Tempo map and Timecode generating problem

[Richard Barrie]

Has anyone else seen the following problem?

When generating Timecode using either a USD or a Sync I/O, at any frame rate, with or without video reference, and having a manually inserted Tempo Event and recording audio, the Hard Drive activity will double and can cause DAE errors if recording with a high track count to a hard drive.

We have seen this with both PAL and NTSC video references, on G4s and G5s, OS9.2.2 and OSX.2.8, PT 5.X and 6.X (not tried it with PT6.4 and OSX.3.4), Mix and HD systems. We have also seen this happen on rental systems as well so it is not my install.

I have also experimented with simple, very clean installs of ProTools with only a fresh install of an operating system on re-initialized hard drives (to eliminate 3rd party problems) and can still see the effect.

It does not happen straight away but will suddenly start happening part way during a session and then will not go away. The only way to stop it happening is to set the Tempo back to the default 120BPM (or to stop generating code). Once it starts happening then the effect will cary on to any new session created.

You can see the increased disc activity by watching the access LED on SCSI drives, but doing the same with either Firewire or internal IDE drives will also give a DAE error if the track count is high enough.

We have been able to demonstrate this to Digidesign Support on site, but they have been unable to reproduce the same effect once they get back to the office.