Dropped frames only on xserve raid

dropped frames only on xserve raid
i'm not able to capture on xserve raid without dropped frames. tihis was a working sytem bud one morning it dosn't work. i capture on mac pro internal drives or external fw drives without problems.
the xserve raid is new formated in raid level5 [mac os extended journaled and striped in raid 0 extended] and the risult of kona system test are 178mb/sec write and 167mb/sec read.
must bee enought for 8bit uncompressed pal, no? also if i divide the stripe set the system dosn't work on both controler. i tried also to change the fibrechannel cables!
i checked also the fibrechannel card with expansion slot utility and the message is that runns at maximum speed.
there are no error message on raid admin, the xserve raid appears ok.
i'm shure that the fcp settings are ok, i know the list that regard dropped frames from apple.
i'm desperate, can you help?
thanks jochen
system:
mac pro 2x3ghz-5gb ram(from apple and the hardware test on the system dvd is ok)
osx 10.4.10
fibre channel card: lsilogic firmware 1.2.18.0 in slot 4
xserve raid 15x250gb firmware 1.5.1/ 151c
aja io (driver 3.0)
raid admin 1.5.1 (diver 1.0)
fcp 5.1.4

I'm guessing conditioning is the same as optimization, but I can't find anything about it in the help documentation. I ran another capture test today with no problems.
An interesting side event is that when I started experiencing dropped frames I ran the Kona System Test utility to verify write and read speeds. It wouldn't run (no write or read) on my RAID. I tried it on my Firewire drives with no problems. I discovered that in the Kona System Test preferences there is a choice of I/O API for Macintosh or Unix. When switching to the Unix I/O API the test ran fine with expected read and write speeds reported. I've used the Kona utility in the past without having to change that setting. I sent an inquiry to AJA.

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Xserve raid midplane(?) troubleshooting help

Hi,
I just inherited an XServe RAID with 12 180GB drives. My question is thus:
If I put the single RAID controller in the top slot, It recognizes all drives on the left side of the RAID, which is expected
If I put the single RAID controller in the bottom slot, it does not recognize any drives in any slots even if I swap those drives from the left side to the right (to rule out 5 bad drives.
I have two empty sleds that are on the right side of the RAID as well.
I am guessing, having never owned one before, that this is likely a problem with the midplane. Is there a way to troubleshoot the midplane? I very quick inspection, didn't reveal anything that was obvious. I plan on doing a more thorough inspection over the weekend.
I am also making the assumption that I do not have to have a controller in the top slot for the bottom controller to work since the top controller works without having a controller in the bottom slot.
Any help/insight would be appreciated

LIttle Update in case it would help someone with more knowledge of this than I:
When the Controller is in the lower position:
or
which I find interesting since I don't have an upper controller installed and the cooling modules both show as missing even though they exist (though 1 is failed).
If I look at the other tabs:
Info: Shows only Name: XServe RAID and Power State: On
Arrays & Drives: Shows Not Installed for all drives on that side of the XServe RAID
Fibre Channel is blank as I don't currently have it connected to my XServe
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When the controller is in the upper position however:
I am curious as to why the RAID controller shows as present in both slots when it clearly is not however.
Hoping it was just a cable from the midplane to the unit, I swapped cables this morning hoping for a failure, but did not get such failure, so I have ruled out the cable. The Controller seems to work when it is in the top slot, so I think that the controller is likely good as well. So I guess I can sum it up as:
Power supplies: Good x2, shows a green light in either slot, swapped in testing
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Cooling Unit: Good x2; Swapped in testing, works in upper slot, does not in lower slot
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I'm confused...what is drop frame vs. non-drop frame...

And why does it matter guys...?
How would I know what I recorded in? Is it on my camera settings, or on FCP5 settings? Where would I look to find out?
Thanks guys...
Jeremy

In NTSC video, since the actual playback rate is 29.97 fps, drop frame timecode accounts for it not really being 30fps... so the editor can actually come to real timing on the program.
If non drop timecode is used in a sequence setting, and you mark an in and out point on say a 30 minute program, it will report the wrong duration (as compared to actual time). Most all DV cameras record drop frame only, but it really wouldn't make a difference if these clips were non drop. It's the sequence settings for TC that would determine the actual length of the program. Unless you have a very high end camera (AKA over 5k new) it's doubtful you can change the TC type. It's just a numbering system difference, and there really aren't any frames actually dropped when you use drop frame TC. When you look at the camera's on screen display of TC, drop frame usually is noted by separating the numbers with semi colons where non drop uses colons. It varies a bit, but FCP will recongnize the proper code when you capture from the tapes... it's really a non issue with source material though. it's still NTSC video playing back at 29.97 fps drop frame code or not.
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Mac Pro + XServer RAID + FCP2 + Configuration

Hello all. This is my first post here.
I will soon buy a MacPro por video editing on Final Cut Pro 2 and I was wondering if you could help sort out if the configuration I've chosen is the best.
I'll show you the configurations I thought first:
*Mac Pro*
- Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
- 4GB (4 x 1GB)
- Mac Pro RAID Card
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- ATI Radeon X1900 XT
- 20" Apple Cinema Display + 23" Apple Cinema HD Display
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- Cache Battery Back-up Modules
- Dual-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCIe
My idea:
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B) XServer RAID will be connected directly to the Mac Pro (for now) via the fiber optic cards and we'll provided additional storage.
C) For projects stored on the XServer RAID (videos for example) I must be able to access and edit directly with FCP2 without having to pass it to the Mac Pro
D) I was thinking of using RAID5 for XServer RAID configuration leaving me with 2.64 x 500GB (as described on support faqs) = 1.3 TB of disk space with a reasonable fail safe environment (RAID5 with 3 drives allows one drive to fail and offers a good recovery rate).
OK. My questions:
1) Is my MacPro config enough for FCP2 + 3D Rendering ?
2) Can I use the XServer RAID directly with Mac Pro or do I need aditional software / hardware?
3) Can I connect the fiber optic from one board to the other without using the router? (on google the answers I found were very vague...)
4) Is the RAID5 the best choice (in terms of performance vs data recovery) for video editing. The RAID5 specs states that random writes to disk are slower that other RAID configs. Is RAID 50 (5+0) a better choice?
5) I opted for the 4 HDD config on XServer but I could change to a 7 HDD config for a similar total space.
I'm sorry for the long post, but I can't find anywhere suitable information about this questions.
Hope to hear from you.
Thanks in advance!

We have a ton of Xserve's and Xserve RAID's at my work. As of right now they're all directly connected to our servers with Fibre Channel cables (NOT fiber optic, totally different animal.) We finally just bought our first Fibre Channel switch to hookup five 10.5TB RAIDS and a huge tape loader for backups. The RAID's work perfectly when directly connected and are very fast. The only reason that you would need a Fibre Channel switch is if you want multiple machines to be able to access the array without using network shares.
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Dropped frames on Xserve RAID upgraded w/750GB drives.

I'm capturing in 10-bit uncompressed standard definition 720x480. I just upgraded one side of my Apple XRAID, (connected directly via fibre channel) with seven, 750GB hard drives from Apple, drives designed for the XRAID, (came with there own sleds.)
Current Xserve RAID firmware version is at version 1.5.1/1.51c
Before the upgraded drives, no issues with dropped frames, (drives 1-7) the other side of the same RAID has no problems, (currently running 250GB drives, drives 8-14.) All sleds are populated with drives of the same capacity, (respective to each side.)
The drives were formated using the Xserve RAID Admin software and mounted using Apples Disk Utilities, Journaling turned off. The final formated capacity of the RAID on drives 1-7 is 4.1TB.
When I capture to the drives on the upgrade side, I get dropped frames. When capturing to the other side, no issues, works great. I checked the settings for performance and they are the same for both sides, as follows:
Use Controller Write Cashe - ON
Allow Host Cashe Flushing - OFF
Use Drive Write Cashe - ON
Use Steady Streaming Mode - OFF
Read Prefetch: 128 stripes (8 MB/disk)
My capture box is an AJA I/o and has never given me dropped frames till now, but only on the side of the RAID that has the new 750GB drives. I also have another RAID that uses 500GB drives on both sides and it work just fine as well, (no dropped frames) using the same performance settings in XRAID utilities.
Any suggestion on why these new Apple drives modules are dropping frame would be very much appreciate. Again 7 new 750GB drives from Apple w/sleds having dropped frame issues.

I'm capturing in 10-bit to avoid loss of quality from analog sources like BetaCam SP as well as line 21 must be part of the captured file, because it contains line 21 for captioning. Eight bit has a banding issue that I can't have in the final product and 10-bit doesn't have this issue.
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http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302780

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g5 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

You may check your cache settings on Xserve RAID via RAID Admin tool.
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Upgrading QT caused my RAID array to drop frames again!

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REPEAT AFTER ME: WHEN YOU HAVE A STABLE OS AND APPLICATION COMBO, CLONE YOUR STARTUP DRIVE. This is the only way, I repeat, THE ONLY WAY to work if you depend on your system for your livelihood. I clone to a second internal drive and I can be back to work in a matter of minutes if things go south after an update or upgrade. There is no way that Apple can thoroughly test every possible hardware and software combination. And do not expect a third party supplier to have updates immediately ready.

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http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/read_forums.asp?WebboardID=14&SectionID=19&lng=1
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This is INSANE! Apple should just take the Server Spotlight promise off their website. Is this working for anyone? Of course, I went off and told my client to upgrade to the Leopard server for exactly this service. Now we're back to using EasyFind which still finds files twice as fast as Apple's Finder Find command. BAH!
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MSI VOX - MSIPVS (only cd); dropped frames in other programs;

I have dell inspirion 11000 (512mb, celeron 2,GHz) and msi vox USB TV tuner.
I have two problems.
In MSIPVS I can only select cd audio for audio output , but I have only mic in input on my computer. I guess this problem is in connection with the sound card on my lap top. I would like to know, if anyone was in the similar situation and how he managed to get out of this problem.
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Could be the memory, but it's hard to tell.
It may be a problem with reading the timecode from the camera.
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Applications->Utilities->Disk Utilities
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Reboot the computer and hold the right shift key down to start in safe mode. If you have multiple users, hold the shift key down when logging into a user. Try to capture in safe mode. This will turn off any pesky programs you may have running in the background.
Make sure the drive you are capturing to has enough free space. If you are capturing to a drive that is close to full or heavily fragmented, it will slow the capture process down and drop frames.
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Final Cut Pro X 10.8, on my laptop, keeps dropping frames from the footage imported from my hardrive.
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Dropped frames only on xserve raid

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