Problems with OWC ThunderBay 4 and AVID Media Composer

 

OK so if you saw my last post, I have been issues with my ThunderBay 4 with Raid 5 via full SoftRaid from the awesome OWC. This is different from the discs ejecting post and has to do with AVID Media Composer.

Because I am on Catalina 10.15.6 on my iMac Pro with 3GHZ 10 Core, with 64 GB of Memory and a Radeon Pro Vega 64x 16 GB I am running Media Composer 2020.8.0.55115.0. I have actually been running some assistant editor training courses, as I have never used Script Sync and wanted to learn all the ins and out. Anyway, the course came with a project and it’s own media.

I put the media on my Raid, in an Avid MediaFiles:MXF:1 folder. And when I opened the project which was also on the raid everything is online. The weirdness is when I go to the Media Creation tool and try and select the raid for the render files, and it just doesn’t show up. It is like the drive doesn’t exist, and yes I have tried going to the console and typing alldrives, but it has made no difference.

Now I did find this thread on the AVID forum, which is about this happening with G-SPEED raids, but this is an OWC RAID, but the issue seems to be longstanding and continues.

I have contacted OWC support and will see what they have to say, but I think it is an AVID issue, and it looks like it hasn’t been fixed in a very long time.

Super Frustrating!

**

I have put a case in with AVID as well as I think this is an AVID issue and the same as the G-Speed issue in the thread I linked to. We shall see if they do anything about it, but it is something that needs to be looked into.

My OWC ThunderBay 4 Thunderbolt 3 has been having drive ejects, Firmware Update Available

 

So I want to preface this with the fact of just how much I love OWC. I have been buying their gear for many many years, and it has always been very reliable, and they have amazing customer service. I have had them replace ram, and quickly get back to me on issues for years and years.

Lately though I have been a few issues, and this post is about one of them.
So I have a fairly new Thunderbay 4 Thunderbolt 3 and am running a full version of OWC’s amazing Softraid to run it in RAID 5. It is way too small with 4 2TB drives, for a 6TB raid. I am on an iMac Pro running Catalina 10.15.6 and all the sudden have been getting drive drops often on waking up from sleep, or when restarting, forcing a quick rebuild or making me restart to get the drives back. And constantly having the drives be out of sync, though Softraid fixed this in a minute or two each time.
Now it hasn’t happen while I was working and I haven’t lost anything, but it has been annoying.
Now while looking at their forums for another issue I will post about in another post, I ran into this post about Disk Ejecting a firmware update. I quickly downloaded and went through the steps to install. It basically says it has to do with allowing drives to sleep in the energy saver control panel, but this firmware should permanently fix the issue.
As with most things of the sort it is made a bit of a longer process, because of having to disable SIP or System Integrity Protection, and is a multi-step process since you have to then install a kext file, restart and then eject your drives, and install the firmware update.
Now this is where I would add a note to the process, because while the instructions said it would take about 30 seconds, once I selected the firmware and hit the FWUpdate button. It did not take 30 seconds, in fact my computer sat beachballing for well over 30 minutes, before it successfully did the update. This is fine if it fixes the issue, but 30 SECONDS IT DID NOT TAKE!!!
The process then has you uninstall the KEXT, turn SIP back on restart and then turn back on all of your networking which you have turned off earlier.
When I restarted the final time Softraid again said the drives were out of sync, but lets hope that has fixed the issue.

Adobe After Effects is improving it’s 3D experience!

Coming Soon to After Effects Beta – New ways to work with 3D

Discover these new 3D tools to help you navigate in 3D space better and faster, including improved camera features and 3D Transform Gizmos. pic.twitter.com/CXpef2DNo7

— Adobe Video & Motion (@AdobeVideo) September 15, 2020

Awesome After Effects is updating it’s 3D tools, and looks like it is a borrowing from C4D which can only be good. The 3D tools have always been way too basic, and this could be a huge improvement.

Adobe updates Premiere Pro to 14.4 (September 2020 release)

 


Adobe has updated Premiere Pro to version 14.4, the September 2020 release. 

The new features are:

  • Scene Edit Detection using Adobe Sensei AI
  • HDR Rec.2100 Clor space for broadcasters, with Apple ProRes and Sony XAVC-I formats fully color managed and GPU accelerated
  • Export with Proxies for a quick export that doesn’t require full resolution
  • Scans Audio plugins multiple times faster.
  • Export AAF with Breakout to Mono p[r audio channelization.

MacRumors is reporting that Apple is delaying it’s anti-tracking feature from iOS 14

 

MacRumors is reporting that Apple is basically bowing to pressure from major developers and delaying it’s Ad Anti-Tracking feature from iOS 14. 

I have to say I think this totally sucks. If I am going to have to deal with Apple stopping things like Game Streaming on my iPhone, then I should at least have the privacy bonuses that they push so much in their adds.

I don’t want any app to be able to track what I do at all. In fact I think Safari should have containers on iOS to keep things like Facebook locked away from anything else.

Delaying this feature does not help it’s customers, it helps the big money making companies to continue to bilk apple customers.

Apple Music Sync should not force you to sync your Mac’s Music library



I really hate that I am unable to sync my Apple Music Subscription music without also syncing my Music on my mac which I want to sync manually via a cable to my iPhone. I feel like I am getting ripped off as I can barely use the functionality of Apple Music which I am paying for. The two services should be separated.


I do not want Apple to sync my music on my Mac to the cloud, I have over 62,000 songs most of which are not available from Apple Music and if they are I have customized all the metadata to be just how I want it, and I don’t want to take the chance that Apple will mess with it. I tried iTunes Sync when it first came out, and it messed up my whole library and took me years to get it back to exactly how I wanted it.


I want to be able to save playlists from Apple Music and have what I do in Apple music be consistent across my devices, but should not have to also do the same with my personal music library. I don’t want my music to be recompressed (bad enough to have to do use Apple Uncompressed instead of the more ubiquitous Ogg) or messed with in any way. Bad enough that I have to use the awful Finder Sync for music, that can’t be force quit.


Honestly I wish Apple Music and Music were split as two apps, and your mac music could become part of Apple Music if you wanted it to, but it should be your choice.

Red Giant has killed it’s shooter suite except PluralEyes as of September 8th, 2020

 So Red Giant has killed it’s Shooter suite except for PluralEyes as of September 8th. I always hate seeing tools go, and i will miss having Offload for sure for shooting. It might not have been the best tool but it worked and I already owned it. And I did use Instant 4K as well.

Lets hope they add some other good tools to Red Giant now that they have less tools to worry about.

I have finally found a satisfactory replacement for the Microsoft Trackball Explorer and it is the Elecom Deft Pro

So I have been a trackball user all of my life, I have always liked clacky keyboards and trackballs. Mice never made sense to me, and I must specify that I am a finger trackball user, I can’t use thumb trackballs at all.

My trackball of choice for many many years was the Microsoft Trackball Explorer. It has awesome ergonomics and was just a great trackball, but microsoft stopped making them years ago, and the 3 I previously owned just stopped working.

For I while I moved the Kensington Expert Mouse Wired Trackball. I have owned a few and still use one that I carry to work with me. It is a great product, and I actually had of the red plastic beads the ball sits on break and contacted Kensington and they sent me a whole new trackball to replace it. Really great company, but it just doesn’t have the ergonomics of the Trackball Explorer.

A couple of years back I was looking at replacements and found the Japanese company Elecom made finger (and thumb) trackballs and I picked on up, the wired Elecom Deft (I never understood needing a wireless trackball). It had ergonomics much like the trackball explorers and was a decent pointing device, and I replaced my at home Kensigton with it. It is a very good trackball, but not as good as the Trackball Explorer. And it had some faults with Mac, it needs a paid 3rd party driver to really take advantage of it’s features.

Now this never bothered me since Microsoft had stopped it’s trackball explorer drivers long ago and I had moved the the Japanese company Plentycom’s awesome SteerMouse years back.

SteerMouse lets you use all your buttons and program as you want, and has acceleration based cursor control. it is amazing. I own 2 licenses so I can bring it to work with me with my Deft.

The Deft was good, but felt a bit cheap, but then I found the Elecom Deft Pro! And I got the top of the line model, which has wired (it is USB micro, wireless with an adapter that lives inside of it unless needed and bluetooth) which is how I use it. It has 8 buttons and a wheel that scrolls and goes up and down. And it has changeable DPI settings (though since I don’t use it for gaming I have never changed them).

The Deft Pro is amazing, and it is the only trackball I will use form now on! It is awesome! I could not recommend this trackball any more! It is a must!

Red Giant has updated to Universe to 3.3 with 2 new tools 4 updates

 

Red Giant has updated it’s Universe Plugs ins to version 3.3 with 2 new tools and 4 updates plugs ins.

The new Tools are:


  • Quantum: a tool that creates the illusion of an animated light trail in front of or behind a layer. Great for text and motion graphics
  • Modes: a tool that makes it easy to combine layers in entirely new ways using powerful features that go beyond the native blend modes found on your editing timeline.

 And the Updates are:

  • Glow: Now offers Inverse-square glow falloff, multi-pass chromatic aberration and the ability to glow a single color channel.
  • Glimmer: This update gives you 6 mono or bi-directional glow streaks with variable intensity and color mapping, an animatable shimmer, variable rotation control, and Color maps aligned with Trapcode’s Starglow.
  • Chromatic Aberration: This tool now includes control over the focus area, the ability to split the aberration into multiple passes, and chromatic rotation.
  • Hacker Text: The addition of customizable random characters and the ability to auto-animate the encryption and decryption.

 

 Always excited for new Universe tools as I have a lifetime on them, and they are always very fast with GPU support.

Have to play with Modes, though Modes themselves exist in Premiere, so it will be much more amazing in AVID which doesn’t have layer modes for compositing.

Does anyone else lament the loss of Red Giant’s Keying suite from the VFX suite?

 

Now it isn’t like I don’t love the Red Giant VFX suite, but I have been a Red Giant user for many years, and I miss all the tools of the Keying Suite. 
Now I am not complaining about Primatte Keyer 6 which is included in the Red Giant VFX Suite. It is very powerful and easy to use, though since Primatte 5 doesn’t really seem to work with 2020 or Beta it had better be good, but I do miss all off the ancillary plugs ins of the Keying suite, and I do know that many of the effects have been incorporated in SUPERCOMP, but I want all the controls of the individual plug-ins again.
I will admit that I am using keyers in a different method than most, as Primatte works great for a standard green screen (which I am using as well), and I find it vastly superior to the build in Keylight. The thing is I am doing puppeteering and using a green glove to puppet a teddy bear, so instead of just the green, I want to expand the green beyond the glove, instead of objects inside the green screen. And yes I can do that with rotoscoping, but that kind of negates using a green glove as I have to animate every frame.
And I have to admit I had an easier job doing that when I had the tools all in separate plug ins. I miss the key correct plugs in. I miss seperate versions of Alpha Cleaner, Light Wrap (which I know is in SUPERCOMP), Matte Feather, Smooth Screen, Spill Killer (I know this is in Primmate 6) and Wire/Rig Remover, which is more what I am trying to do. And yes I still have the old plugins, but they really don’t work in After Effects 2020.
Now I know I am using the plug ins out of their comfort zone, but using the separate plug ins I was much better able to do what I wanted to, and with Primatte 6 only having some of the plug ins integrated I am not as happy with what I can do.
And that is beyond the whole SUPERCOMP not working with Motion Blur thing which really needs to be fixed.