HD For Indies

UPDATE 8/1/04 - SUNDAY 1PM CST - So I've got the G5 all together again and working, and I'm driving both a 15" Apple Studio Display (older 1024x768 model) and the 23HD both off of an NVidia GeForce 5200 card. Graphics aren't as fast, but it all works, and that's what's important right now. I'll get my OEM 9800 card back tomorrow (hopefully) and take it from there. One minor note - the described behavior of the monitor driving the onscreen brighter/darker stuff isn't working. I'm supposed to be able to go into the Display Prefs and see an Options button that lets the hardware brighter/darker buttons drive the system level brighter & darker controls (the ones normally driven from the keyboard). I don't get that option at all - neither on my 12" PowerBook, nor on the G5 with Nvidia 5200 card.

--End Update--

Hi all -

So it's Saturday, and I'm having a great weekend so far - fantastic dinner with girlfriend last night, got up and went to hang out on set with Paul Alvarado, Jen White, and Dianne Murray during a shoot this morning. Got so inspired I decided to spend my Saturday reconfiguring my studio to be ready to do some HD stuff next week. Then I discovered that the new Apple 23" LCD won't work (or even boot under some circumstances) when driven off of a Retail Radeon 9800 Pro card.

I had previously tested my new 23" Apple LCD display while driving it off of my itsy bitsy 12" PowerBook. All worked fine.

I hooked it up to my Rev A Dual 2.0 GHz G5 test platform and had trouble. At first I thought it might have something to do with the PowerTron 24 I also had plugged into the same video card (Radeon 9800). The PowerTron is a rebranded Sony W900, a 24" 16:10 aspect screen that I run at the same resolution as the 23HD Apple (1920x1200). I've had it for years, I love it, it works great.

So I did a cold boot (rather than just a restart) and that didn't help. I reduced the resolution on the PowerTron, thinking two monitors driving the same resolution was either confusing it or using too much video RAM. Still no go - as before, the power light was on in the lower right corner of the Cinema Display, but no image whatsoever on the screen.

I disconnected the PowerTron, turned EVERYTHING off, let it sit there for a minute or two (to think about what it had done), and tried with just the LCD panel plugged in.

Now the machine turned on, but the fans slowly ramped up higher and higher - a sign I've seen before that something's wrong.

So I leaned over to look at the connections on the back. I had all the Cinema Displays stuff hooked up - power, DVI, USB, FireWire, I have a Seritek 1S2 card installed, I have a DeckLink HD card installed, and suddenly I noticed the S-video port between the DVI and VGA ports on the graphics card.

A-HA!

I had swapped out a Retail Radeon for my OEM card when I was working up at High End Systems earlier this year. So now I need to swap it out, otherwise I can't use my lovely display on my G5...

Borrowing a friend's NVidia card, I prepared to switch out video cards. In doing so, I dropped a screw down between PCI slots. In retrieving it with tweezers, it fell again, this time under the motherboard, between the motherboard and the (conductive) aluminum case. But that's another posting...