Contents: Tips for using Pro-Tools 6.x on the Macintosh in OS X


General setup and troubleshooting tips for OS X and Pro Tools 6
Possible fix for DAE error -6031
Canopus ADVC100 Offset
Quicktime movie settings for the least load on the CPU

Below is a list of general setup and troubleshooting tips for OS X and Pro Tools 6.x.

First verify you are using a supported Mac and your system meets all of the minimum requirements.

You can find compatibility information (computers, hard drives, operating systems, requirements, etc.) in the Support section of the Digidesign website under Compatibility: http://www.digidesign.com/compato/


-Verify that you have the Min/Suggested amount of Ram loaded in your system (384 Min, 512 Suggested).

-Make sure you are using a supported version of the OS .

-Make sure all drives are formatted Mac OS Extended (HFS+) with OS X’s Disk Utility. Pro Tools can not use UFS or HFS volumes. If the drive was originally formatted in OS 9 or with any other application, backup the drive and reinitialize it with Disk Utility.

-If you are running a supported ATTO card make sure you install the ATTO Configuration Tool, this is a different application from Express. It can be found on the Pro Tools 6.x CD installer. This application installs necessary extensions for all supported ATTO cards.

-Confirm your System Preferences are set correctly:

In System Preferences > Classic > Start/Stop tab, Uncheck Start Classic when you log in.

In System Preferences > Energy Saver
Uncheck anything that allows the computer to go to sleep/shutdown/ power save etc.

In System Preferences > Date & Time
Verify that the date is correctly and that you are not using 24 hour time.

-Disable any Virus Protection Software and empty the Trash


Troubleshooting tips:

-Trash Pro Tools preferences Go to Users > “your user name” > Library > Preferences and trash DAE Prefs, DigiSetup.OSX and Pro Tools LE 6.0 prefs. Then restart the CPU.

-Quit Pro Tools and launch Apple's "Disk Utility" application. Select your boot volume, go to First Aid and select "Repair Disk Permisions." Apple recommends doing this any time an OS update or reinstall is done with OS X.

-Try creating a new user with admin priviledges and install Pro Tools to the new user account:

Uninstall Pro Tools by running the Pro Tools installer on your installation CD and Choose Custom > Uninstall.

Then go to System Preferences and create a new user (make sure to check the box to make the new user an Administrator).

From the Apple menu, log out and log back in under the new admin user you just created.

Reinstall Pro Tools to the new User Account and launch Pro Tools.

-Check to see if you have another copy or another installation of OSX on your computer (in one case trashing another copy of OS X cleared up the 'Unexpectedly Quit' error messages).

-In System Preferences > Login Items make sure that no offending software is being loaded (in one case Palm software was causing a problem).

-For all Mounted Hard drives trash Volume.ddb files: Located In MacHD (and other mounted HD's) > Digidesign Databases > trash volume.ddb

-Trash Databases Folder (If present):
Located in MacHD > Library > Application Support > Digidesign > trash databases folder

Note: To enable other users to help you, please include all of your system details when posting an issue to the DUC; Pro Tools hardware, Pro Tools software version, CPU, OS version, amount of RAM install, type of hard drives used, etc.


Source: Digidesign Technical Support, June 2003

Possible fix for DAE error -6031
I've noticed a number of people having trouble with -6031 errors recently. After a fair amount of testing (yes I work for a Digi reseller) I think there may be a fix for it.

The problem seems to be in the way OS X caches each drive in the system ???

For anyone who has experienced error -6031 or the system going into sleep mode try this (even if it doesn't fix the problem it can't do any harm to the system)

- Open System Preferences > Energy Saver
- Set the "Put the computer to sleep when it is inactive for:" slider to Never (default is 15 mins)
- De-select "Put the hard disk to sleep when possible" (default is selected)
- Quit System Pref's & Shut Down the computer
- Switch off all connected hard drives (this is important), wait 'till they've completely spun down, then restart them
- Boot the Mac and Zap the PRAM, holding down Apple+Option+P+R until it chimes 4 times (this is also important), then release the keys and let it boot up
- Pro Tools should now run happily with no -6031 errors and without any residual cache problems associated with sleep mode

So far this fix has worked reliably.

Got a Canopus ADVC100 to spot to picture, but I'm a little confused with the offset.
When I play the video and drop an effect it "looks" dead on, when i spot through the frames the effect is way ahead than the image I have on screen.

I'm working with NTSC format and I can't seem to figure out the offset, and when to have it on and when not.

- 22 quarter frames. Always on. This should allow to spot effects accurately AND play back accurately.

What Quicktime movie settings would put the least load on the CPU when imported into Protools, on both PT TDM and PT LE systems...video and audio compression settings, movie size, etc.?

Do the video compression settings, or any other settings, make any difference once the Quicktime movie is imported into Protools?

- If you are talking about playing back in software and displaying on your monitor then the settings of your movie export in FCP will be important so as not to put too much stress on your CPU which is busy doing other things.

The best codecs to use would be MotionJPEG or Cinepak at datarates as low as possible. Also size as small as possible would be great, but of course you do need to be able to see it to work to it.

I would try M-JPEG at around 200mb/sec datarate and a size of 320 x 240 at 30fps. All three factors will have an effect on quality and usability. If that doesn't work too well try lowering the datarate to see if you can get acceptable results. Also, i'm not sure what the output options of FCP are so you may not have control over datarates in MotionJPEG export.

Stay away from Sorenson compression as it requires a lot of computer to decode and is really designed for web data rates.

Much better to get a Pinnacle Miro card or Aurora Fuse or some other hardware based MotionJPEG decoder. This does all the decompression in hardware instead of using your computing resources so heavily, and then displays the picture on tv saving space on your computer monitor.