Canopus or Mojo

[DarthFader777]

I'm just wondering what you folks like the most. IF canopus what's the model? I'm using the Avid
Mojo. I've been trying both h.264 and avid 2:1 compressed and getting jittery picture when output to my Screen. I'm using compsite out of the mojo (obviously) to composite input of the Sharp LCD Aquos TV. (Nice LCD). My session seems to run fine. I'm using the right port on my Mac and have 4 gigs of ram. The Avid Video Engine is installed. I've tried running the video on and video only internal drive and on the SansMP Fiber Video only drive. Any suggestions?

Skipp

[SteveH44]

We to use the Sharp LCD's, and have seen the jitter your talking about. Often our monitors are looking at the 2nd graphics output from the video card via a Mac DVI to composite adapter (simulating a second computer screen). We also use the Canopus ADVC110 codec for DV viewing routed to a video switcher. The Aquos monitors seem to be more sensitive to video jitter then other monitors, possibly because of the low latency (video delay) or because of tighter sync spec's, something a lot of computer hardware/software doesn't provide, since it was designed for a wide range of analog monitor with much broader sync requirements..
We don't see a problem with video when using the Canopus, and we don't have a problem using the adapted video output (from the graphics cards second output) if the video is set to "Best Video" under Preferences>Displays>Second Monitor>Options. If this is not checked, you will see problems with video.

Regards

Steve Hallquist
L.A. Studios Inc.
Tech Support Dept.

[TAFF]

It's a problem with quicktime and mojo. Basically, when the QuickTime video is played back it has to be unwrapped and then sent out to the Avid video engine to be played through the Mojo. All of this is done by the CPU. This is why if there are other CPU-intensive tasks (such as continuous scrolling while zoomed in, lots of automation etc) then video playback will suffer.The best performance will be seen if you use an i-frame codec (e.g. DV25) where the pixel dimensions are the same as the output monitor i.e. 730 x 576. Use Flip4Mac to convert your QuickTime movies to MXF format if you haven't got Mediastation

All the best

Paul Mcfadden
Supervising Sound Editor
Doctor Who

www.bangpostproduction.com

[DarthFader777]

Thanks you Guys for your help. I'm going to be trying somethings today.
Thanks,
Skippp

[nmiller79]

How is the Mojo connected to the computer. On its own firewire bus?

NM

I've been trying both h.264 and avid 2:1 compressed and getting jittery picture when output to my Screen

[Peter Groom]

I use neither with my PT with great success. Ive a Blackmagic Decklink pro video card installed which i also use with Final cut , and the video runs out theough this. I use motion jpegs, dv pal, just about anything and have encountered no problems.
Peter

[mbauer1]

Hi Peter,

I'm looking for an alternative to our MOJO cause it's given us nothing but problems.
I wrote to black magic support to ask a few questions and they replied with the answer below.
Can you just confirm that you use it with pro-tools (which version) and that you can simply drag and drop video files into your PT sessions, then output them to a tv monitor?
I want the ability to use DVPAL & H264 because thats what most of my clients supply.
Thanks, Matt





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Hi Matt,
Unfortunately, we don't support Pro Tools as it does not offer full support for Quicktime Video Component outputs which is required to output video via our cards.

Our Australian distributor is New Magic in NSW.
http://www.newmagic.com.au

Regards
Kristian Lam
---
Blackmagic Design
http://www.blackmagic-design.com

[EarHole]

H.264 files are problematic no matter what video option you choose. They are more of an end product format and make a heavy processor hit on the cpu. You're much better off with a larger files sized less intensive codec.

[Peter Groom]

HI Matt
I do have a canopus which uses DV PAL with a rather large offset applied. Then one day I had some time to mess, to I removed the Canopus and just took the PAL outs from my Blackmagic Decklink Pro card and found that it works just fine. Ive got a Dual G5 and an HD Pro Tools running 7.3.1. Ive no issues with it at all so far.
It means that, as I also run Final cut on the same machine, I can capture in from Digi Beta SDI as the card is SDI IO also, via 9pin control, edit etc etc, although mostly I recieve files from our edit suites over the network. These are usually either DV Pal , or Motion JPEG A. Ive not experimented with uncompressed yet as, although the editors would like that as that is their native format so wouldnt need to do anything to their files to give me a movie, I m suspicious that my video drive may not be fast enough to really deal with that file type, and it would eat up a massive amount of storage compared to the files I do use. I also keep Final cut around as the editors will often forget to adjust the field order, so i can import to fcp what they give me and apply the de interlace filter and change field order myself.
I have tried H624 and it did work, but I only tried that because that is what FCP defaults to in the export option. I dont get these as a rule.
Also the mega delay from a canopus is gone with the Decklink.

Cheers

peter

[Peter Groom]

Im just going to wear my vt editors hat for a moment, having read the earlier posts that talk about "jitter".
Obviously there could be many types of "jitter" that people experience and these could be different to the jitter I see here on occasion, but i think its best to describe what is going on with field orders.

Each video frame is made up of 2 fields, and upper and a lower. Digi Beta / Beta sp etc uses upper field first. DV (so dv cam, mini dv infact any DV based source) uses lower field first. If you take a playback output device like a Canopus for example, It is a firewire device and so is DV. But if the video file being played out is upper field first, perhaps having been made from a Digi beta or hi def (or any non DV source for that matter) then the native field order is opposite to the dv structure, therefore will cause flicker. This flicker Im talking about is not seen on statik shots, but as soon as there is any horizontal movement it becomes a real headache maker, and very hard to accurately spot sfx and lip sync. The solution is to use something like Final cut pro to add a de interlace filter to the sequence and then render it out having changed the field order to lower first - or better still get the editor to create it correctly for your needs when exported, and explain to him / her that every time he gets it wrong is another round theyre standing in the pub come Friday!!!

There are 2 exceptions to the above that spring to mind.
1) If the video (no matter what it was originally) has been through a graphics station such as after effects, then the resulting file is now frame based not field based. ie both fields are the same and so no jitter or filter is needed.
2) If the video file was originated from film, then this is also without the 2 field issue as film has just frames and no fields, so no filter or flicker will be encountered.

If you think this is all a real twist on, then thank your lucky stars that the 8 fileld per frame system that was normal when I started in Vt editing is now long gone!.

I hope all this helps and is accurate, although Im sure someone will point out any details of inaccuracy or more exceptions to the rule.

Peter