Video Flyer with SCSI2SD?

[slaapliedje]

Curious, has anyone tried setting up a Video Toaster+Flyer combination with SCSI2SD cards?
Main reasoning I see in doing it would be heat. Not sure if the speed would increase at all. Also not sure how durable they'd be vs real SCSI drives.
Thoughts on this? I already have two that I had bought for other projects but hadn't started yet (one was so I could try out System V on the TT030, but haven't found time for that).

[r.cade]

It should work. Should be able to use HQ5 with no problem...

[grelbfarlk]

The Flyer is a little picky about what drives it works with. I tried this with an IDE to SCSI (UW) on a CF adapter that can get 19MB/s with the CSPPC. With the Flyer it complained that the drive was too slow. Attempts to make the drive appear to be a SCSI-2 Fast Drive in Synchronous mode did not work out. The Flyer needs something like 5MB/s SCSI-2 Fast Drives in Sync mode. So try it out and report back, hopefully you're using SCSI2SD V6?

[slaapliedje]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

The Flyer is a little picky about what drives it works with. I tried this with an IDE to SCSI (UW) on a CF adapter that can get 19MB/s with the CSPPC. With the Flyer it complained that the drive was too slow. Attempts to make the drive appear to be a SCSI-2 Fast Drive in Synchronous mode did not work out. The Flyer needs something like 5MB/s SCSI-2 Fast Drives in Sync mode. So try it out and report back, hopefully you're using SCSI2SD V6?

The two I have are version 5.0b. If I recall correctly it was said those were the most compatible, and there was an issue with v6 on the Ataris.

[Mediasig]

I just thought I'd chime in and say I have a VTFlyer in an A4000 using SCSI2SD adaptors (v6). There's been a lot of trial and error for the past year in getting it to perform consistently, and interestingly enough, it seemed to come down to the speed of the SD card I'm using. Word of advice - don't go cheap on the SD cards.

Been fun playing around with it! I could go in-depth a little more if you like.

Cheers,
Greg

[Pyromania]

@Mediasig

Please go into more depth.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Mediasig

I just thought I'd chime in and say I have a VTFlyer in an A4000 using SCSI2SD adaptors (v6). There's been a lot of trial and error for the past year in getting it to perform consistently, and interestingly enough, it seemed to come down to the speed of the SD card I'm using. Word of advice - don't go cheap on the SD cards.

Been fun playing around with it! I could go in-depth a little more if you like.

Cheers,
Greg

I would like to know more. Or was it just putting fast SD cards on it, and no special configuration was required? It seemed that the Flyer was very picky about whether it decided a drive could do synchronous or not, which my SCSI->IDE was apparently not capable of responding correctly (though it does do sync with a CF card).
Tell me your secrets please.

[Mediasig]

Hey Everyone! This post has been a long time coming!

I finally got something that works by trial and error. I'm no expert at Amiga workings - was always a user and not much of a tinkering kind when I first had one. Now I tinker during the long wet winters here in Vancouver, BC.

I picked up an A4000 with a VT4000 and Flyer Card - had always wanted one and got a good deal on it. I started with this SCSI2SSD card, but found it was too slow for the video media drives. It IS fast enough to use as the Audio Drive (C or I think SCSI 2 on the board).




I then purchased 2 x SCSI2SSD V6 and installed them as the A and B drive chains on SCSI 0 an 1 of the Flyer board.




I had okay success with these as I could get them to consistently work in the Extended record mode, but rarely got Standard to work, not to mention HQ5. I was puzzled and tried different settings for the SCSI2SD board bios and even tried to format them differently using the Flyer Drive utility. Nothing seemed to work. I was thinking I needed to go the SCSI to IDE to CF car route.

Then, I realized something. I had bought really cheap SD cards thinking "this should be plenty fast". I saw some 16gig SanDisk Extreme PLUS SD cards on sale and decided to grab a pair to give a try.




That seemed to fix it! I could now record HQ5 and consistently. In fact (I'll have to go back and check), but I was able to get the SCSI2SD bios back to defaults and all worked fine. So it seems like the ability of the SD card was holding me back. I'm super happy with it and glad to have a working flyer with no external drive stacks and cables!!

I've included a few shots of how I've placed everything inside my machine. I literally wrapped the cards in the excess scsi ribbon cable to shield them from shorting out on anything else. I'll probably do a little more to tidy up at some point, but this thing doesn't move around and I try to keep the lid on it as much as possible!






Well, I hope this gives some insight into my ups and downs with Flyer drives! Once you get through that mess, then the creative fun begins.
I guess my question would be, do any of you have a Flyer board capable of HQ6? I completely forgot NewTek developed it, but learned only later revisions of the boards could handle HQ6. Unfortunately, while playing with a script that attempted to capture at HQ6, it proved mine cannot capture that high. No worries, as HQ5 has been looking pretty stellar for Standard Def video.

Cheers!
Greg

[slaapliedje]

Originally Posted by Mediasig

Hey Everyone! This post has been a long time coming!

I finally got something that works by trial and error. I'm no expert at Amiga workings - was always a user and not much of a tinkering kind when I first had one. Now I tinker during the long wet winters here in Vancouver, BC.

I picked up an A4000 with a VT4000 and Flyer Card - had always wanted one and got a good deal on it. I started with this SCSI2SSD card, but found it was too slow for the video media drives. It IS fast enough to use as the Audio Drive (C or I think SCSI 2 on the board).



I then purchased 2 x SCSI2SSD V6 and installed them as the A and B drive chains on SCSI 0 an 1 of the Flyer board.




I had okay success with these as I could get them to consistently work in the Extended record mode, but rarely got Standard to work, not to mention HQ5. I was puzzled and tried different settings for the SCSI2SD board bios and even tried to format them differently using the Flyer Drive utility. Nothing seemed to work. I was thinking I needed to go the SCSI to IDE to CF car route.

Then, I realized something. I had bought really cheap SD cards thinking "this should be plenty fast". I saw some 16gig SanDisk Extreme PLUS SD cards on sale and decided to grab a pair to give a try.




That seemed to fix it! I could now record HQ5 and consistently. In fact (I'll have to go back and check), but I was able to get the SCSI2SD bios back to defaults and all worked fine. So it seems like the ability of the SD card was holding me back. I'm super happy with it and glad to have a working flyer with no external drive stacks and cables!!

I've included a few shots of how I've placed everything inside my machine. I literally wrapped the cards in the excess scsi ribbon cable to shield them from shorting out on anything else. I'll probably do a little more to tidy up at some point, but this thing doesn't move around and I try to keep the lid on it as much as possible!






Well, I hope this gives some insight into my ups and downs with Flyer drives! Once you get through that mess, then the creative fun begins.
I guess my question would be, do any of you have a Flyer board capable of HQ6? I completely forgot NewTek developed it, but learned only later revisions of the boards could handle HQ6. Unfortunately, while playing with a script that attempted to capture at HQ6, it proved mine cannot capture that high. No worries, as HQ5 has been looking pretty stellar for Standard Def video.

Cheers!
Greg

Sweet! I was just working out how I will set some time aside to get the flyer and toaster back into my set up and get it all hooked up again (I swapped everything around to play with the Titanic PAR drive...)

How would one tell if they have the newer revision flyer, capable of HQ6?

[Mediasig]

I really don't have a clue on how to identify them externally. I would think if the board is capable, then you might see it as an option on the record panel.

[SantiDarkG]

Hi Greg,

I am finishing my Toaster/Flyer rig too and I have the same config.

In FlyerHDTools 4.1 doing tests, the best Average Spd I have is

Read : 5.44 Mb
Write: 3.16 MB

I am using the same SD Card than you.

Can you tell me your benchmarks ? Because, when I try to capture video from a camera, Flyer will complain that I have not enough speed. For HQ5 I need 4.80 Mb so, still I am 1 Mb behind.

Thanks a lot.

Santi

Originally Posted by Mediasig

Hey Everyone! This post has been a long time coming!
.............................

I had okay success with these as I could get them to consistently work in the Extended record mode, but rarely got Standard to work, not to mention HQ5. I was puzzled and tried different settings for the SCSI2SD board bios and even tried to format them differently using the Flyer Drive utility. Nothing seemed to work. I was thinking I needed to go the SCSI to IDE to CF car route.

Then, I realized something. I had bought really cheap SD cards thinking "this should be plenty fast". I saw some 16gig SanDisk Extreme PLUS SD cards on sale and decided to grab a pair to give a try.

Cheers!
Greg

[Mediasig]

Hi Santi,
I don't have my machine up and running right now, but I'll try to get you some stats when I can.
Possibly some other things to note - I'm running 3.1.4 OS and I also have an 060 in my machine. Perhaps those are both making a difference.

I haven't been terribly precise with this system. I usually never run Flyer Tools or have that patience for it. I just capture and see what results I get. If I can't do HQ5, then I go down in quality.

I might get it up and going again this week and see what my results are. I've got a few people asking.

Cheers,
Greg

[SantiDarkG]

Thanks Greg,

Right now my Amiga 2500 is running a Vampire card.
I did install wide scsi hard drives using an adapter and still keeping one SCSI2SD for the sound part.

I am running 3.1 OS...... just waiting for AmigaOS 3.2 CD

Remember with FlyerTools you can reduce the time to just 3 mins or less to check the speed of your sd cards.

Awesome if you are going to play with it this week Let me know what you get.

Regards

Santi

[Pyromania]

Nice and informative thread.

[videofx]

I think I am going to give it a try in my 4000T with Cyberstrom 060 and see how it goes

[slaapliedje]

Was reading last night that the Video flyer has 3 full SCSI-II buses on it... so could potentially have 21 SCSI2SD drives connected. Anyone done this? How cool would it be to have a 3D printed tower sitting next to your Amiga?

[slaapliedje]

Woo hoo, finally got around to setting this up. ZuluSCSI is getting close to 6MB/s transfer rates. I'm not sure if trying to make it emulate the 10GB drives that the software lists for having some caching settings would bump this up or not, but it seems high enough to do HQ5, right?

[r.cade]

Yes, as far as I remember the "5" in HQ5 meant 5M/s.