Re: What's wrong here: deck, tape, IoHD or the operator?

[Jeremy Garchow] Where'd you get that layout?

I've seen it several places on the net and it was referenced on LAFCPUG as well.

[Gary Adcock] Also - Pull all of the 3rd party RAM - it is a known issue with non standardized 3rd party ram- use a reputable RAM dealer like Crucial- cheap out on the RAM, and it usually haunts the highend user-

I bought both sets of 1GB chips from OWC; their memory has always worked well for me and it's not cheapo generic stuff. But I have noticed that Leopard is a lot more sensitive about certain issues (memory, graphics card) than Tiger was, so that may be a factor. Regarding both of your advice on pulling the RAM, I will give it a try when I have downtime.

Regarding format mixing:
I realize that I've thrown a lot of different formats into the mix; I was hoping that the open timeline would help with that but I see now there are definite limits. The AVCHD material plays back choppy and out of sync in a true ProRes sequence, and the DVCProHD material can cause major issues if not in a 720p project. I'm going to upconvert everything overnight this week so that it's all the same.

So it's not the IoHD at all probably, it's the Mac not being able to handle all the RT duties and output/up- or down-convert at the same time. Where do you think the problem actually occurs though -- when FCP calls for the AJA driver, or sends it down Firewire, etc? Because it can play back without problems when Video Out is set to None or Cinema Desktop, but the act of engaging external video equipment (with mismatched clip/Primary settings) causes the panic. I get WHY it's bad when the settings are mismatched, but I just didn't expect such a big error to occur; I thought at worst I would just get a green screen or static.

UPDATE: I have an HD monitor now, hooked it up via component outputs this time and was able to reproduce the panic as before (meaning the HDMI is not the problem). The settings were: Primary and sequence set to 1080i29.97, 720p60 clips on the timeline, SafeRT Video Quality set to MEDIUM.

The Video Quality setting is the real culprit here. It cannot be set to HIGH because it's greyed out, MEDIUM causes the panic when the clips don't match the sequence (possibly LOW too, haven't tried it but what's the point) and DYNAMIC allows playback without a panic. So obviously I have to upconvert all my non-ProRes HQ material but I still need to figure out this greyed out HIGH setting. Guess I'll try the RAM and see what happens...

JK