Why buy a BM Intensity Pro?

[MIKEROPHONICS]

Are you in PT11 or 10? Did you measure synchronisation?

[jseelye02]

I'm in 10... I didn't not, but what's the best way to do that? I still have the card...

[MIKEROPHONICS]

hire, borrow or buy a syncheck device

once you have seen how good mojo sync is with avid media and how poor and rubbery (constantly varying even with one playback pass) quicktime sync is you will always want a minimum of a genlocked solution. I did a quick test in PT11 with a BM studio card (but non genlocked) and that faired rather well, which portents to good performance of the media composer engine.

cheers

[jseelye02]

Ah, gotcha... I'll let you know!

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by MIKEROPHONICS

hire, borrow or buy a syncheck device

once you have seen how good mojo sync is with avid media and how poor and rubbery (constantly varying even with one playback pass) quicktime sync is you will always want a minimum of a genlocked solution. I did a quick test in PT11 with a BM studio card (but non genlocked) and that faired rather well, which portents to good performance of the media composer engine.

cheers

While I agree genlock is essential if playing out to tape or if you need/want perfect sync with QuickTime, that does seem to be a flaw of PT 10 and below's QT engine, not QT itself. In fact, with PT11, Avid say you only need a SYNC I/O with an Avid interface. No mention of it with a BM or AJA card.

[MIKEROPHONICS]

there is no such thing as perfect lock with quicktime Tom - that is the whole point. It is inherently unstable and is like building a castle made of sand. Put MXF media into a mojo and run it with a sync io and it is ROCK SOLID.
The same file as a DV pal QT is all over the shop and never the same. It is varying in a dynamic way even before you hit stop and is very variable due to the quicktime engine. We Pal snob types laugh at NTSC being "never the same colour twice" but QT is really "never the same sync twice" in PT. I could forgive it if it was just that the start that was anywhere within the frame boundary from play to play, but to meander al over the place whilst in play? not for me thanks. NO!
The BM cards play much better than the mojo with QT (which can't be hard!), but the QT integration with PT 10 is just poor and flawed. Genlocked or not.

PT 11 however would appear to be different kettle of fish - I know as I have I have done the tests and the BM decklinck studio (un genlocked as I didn't have a sync HD) played very accurately within PT with avid MXF HD media.

Buy rent or borrow a syncheck and do the tests and you will be shocked!

cheers

[Sonny Keyes]

Originally Posted by tom_lowe

In fact, with PT11, Avid say you only need a SYNC I/O with an Avid interface. No mention of it with a BM or AJA card.

I think you mean a SYNC HD. At the rollout presentation of PT 11 they said my old SYNC I/O won't work with PT 11 any more, and this seems to confirm it:

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...nts&popup=true

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by Sonny Keyes

I think you mean a SYNC HD. At the rollout presentation of PT 11 they said my old SYNC I/O won't work with PT 11 any more, and this seems to confirm it:

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...nts&popup=true

Yes, I did mean SYNC HD, cheers!

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by MIKEROPHONICS

there is no such thing as perfect lock with quicktime Tom - that is the whole point. It is inherently unstable and is like building a castle made of sand. Put MXF media into a mojo and run it with a sync io and it is ROCK SOLID.
The same file as a DV pal QT is all over the shop and never the same. It is varying in a dynamic way even before you hit stop and is very variable due to the quicktime engine. We Pal snob types laugh at NTSC being "never the same colour twice" but QT is really "never the same sync twice" in PT. I could forgive it if it was just that the start that was anywhere within the frame boundary from play to play, but to meander al over the place whilst in play? not for me thanks. NO!
The BM cards play much better than the mojo with QT (which can't be hard!), but the QT integration with PT 10 is just poor and flawed. Genlocked or not.

PT 11 however would appear to be different kettle of fish - I know as I have I have done the tests and the BM decklinck studio (un genlocked as I didn't have a sync HD) played very accurately within PT with avid MXF HD media.

Buy rent or borrow a syncheck and do the tests and you will be shocked!

cheers

Hi Mike, I'm not disputing that QuickTime is all over the place in PT 10 and under, however this is not something inherent with QuickTime (I'm no Apple fanboy/defender) but rather Avid's implementation. I assume when you say the same file as DV25 QuickTime also had ref from the SYNC I/O?
There were all sorts of issues that required beam-sync to be disabled too.

The same can't be said for other QuickTime based applications. People playout to tape from FCP all the time with no sync issues and QuickTime plays nicely in other DAWs too, so QuickTime itself isn't flawed.

[MIKEROPHONICS]

Other applications are doing different things I.e apples & oranges. FCP plays a movie from a known frame start and audio at the same time from the same position. PT is doing something different and playing sample accurate audio but trying to lock video to that. I cannot comment on other daws as I only know the AMS Audiofile as well as Pro Tools.
Whether QT is flawed or not,if you want reliable sync that isn't slewing around (to use synchroniser speak) then mxf and avid mojo in PT are your sensible option. I will see if I have a video so I can show you how sloppy it really is.