Dual 2.7 - stuttering video - ideas?

[gomi]

Hello. I have aquired a Dual 2.7 to test for bit.
I am experiencing some difficulty getting video out
of the firewire port. I have two hunches but
I thought I'd see if anyone else has seen it.

First, it's a Dual 2.7, with 2.5GB of Ram
and 1 250GB SATA Drive. (which could be the problem)
We were unable to get another drive for it, so we are
stuck running picture and audio from the one drive.

BUT, I have tried a couple firewire drives we have
here, both are qualified Oxford chipset, and both
completely hand OSX when trying to use them in any way...
Which makes me think that the firewire bus is in some
way hooped (it's a demo machine, it's been around)

Anyways. We are currently using a Canopus box
to out put video to a projector. What happens
is when we switch to it, the movie flickers and
flashes on and off. More so when it's idle
and less so when it's playing. Still it's unusable.

Playing the movie in a movie window on the second monitor
works fine though.

So. I think it might be the firewire bus.
But maybe some of you smart people have
another idea.

Unfortunately I don't have access to a Mojo yet.

And I have no PCI Firewire cards at hand (which will
be my next step I think).


Any thoughts?

[MixerGuy]

(you) We were unable to get another drive for it, so we are stuck running picture and audio from the one drive.

That will be problem #1 - you NEVER want to run audio off the main OS system drive.

The probable solution (and a very good idea regardless) is to go get a second SATA drive - 400 gig 7200 rpm for about $400 usd. I suggest Seagate.

When you put in the SATA#2, partition it, and use SuperDuper to clone your system drive onto a partition. (versiontracker.com - $20) That way you have a bootable mirror (exact copy) of your system drive.

Then move your working project folder to SATA #2 - the 2nd partition. Always run your projects from this drive. Use SYNK utility ($20, versiontracker.com) to back your project folder to an external FW drive.

Generally speaking video runs better off the system drive (SATA #1). You won't absolutely have to have the video on the system drive....... I myself have the same computer as you, and I can run 50 racks of 24 bit 48k audio off my SATA#2, and even have the video there, and work with a Canopus, and it runs just great.

Now that the audio is off the system drive you'll find that things will be smoother, generally.

best!! John aka MixerGuy

[gomi]

Yes, I realize that I need another drive.

However that doesn't answer the firewire problem.

Why can I not use any firewire drive that I have.
Including the DigiDrives.

They all mount. But as soon as I try to use them, they
actually crash the G5...

My canopus flicker problem may be related.

Unfortunately I cannot get another SATA drive.
This isn't our G5

[DigiTechSupt]

Gomi - were those FW drives formatted with the OSX Disk Utility?

When you say 'when I try to use them, they crash the computer' - what happens exactly?

Which FW ports do you have the drives and the Canopus connected to?

Also - which OS and Pro Tools versions are you running?

[Mark Reis]

We have a dual 2.7 with 2 drives that has video stuttering when playing through a FireWire/Canopus box. I don't know where the sessions were but I do know this was ProTools 6.9.3cs2, HD2 system.

I run a nearly identical 2.7, sessions are NEVER on the system drive, running 6.9.2 HD3 Accel and have no problems with the stuttering. 6.9.2 and Tiger 10.4.2 is the most stable ProTools system I've ever run. I don't know what version of ProTools you're running, but that might be a place to start looking.

[PeterB]

Don't use the firewire port on the front of the machine. These do not work reliably for drives. You may be able to run the canopus from it.

I also had someother troubles with FW drives and a Dual 2.5 gig machine. This turned out to be a RAM problem, so make sure yours is good quality, tested seated properly.

Good luck



PB

[gomi]

Ah, I will try reversing, I was indeed plugging the firewire in the front and the canopus in the back.

Thanks for the tip!

also

10.4.2
PT 6.9.3cs3 (which seems rock solid so far! yay!)

[gomi]

ps
this is the first g5 i've ever got to play with

I AM IN LOVE

[drguitar]

the canopus is great

but you have to make sure your video files are encoded in DV format!!!!

like DV/DVCPRO NTSC in order for PT to output it correctly via the canopus

i can't believe that hasn't yet been mentioned by anyone in this post

location of video hard drives is certainly important, but first you MUST make sure the video is in DV format....hope that helps