HD Native For Dubbing... OK?

[Picture Start]

Does anybody here feel that it would be a mistake to take an HD Native rig to the stage? Track counts could be quite high, in the 60-90 range, across two drives, probably. Pretty low edit density, though now with PT10 the fades are no longer -9073-worthy. Perhaps the whole disk-caching in PT10 makes a lot of these concerns a non-issue?

The place I really need it to perform is in bussing—I have a lot of it going on internally and being used for outputs via an HD MADI and it needs to not choke! In my TDM system all the bussing takes up a few TDM chips.

Any problems? The Mac is one year old, a 6-core 3.33 with 16GB RAM. This is only a realm in which I have ever used a TDM.

Thanks.

[Brent_Sydney]

I found using the HD native as a dubber made for latency issues. You can only monitor 2 output channels in low latency mode, not 6-8 channels for a surround mix.
I monitor off my stem recorder so I want that round trip to be consistent, so I put my old HD rig as the dubber and native rig for mixing. Native was a LOT more powerful than the old HD3 so it made more sense.
The higher the load on the native rig I had to adjust the playback buffer which made for changes in sync (that rig also runs my picture) and it was just too much hassle.
I'd stick with TDM or HDX rigs for stem recorders for this reason.

[Ale]

Hi

I have now two 6-core westmeres running with PT HD Native 10.0.1
My current projekt has 200 tracks, lots of plugs. Lots of bussing in Surround. I reduced the prozessor to five from twelve and switched to 512 Samplebuffer. Only 40 percent prozessor usage althougt FIVE Surrund reverbs are in the session. Holding the whole session in RAM is very good.
I use 10 GB Ram cache in PT. That leaves 2,5 GB open ram for safety.
Working with intesity pro for HDMI Videoplayback. Video delay is set to 3 quarterframes (measured with syncheck)

You can read here on the duc that a lot of people are struggling with 9xxx errors. I also get them from time to time but the 6 cores seem to be running very well with HDNative.

So your main question you have to ask yourself is:
How many latency is acceptable for you?

In a fresh empty session you can work with 32 samplebuffer, which is acceptable in most cases and by most artists. The bigger the session the bigger the samplebuffer, the bigger latency.
Low latency monitoring still means you have latency.

For me it works in the moment but with my pervious HD2 I had NOT to deal with latency at all. So I am still thinking going HDX to get away from latency.

But again: In most cases everything works well


Ale

Madi: Dont use it, no help from me

[Picture Start]

I'd be using it as an editorial playback-only rig, chasing the desk. None of the issues associated with recording would apply. I should have said!

So far, I'm cautiously optimistic. Thanks for the replies.

[Branko]

I worked on a project in january where we played back 200+ channels on a HD Native system (PT 9 running on 8-core mac, can't remember speed) through MADI into Euphonix S5, during 3 weeks, with maybe 2-3 Low memory problems per day. Lots of automation, bussing, 4-5 reverbs, VCAs and so on.
To recap: I don't think it is a mistake to take HD native as a playback machine to the stage, if the limited number of outputs doesn't make a difference (we were outputting 4 buss stems from it).

[MusoPro]

Well yes and no...we do a lot of ADR and sometimes the latency thing is a real pain. Remember you have to do everything flat...sometimes an actor, rarely will request some reverb for a specific sound. If its on the channel you are recording to it bypasses it in low latency, if you bussing to an aux you'll need to lower your buffer.

We also record scoring which is a nightmare with NativeHD

Was using HD2 but had to make an upgrade before HDX came out.
Now seriously considering the move. I think Native HD is just more difficult for guys that worked on HD/TDM rigs. We're spoiled.

Yes the 90.. Bugs.

Hope that helps
Mitch

[Picture Start]

I hear you. I've worked on TDM rigs since the mid nineties and it would need to feel pretty much the same. Again, if I'm recording anything, it's on my own time, and it's likely me, not a hired person. Hmmm.

[ggegan]

I wouldn't hesitate to use it as a mix session, but I would probably not use it to record unless you do your mix automation only and then do a top to bottom record pass when you are done, which is the way I generally work regardless of whether I'm using my HD6 TDM system or my HD Native system. If you record sync pops from the source session that are routed through the same busses and outputs as the other tracks, even if there is any output delay due to latency or any other reason, you can simply line up the recorded 2 pop with the picture head leader after the record pass and everything should be in sync. After all, that is what 2 pops are for.

[Picture Start]

Originally Posted by ggegan

I wouldn't hesitate to use it as a mix session, but I would probably not use it to record unless you do your mix automation only and then do a top to bottom record pass when you are done, which is the way I generally work regardless of whether I'm using my HD6 TDM system or my HD Native system. If you record sync pops from the source session that are routed through the same busses and outputs as the other tracks, even if there is any output delay due to latency or any other reason, you can simply line up the recorded 2 pop with the picture head leader after the record pass and everything should be in sync. After all, that is what 2 pops are for.

Right. It's just meant to be online, delivering premixes and edits, with a minimum of internal automation (mostly clip-based at this point) to the desk via MADI. It will be delivering the source session, not acting as a dubber or recorder of any kind. Okay, win one for HDN.

[MusoPro]

You should be fine. I've had no problems with mixing except for the annoying 90.. Bugs and sometimes when you try to highlight a region sorry ...clip it highlights the entire session...
10.0.1 was supposed to address these problems.

Mitch