User`s guide

Chapter 2: AVoption Hardware Overview 5
Minimum System Requirements
Sync Hardware
Synchronization Peripheral
AVoption requires a Universal Slave Driver
(USD).
Sync Source
For accurate synchronization during capture
and playback, Pro Tools and AVoption must
both be locked to video black burst.
Storage Hardware
SCSI Accelerators
To support the high transfer rates required by
AVoption audio and video, the ATTO Express
PCI Dual-Channel SCSI Accelerator (or other
AVoption-qualified SCSI accelerator) is required,
with audio drives connected to one channel and
video drives connected to the other channel.
SCSI Hard Drives
Using Two Hard Drives
For scenarios that do not require a high audio
track count or a very long video segment, use
two hard drives. In this scenario, one drive is
used to record, import, and play back audio
data, and the other is used to do the same for
video.
Using More Than Two Hard Drives
To get the highest possible performance from
your AVoption system, you can use more than
two hard drives. In this scenario, you can use up
to four hard drives for audio data and up to four
hard drives for video data.
Audio AVoption can use multiple hard drives to
store audio data. You should allocate audio
tracks to different hard drives manually. “Round
robin” disk allocation is not recommended in a
system that includes video drives.
Video AVoption can capture a contiguous video
track to multiple hard drives. This is useful if the
length of your video session exceeds the 2 GB
Mac OS file size limit, or the storage space avail-
able on a single drive. For example, 50 minutes
of video material, using AVR 77 compression,
requires between 9 GB and 25 GB of storage
Minimum Pro Tools AVoption System Requirements
Item Minimum Requirement
Computer Power Macintosh 9500
Power Macintosh 9600
Power Macintosh G3 (Blue &
White)
Power Macintosh G4
Pro Tools audio
hardware
Pro Tools 24
Pro Tools 24 MIX
Pro Tools 24 MIXplus
PCI Expansion
Chassis (Blue &
White G3)
Magma 13–slot
SCSI accelerator ATTO ExpressPCI Dual-Channel
(Other SCSI accelerators may
be approved. Check the Digide-
sign Web site for the latest
compatibility information.)
SCSI hard drives at least 2 approved SCSI hard
drives
Sync peripheral Universal Slave Driver (USD)