AJA vs Blackmagic??

Bought the AJA KonaLHe. Nothing but issues. System works worse... actually it only kind of sputters since the installation of the card.

Their tech support has been no help and they want me to pay to have it shipped so they can repair and return. Fedex Ground. Talked them out of the pay part- but yeah right - we editors can wait on stuff like that. That being said, my system is kinda dead in the water... can't play the DVCPro footage I shot on the HVX200 at all without frame drops and sputtering.

I would think that AJA would try to accomodate a new client to get them up running and keep them returning.

Anyway, I am kind of fed up with the AJA card. Is the Blackmagic card comparable? Is there another choice I might look into? I am ultimately trying to view my footage on an external high def monitor while taking the load of of my dual core quad so as to maximize my system.

Could this be an isolated bug unique to this individual card?

Thanks for the input.

Troy,

Deep breath...iiiiiiiiiiin.....then oooooooouuuuut.

This sounds more like a rant bashing Aja than a request for help. What you described is totally the opposite of what Aja & their Tech Support has done for me & everyone I know for years. Out of the thousands of cards they sell every month...there is bound to be a bad one. You might have been the lucky recipient. I got a Kona2 with a bad connector a little while back - they cross shipped it OVERNIGHT with cables & all (all I had to pay for was the shipping to them).

I have a brand spanking new LHe now in my Quad / 4.5 Gig RAM / OS 10.4.7. (installed 2 weeks ago) - no issues whatsoever. I love it. The KonaTV feature that lets me play out Animation codec rendered files to my NTSC is worth the price of the card to me. Maybe if you slow down and break down your system, I can go through it with you. I am on a first name basis with a few key players at Aja Tech Support

BTW - You never mentioned your system (CPU / RAM / OS / QT / FCP version / Kona Software version / etc...etc...etc...) so how can we answer any troubleshooting questions without that crucial info?

Aja WILL straighten it out... guaranteed. Their 3 Year Warranty is GOLD. Try getting another Decklnk card shipped to you for free after 13 months (Warranty is only 12 months).

Let me know.

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Trying to breathe Joe....


iiiiiiin......ooooooout...

Sorry if I sounded like I was ranting... well I was a bit- as I did get kind of what felt like a runaround for a moment. They HAVE in fact stepped up and are trying to make good on it. I'll have a new card as of Monday. So you are correct, they are making it happen. It is just that it has been going on for a week now and I am gettin' way behind on my current project... you know the drill I am sure...

And frankly, I WANT the darn card to work- in theory it sounds like a great tool...

Brand new2x3 Intel Dual-Core Quad 10.4.8
8 GB RAM
FCP 5.1.2
G-RAID drives FW800 4 of them at once on this project.
P2 footage/media DVCPro 720p 30 and 720p60 (2 seperate projects)
Panasonic BT-LH1700WP HD monitor
Kona 3.3

The system, as I mentioned is just sputtering... can't even play a clip in the viewer anymore.

Thanks for the input and help!

Troy, I am sorry , but I fail to see how this is an issue with AJA. The footage you are working with is DVCPRO HD shot with the HVX, so imported thru FCP. Playing back this footage and the stutteriness is most likely NOT related to the AJA card. That card doesn't affect that footage in any way other than to get it onto your monitor.

playback issues are most likely related to hard drives. Are these the older G-Raids or G-Raid 2s? The older G-Raid could be daisy chained until the cows came home. But the new ones seem to have performance issues once you put two of them on the same firewire bus. Performance dips from 85MB/s to 16MB/s

But it might be something else. But I will wager that the AJA card isn't the cause of this.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Listen to Shane - he knows what he's saying. Doesn't sound like a card issue. Sounds like an FCP or Hard Drive issue. I'd remove the card, get your FCP running sweet, get your drives running sweet, and then, try the card again. It's most likely not the card. If it is, and you've tried all that AJA will help you out.

Graeme

[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

Not sure Shane.

The only reason that I thought it was the AJA is because the media played fine prior to installing the card. Also, when I output the audio thru the internal speakers, it sounds fine. When the audio is run thru the AJA card it is extremely distorted. Another symptom that the card is malfunctioning.

Also, in running thru settings and tests with the AJA tech on the phone it was he who determined that it would be best to send out a new card.

I don't know what the issue is. Wish I did 'cause I'd like to get beack to work...

Ran disk utility, trashed FCP prefs...


???

I agree with Shane. You have playback issues even in the Viewer -- not likely to be caused by the card. Is your system drive filling up beyond 90 per cent by any chance? Or any of the G-Raids?


www.derekmok.com

The system drive is full 10%

The GRAIDS are running pretty full. I'll try to spread the data out a bit to see if that helps

Simple test would be to take out the card and see what happens. If playback is suddenly better, then it is somehow the card. If not, then it is another issue.

As for the audio distort, do you have a mixer in here somewhere? Connecting the card directly to speakers might cause distortion as you aren't controlling the volume that is reaching them.

And you can run the AJA Kona System Test on your hard drives to see what transfer speed you are getting, to see if they are the cause.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

The system drive doesn't matter - it's the Media drive.

I am running Uncompressed 10-Bit on my G-RAID with not a single dropped frame...but it also isn't half full. If you say "running pretty full", that's dangerous. You should know exactly how much space is used on yoru Media Drives and do not go higher than 80% to 90% (90 is pushing the danger zone).

Troy...call Aja Tech Support (Rudy or Steve). Tell THEM what is happening and they will step through it with you.

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Yes there is a mixer

Yes I am pushing the danger zone so I will correct that immediatley

It's a common problem with multiple drives for one project. You run out of space on one, then you move on to the next. But if the first drive was too full, you gotta move some files off right away, preferably those huge media files. A periodical render-file dump is also beneficial -- they bog down your system by sheer numbers and size.


www.derekmok.com

Whoa - I'll step in here and say...

If you have your RAIDS over 50% full (especially SATA mechs like the ones in yours) then you will see a smooth and gradual dip in performance to the 10% free mark where you are likely to see your HDDs fail at worst or at best you will have the performance you are experiencing.

Seriously - don't fill your fast media drives over 70% to 80% maximum or you will have this problem again.

Yes its annoying that HDDs get slower as they fill up, but this is the case on all computers on all HDDs and until we get an alternative this is the rule.

Also are you sharing the Firewire bus? ie. are you linking via 1 port? Get a FireWire800 Card that has spearate channels for each drive.

Another thing to check. Have you set the output of your card to the monitor correctly from FCP?

I doubt very much that it is a card issue - sounds as Shane said more like a drive issue - but it maybe your AJA settings for DVCproHD monitoring.

Check your manual and project settings again.

Hope this helps.


Ben



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

...which is also why "Striped" RAID drives work better that a daisy chained "Spanned" array. Striped drives writes to all the drives at the same time while "Spanned" drives write to one drive until it's full then moves on to the next. Spanned set-ups are not recommended (by me) for Media use.

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Just a thought:

Deinstall the card but don't take it physically out of the machine. Just run the Uninstall Utility. Put in your passwords, etc., etc.

See what happens. I know the card will vanish, but do the other problems go away?

Koz

So gents,

I have copied media over to a new drive so that no drive is over 60% full, run disk utility, and rebooted. the first issue is that FCP can't find the media connected with some of the copied files- I do have it backed up fortunately- odd though as the file sizes match the original QT files.

Next, FCP ran smoothly for about 4 minutes. Then back to the "stop and go waltz"...
...no luck, no solution.

Bummer here man...

> the first issue is that FCP can't find the media connected with some of the copied files

Are your drives properly formatted, Mac OS Extended? I'm thinking maybe you have dependent movie files in there, which can slow you down.


www.derekmok.com

[..which is also why "Striped" RAID drives work better ]

Yeah, dramatically so! That was my thought. Just because you buy a group of drives in a shiny box doesn't mean they're grouped, or "striped" into a single very fast volume.

RAID and Striped RAID are completely different performance specs. I always expect to use striped arrays if I'm working with multistream HD.

You need to prepare striping as soon as the box gets home and hooked up. It's not a default setup unless it's specified. You do it in Disk Utility. Select two or more volumes in the list and go to the RAID panel. Turn off Journaling. (It was off, right? Right?) Select not Mirrored but STRIPED RAID. You now have a single dedicated lump of fast storage. I think you can partition it with DU but I'll let others chme in-- Shane? Koz?

Which is a long way of saying, I don't think it's the card either. ;-)

- Loren
Today's FCP 4 / 5 keytip:
Do a virtual Audio Mixdown to lighten playback load with Command-Option-R!

The FCP KeyGuide?: your power placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Status on my issue:

Seperated media so that no drive is overworked- no luck
Uninstalled AJA software to strip things down- no luck
I have tried GRAID and then GDrive drives- no luck with either

I have seen media skip and stop before, but never slow down like a player running out of batteries... it skips and stops too but it slows down... odd

Receiving a new AJA card tomorrow via Fedex

Seems though like something is wrong with my computer even though this issue didn't exist before installing the AJA card

Dead in the water... no wind... deadline... gonna drive me to a message form a bottle!

Troy

Sorry, message FROM a bottle... see it's working already!

The plot thickens... Pulled the drives and project file, plugged them into my G5 dual 2.7 and the project plays fine (so far at first glance). So there is a bug in the computer... at least I have eliminated the drives from the equation...

Now how to get this darn super computer to work?????

Troy Christian

G5 Quad, 8GB RAM, FCP HD Suite 2 6.0.5, OSX 10.5.6
AJA LHe card

Sounds like a definate computer issue. Run Disk Utility, and if that doesn't find or repair anything, then it might be time for a system reinstall. You can try to remove then reinstall FCP first, and if that doesn't work, then back up your drive, erase it, reinstall the OS and FCP.

Yup...definately NOT an AJA issue.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Curious...what version of quicktime are you running? Do you have any NON-UB plug-ins in FCP? Are all related apps Universal Binary? Does your movies play normally in a plain old Quicktme player without launching FCP? I don't know enough about the Intel boxes (my expertise stops at the Quad Core PPC) so this is where I get off.

Good luck.

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Don't know about non UB plugins- Nattress, CGM, Sapphire, Stibbs are on my system.

How do I find my QT version?

Anyone know a great computer/FCP tech in LA (San Fernando Valley) that wants to take a look @ my system? I think I could use some on site support and am willing to pay for their time...

I need to get the bugs worked out in my system and I am exasperated!

troychristian@mac.com

Trying to figure out how to change P2 footage from 720p 29.97 to 720p 59.94 without chopping the clip in half?? Having issues with the clip not being complete using Batch Export

Troy Christian

G5 Quad, 8GB RAM, FCP HD Suite 2 6.0.5, OSX 10.5.6
AJA LHe card

To see the version of QT: Launch QT / go up to Menu Bar / click the word "Quicktime Player" and select "About Quicktime". What is the version listed there?

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Hey all --

I will step in and then step out, because I really don't know what I'm talking about.

I had similar problems with my Kona LH card. Installed the card and the whole system kind of sputters when it comes to media at all (not just FCP). I replaced that card three times. Upgraded my OS, replaced my boot drive, made certain the drivers were current, etc etc etc. I hated that damn thing because it totally shut me down, but I really wanted it to work.

Ends up the problem was with my Firmware. I didn't have the right version / wasn't properly updated. Ever since, my Kona card has been just fine.

Stepping out of the conversation in 3... 2... 1...

good luck!
k

Wow - sounds familiar...

What firmware? Where did you get it?

Troy Christian

G5 Quad, 8GB RAM, FCP HD Suite 2 6.0.5, OSX 10.5.6
AJA LHe card

Troy,

Aja Tech Support will walk you through EVERYTHING. Call them. Ask for Rudy or Steve.

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Hey Joe,

I did in fact speak with Rudy yesterday- very bright and very helpful.. mentioned your name in fact... he almost hung up on me....

No- really- cool guy...

HOWEVER, he walked me through every step with my new card. No luck. Same issue. So I determined it must be the computer. Hadman empty internal drive sitting in my computer. did an entire istall of the OS, updates, reinstall of FCP ONLY, pulled the project up, played FINE. installed the AJA software, ran the project thru the card, within 5 seconds the same issue appeared. New drive, clean install, something in this computer is not happy with Kona. Someone mentioned in a posting that their "firmware" was not up to date and that updating that helped the issue. How would I check that out? Where would I find firmware- I looked at aja.com but couldn't see anything that looked like a firmware update.

One last thing on the issue. Now I can turn ALL FRAMES off and it plays fine, run it thru the card and can't get thru 2 seconds.

Personally, I am thinking it has something to do with the audio thru AJA for some reason...

Troy Christian

G5 Quad, 8GB RAM, FCP HD Suite 2 6.0.5, OSX 10.5.6
AJA LHe card

Troy and I talked yesterday for a bit and he described this to me, and it is really odd. Machine works fine until the AJA software is loaded, then it runs into issues. New card so it isn't the card. It is a conflict between his computer and the AJA software. But since many of us are running AJA software just fine, there must be something up with his computer where it doesn't work properly with this.

[www.aja.com]

Download Version 3.3 and install that. See what happens.

This is all happening on your Intel, or your Quad?


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

2 x 3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon Quad Mac Pro
8GB RAM

And at this point as I mention in my earlier post, ALL FRAMES on - sputter off- no sputter. This is unique to my other drive after reinstalling the OS & all programs.

I somehow feel it is audio related. It just seems like the audio sputters and slows down first. hmmm think I will try to test that...

Troy Christian

G5 Quad, 8GB RAM, FCP HD Suite 2 6.0.5, OSX 10.5.6
AJA LHe card