AVoption Requirements

AVoption for Macintosh System Requirements

Please Note: AVoption has unique compatibility requirements. If the information on this page appears to contradict information listed elsewhere in these Compatibility Documents, please adhere to the information listed on this page when configuring a system which includes AVoption.

Important Information: For updated slot order information with the latest qualified configurations, refer to the AVoption & AVoption|XL Guide in the Technical Document Library of the Support/Tech Support section of the website. For further compatibility information when used with Expanded Systems, see the Supported Optional Expansion Chassis web pages for your system in the Compatibility Documents.

Digidesign PCI Cards Supplied with System

  • ABVB Card
  • Janus Card

Required Hardware Components (not supplied)

Optional Software

  • FilmFrame™ — FilmFrame is a software option for AVoption that enables support for import and playback of 24 frame Film Composer media. FilmFrame requires AVoption to be installed.
    more information on FilmFrame™

Supported CPUs — Pro Tools|HD Systems

Supported CPUs — Pro Tools|24 & MIX Systems

*AVoption has been tested with Apple Macintosh 9500 CPU with processor speeds as low as 150 MHz. The overall performance of your Pro Tools system will be greatly improved with higher-speed CPU's. For optimal responsiveness, we strongly recommend you use a CPU with at least 300 MHz clock speed with AVoption. With the 9500 and 9600 CPU, it is required that the ABVB and Janus boards be mounted inside the CPU, not in an expansion chassis.

RAM Requirements — Pro Tools|24 and MIX Systems:

  • Total System RAM Minimum 256 MB
  • Pro Tools Preferred Allocation 100 MB
  • DAE Preferred Allocation 60 MB

RAM Requirements — Pro Tools|HD Systems:

  • Total System RAM Minimum 256 MB
  • Pro Tools application "Preferred Size" memory allocation set to 134 MB
  • DAE is no longer an independent application, and therefore requires no additional RAM

Expansion Chassis

  • Important Compatibility Documents: For updated slot order information with the latest qualified configurations, refer to the AVoption & AVoption|XL Guide in the Technical Document Library of the Support/Tech Support section of the website. For further compatibility information when used with Expanded Systems, see the Supported Optional Expansion Chassis web pages for your system in the Compatibility Documents.
  • Important Cooling Issue: If you install the AVoption PCI boards (ABVB and Janus) in either the Digidesign 13-slot or Magma chassis that is older than rev G models, you must install the additional cooling fan (Digidesign part number MC201) in the chassis. The newer rev G Digidesign & Magma 13 slot chassis (identified by serial numbers that end in "00G") no longer require a fan kit with AVoption.
  • WARNING: If you install the AVoption boards (ABVB and Janus) in an SBS (Bit3) chassis, you run the serious risk of damaging them. SBS (Bit3) chassis may be used with AVoption only in a configuration with 9500 or 9600 computers, and when AVoption's two PCI boards (ABVB and Janus) are installed in the CPU. Refer to the AVoption user guide for precise installation instructions.

Drive Compatibility

  • Audio Drives: AVoption can be configured with any audio drives qualified for use with Pro Tools in general. Refer to the Pro Tools TDM Hard Drive Minimum Requirements page for details.
  • Video Drives: Avid rS drives, iS Pro drives, iS Plus drives or DigiDrives. At this time, the Avid MediaDock is not officially qualified for use with AVoption.
  • About Firewire Drives: The DigiDrive FireWire 80 (as well as other firewire drives) are not qualified for use with AVoption or AVoption|XL. AVoption and AVoption|XL require SCSI storage for recording and playback. However, you can use the DigiDrive FireWire 80 to back-up your video storage SCSI drives.

Third Party Video Capture Cards- Known Issues: The Pinnacle miroMotion DC30 Plus QuickTime capture card (with firmware v1.2.1) is not officially qualified for use with AVoption, but it does appear to coexist with the ABVB/Janus cards in Digidesign's limited investigations. Your results may vary from these findings. Software for the miroMotion DC30 Plus can be found in the Digidesign Support/Downloads/Utilities section of the website.

Maximum Performance Guidelines

  • Compatible Dual-Channel SCSI HBA card (see above)
  • Total System RAM: Minimum 256 MB

Note: AVoption supports "plug and play" compatibility with many Avid systems. When "inheriting" a drive containing audio and video data from an Avid system, we recommend you connect this drive to the SCSI channel dedicated to video storage. There is no need to copy the audio data from such a drive to your dedicated audio drives, however we recommend that you not record any additional audio tracks onto this drive.

Virtually all the testing for AVoption was done with a baseline of 32 tracks of 24- bit/48k audio and one stream of AVR77 video data (record and/or playback). These test configurations generally included one drive for every 16 tracks of audio. One way to achieve higher track counts is to dedicate more drives to the audio tracks.

On a supported configuration, you should be able to easily achieve this performance baseline, even with a high degree of edit density on each track. The higher the edit density, the more heavily taxed will be the storage subsystem.

You may find much better results than this baseline, since Digidesign's performance tests are designed to stress the storage subsystem more heavily than the average "real world" usage. In several cases, our test group was able to continuously record or playback 64 audio tracks and AVR77 picture simultaneously.

There are other possible steps that can be taken to maximize the performance of a Pro Tools system with AVoption. For more information, refer to the AVoption & AVoption|XL Guide in the Technical Document Library of the Support/Tech Support section of the website.