IO HD Pro Res flashing/sync?

Unfortunately you are not seeing the real image when capturing through FCP. Not until you playback to captured footage and view on a external monitor (or set the viewer to 100% in FCP, this problem is hidden. I had the same issue when the IoHD first came out and I captured a bunch of HDCAM SR tapes to ProRess (HQ). The fix was to do a complete firmware update/re-install of the Io.

To see if there is an overall issue with ProRes or if is it is just IoHD, Test one of the know clips with a problem in QT Player, just stepping through the video to see if the problems are in the file, test a file that was encoded via the IoHD and then some that are transcoded in Compressor or FCP.

Also remove the IoHD and do your FCP conversion test to see if you still get the problem.

If there is an overall problem with ProRes you may need to do a reinstall but I would test a lot of things before I did that.

Trouble shooting is a pain and it takes slow and deliberate actions.

I've now reinstalled IO HD driver v6.0.3. The same problematic sync issue is there. The problem looks like I parked the scrubber in between fields but it exists during playback and pause.

1-For testing purposes I'm using an HD DVCpro project captured via panasonic deck thru firewire (IO HD never attached during edit/capture/playout).
2- I exported the HD DVCpro sequence using QT conversion to Pro Res 422 HD 1920x1080 (IO HD was not attached during reencode). The new stand alone QT file plays fine in QT both from my internal drive and eSata external drive (both with and without IO HD attached.
3-Same QT file playback through AJA TV has sync issues, in fact, when the file opens in AJA TV the first frame appears to be parked between fields.
4-Created new FCP project using easy setup AJA IoHD- 1080i 29.97 Apple ProRes 422
5-Imported stand alone ProRes QT file I created earlier from eSata drive. Dropped in timeline sequence. Noticed the field dominance native in this file is NONE. Playout through AJA IO has sync issues. Canvas window at 100% no issue.
6-In the new FCP project I manually changed the video playback setting from aja IO to destop main and audio to built-in. The sequence plays fine on my computer full screen.
7-I returned to original HD DVCpro project, duplicated sequence, changed sequence settings to ProRes 422, and easy setup to Aja IO 1080i ProRess 422. The canvas at 100% no problems but the playout through aja is flashing/flickering out of sync

Frustrating... Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Tom
http://www.felthammer.com

did you make sure that you re-flashed the firmware on the IoHD back to the 6.03 version?

How do I do that? Do I just click on the aja ioupdater? Is the current firmware automatically downloaded when I downloaded driver 6.0.3? Is there somewhere I can download the firmware?


"5-Imported stand alone ProRes QT file I created earlier from eSata drive. Dropped in timeline sequence. Noticed the field dominance native in this file is NONE. Playout through AJA IO has sync issues. Canvas window at 100% no issue. "

DUH - it cannot properly play the file as interlace if you set the field order to NONE.

The stand alone QT file I created was re-encoded from FCP choosing Export>Quicktime conversion and then in options choosing PRESET Pro Res 422 and Size HD 1920x1080. I never chose de-interlace or make it progressive. FCP's conversion created the new clip progressive.

Is it possible that the clip I'm having this trouble with was recorded in two different formats? My problem only seems to be during color bars at the top of the tape. The rest of the sequence seems to play fine. I've unfortunately done a lot of work to find that I've been stuck on trying to get the bars to playback correctly. The tape was from Disney Broadcast Services and I don't have it anymore. Here's what I think may have happened. The tape was labeled 1080i. Put it in deck and switched the deck to 1080i from 720p. I digitized footage via SDI in HD ProRes 422. The footage on the tape is fine but the bars are out of sync. Is it possible the bars were done in 720p60 and the rest of the footage was laid in at 1080i? Then a conversion from the panasonic deck 720p to 1080i via SDI out and ProRes doesn't like the results?

You are not going crazy, I had a similar problem and after hours of troubleshooting the only solution that I've found was to turn off "Mirror on Desktop" when laying off. Rudy at AJA is aware of the problem and when I last spoke to him he said he was going to talk to the engineers about it. I hope this helps.