Sonnet Echo Express thunderbolt PCIe and the LFG4 card
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Hello,
Doing a project at the RWC in Cardiff and we decided to use Isadora through a mac mini and Echo Express via thunderbolt using an LFG4 card for camera feeds.I've used an LFG4 card with great success before and thought it would be good to use it via the Echo Express instead of having to purchase a new MacPro.However Izzy doesn't seem to find the card when scanning for devices under Life Capture setting.Previously, when using a MacPro, the card would appear with the different available inputs--but none are showing in the mac mini?In the system report the LFG4 card does shows in the PCI section, as does the Echo Express within the thunderbolt heading and all the Active Silicon drivers are installed.Any advise as to why Isadora isn't seeing the card? -
on Mac you need drivers that are written specifically to recognise a device through thunderbolt, even if it is a card in a pci adapter. If you boot to windows it works transparently and the original drivers should see it properly.
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Thanks Nick,
Would you know which driver --the latest mac thunderbolt update 1.2.1 isn't compatible above 10.7.4 and the latest thunderbolt firmware is not needed.The Sonnet website does not offer any drivers, and the latest Active Silicon drivers are installed. -
my understanding is that the mac drivers for the device need to be "thunderbolt aware" - so the drivers that active silicon produce would need to be updated by the company to make that possible.
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this is what magma say about their thunderbolt and pci adapter
Answer 1:
For Mac OS, a driver modification is required from the PCIe card vendor to allow cards to work through Thunderbolt in ExpressBox 3T. You should check with the maker of your PCIe card to get a Thunderbolt Compatible Driver. A PCIe card would require a compatible Thunderbolt driver when using Magma ExpressBox 3T and Apple MacBook Pro running Mac Operating System (i.e 10.7.x)
Answer2:
For Windows, most drivers have worked out-of-the- box and a modification is not required. Your PCIe cards should work fine with Magma Thunderbolt ExpressBox3 and MacBook Pro running Windows 7 and any equipped thunderbolt laptop computers granted that it is using a compatible Windows7 driver
Always check with he vendor or maker of PCIe cards about their drivers.
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much appreciated Nick and very useful information.
However, unfortunately the current drivers for the LFG4 card **are** installed and the card **is** speaking to thunderbolt. It seems for some reason, unknown to me, Isadora, isn't locating the card in this set-up.Douglas -
does it work with any other video software ?
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I'm currently having a support discussion with Active Silicon on 64bit drivers and de-interlacing issues. I suggest you email Martin Golding @ martin.golding (att) activesilicon.com He's very helpfull.
daniel
