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
