RAM. Pro Tools is SLUG-GISH. When my video drive array died several weeks ago for the third time in a year (Medea got bitten by the IBM drive debacle but are honoring the warranty, there is still one of the four drives that is original and I'm sure it will die as soon as possible) I started using the second SATA drive for video playback at DV25. I began having questionable system stability. Several crashes through the course of a day with PT 6.9.3 on OS10.4.2. This went on for two days before I put in a spare SCSI drive and copied the video media to it. The system remained horribly sluggish, due in part to the slower video drive, but no more crashes. I have finally switched back to 6.9.1 on OS 10.3.9. Until the array is returned I am not changing again. Pro Tools is so sluggish these days! 6.9.1 is not quite as bad as 6.9.3. Dare I go to 7?

Anyway, I though I'd share my SATA experience. I don't trust it yet for video. Your mileage may be different.

[1150Post]

I have a very similar system, except that the G5 is dual 2.5, same amount of RAM. Pro Tools is SLUG-GISH. When my video drive array died several weeks ago for the third time in a year (Medea got bitten by the IBM drive debacle but are honoring the warranty, there is still one of the four drives that is original and I'm sure it will die as soon as possible) I started using the second SATA drive for video playback at DV25. I began having questionable system stability. Several crashes through the course of a day with PT 6.9.3 on OS10.4.2. This went on for two days before I put in a spare SCSI drive and copied the video media to it. The system remained horribly sluggish, due in part to the slower video drive, but no more crashes. I have finally switched back to 6.9.1 on OS 10.3.9. Until the array is returned I am not changing again. Pro Tools is so sluggish these days! 6.9.1 is not quite as bad as 6.9.3. Dare I go to 7?

Anyway, I though I'd share my SATA experience. I don't trust it yet for video. Your mileage may be different.

Richard,

I'm on a 6.9.2, OS 10.3.9 (Yes, not supported), G5 DP 2.0, 2 Gig, HD3 in a 32 bit 13 slot Digidesign branded expansion chassis, with 3x36Gig SCSI sound drives on a UL3D, 3 x FW drives for SFX storage/Soundminer and using a 2nd internal 160gig SATA for video. Using the DV video that is created when digitizing with the Mojo in PT I can say that the system is honestly just a zippy or zippier than the G4 (933 or saomething like that) running AVXL and 6.2.3.

All in all I am quite pleased with the Mojo. I find I need to use slightly larger session sizes (lower # voices/chip, meaning more chips) to avoid PCI based playback issues, but all in all, I'm quite pleased. Shoot me an email off list and let's chat. It could be your card order in the G5 giving you delays.

[110 ohm]

Yikes!!!

That does not sound too promising. Perhaps I should rethink this?

I wonder if anybody else on this forum has had any more experience with this?

Thanks for the useful info.

Jon

[FajitaTone]

using dual 2 gig G5's 10.4, Apple FibreChannel for video drives, internal SATA for audio HD2 systems. I hate that the play cursor starts just a hair before the audio plays back, but everything's in sync. the picture is a bit blown out compared to the D-Beta but I can live with that. so far using 6.9.3 waiting for 7.0 most tracks used so far was 40 not including auxes. Kontact works great!

Virus and Kontakt don't get along sometimes. When the menu's draw funny, I quit and restart the application.

[Richard Fairbanks]

Brad,
card order? Gee, I don't think there's much to go wrong there. Expansion chassis host, firewire, UL3D in that order. Not much to change.

Jon,
compared to a system that does not have MOJO, or AVXL for that matter, many things ARE sluggish. Smoothness of scrubbing is one of them. (BTW, the wonderful scrubbing trimmer has been broken since 6.7. Not a fault of MOJO, just broken.) Wait time after pressing play is about 1/2 second longer, time required after stopping seems very noticeably longer. I find myself waiting on the system more noticeably with MOJO than without, especially after stopping playback. For someone who is coming from a system with video running externally it will be a big change.

It is natural to assume that when you double the processor speed, and then put two of them in the system, that you will enjoy a boost in performance. The boost is there but you won't enjoy it because OSX and Pro Tools bloat takes it all away from you. You cannot get ahead of the curve in this regard, you will have to spend good cash to stay even. You will get the additional features that come along with the bloat, so some things will make the switch worthwhile. You'll never run out of TDM timeslots again, you'll get to use a bunch more internal busses, and you'll be able to run some plugins that are not available on OS9 or 5.3.1. Pro Tools has more features and conveniences to, so at least you'll see some of what you traded away to bloat. You cannot avoid an upgrade forever so this is all part of the game.

Maybe my previous post read more negatively than I intended, but mainly I meant to provide a realistic portrait of my experience and to mention the instability that I have using a SATA drive with video. It should be obvious, if you've read my other posts, that I like MOJO and choose to use it over all other options.

[1150Post]

Brad,
card order? Gee, I don't think there's much to go wrong there. Expansion chassis host, firewire, UL3D in that order. Not much to change.

Actually, I can't recall where I read it in which install guide (Mojo, or Expanded Systems Guide) but I recall reading that the UL3d should stay as close to slot 1 as possible, so with the expansion chassis it should come second in our systems, and the Pyro firewire last. We had something different when the system first went in, and had some concerns in regard to snappiness. I made the switch, and am honestly not experiencing the types of system delays you are.

The install guides when using an expanded system really can be contradictory sometimes Or at least the ones I printed when we put these rooms in. They may be better now.

FWIW. YMMV.

[minister]

if you at lest want to look at another option besides MOJO, look at gallery's VirtualVTR VIRTUAL VTR'S WEBSITE

your audio and video will be on two separate computers. so, yes, it requires two seperate computers and another midi interface. but you will get full use of your PT computer, with NO sluggishness. the video side depends on your card and system. for SD, i am still trying out the FUSE-X which allows to throw pretty much anything at it. i am also considering the black magic HD card. these cards are under $1000 USD, with the FUSE-X around $4-500 USD.

the current feature i am working on now is 57 tracks and 5.1 routing and HW inserts. and i am not done yet! i am sure the track cout will grow -- music has not been addded. i am currently working in SD video, but once the HD stuff is in place, i can work at 720p. with no sluggishness on the PT side.

scrubbing is excellent (via MMC). also, depending on the card, i can throw lots of different codecs at my setup.

just a thought for you. mojo is certainly a great solution.