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Home: Video University Forums: Tech Q & A:
Another Glitch Question...

Ezra
User

Oct 21, 2007, 12:09 AM

Post #1 of 4 (1593 views)
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Another Glitch Question...	Can't Post

Okay. I think I have a problem.

I digitize 2 hr. 20 minutes of footage onto an external HD. Then I place the clip in the Time line (STORMEDIT). Then for some reason, when trying to play back the timeline - I get the message pictured below.

I tried 2 different hard Drives.
I moved the Daisy Chained Hard drive furtherup the chain (to #2 instead of #4).
I rebooted a few times.
It happened once at 1hr 40 minutes, another time at 55 minutes into the program. Any Ideas why this is happening?

It may have something to do with the fact that I had to reset my CMOS and BIOS settings when my internal battery failed. I don't get any error messages on start up and it seems that editing on the system is OK.

I am running a Dual PIII w/ 1Ghz ram Win 2000 using maxtor external firewire drives. The system is about 6 years old (DVLINE) - so tech support is out of the question.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Ezra

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Oct 21, 2007, 10:49 PM

Post #2 of 4 (1572 views)
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Re: [Ezra] Another Glitch Question... [In reply to]	Can't Post

That sounds alot like your connection from your computer to external drive is getting broken. If you are daisy chaining the drive that probably means you are using Firewire drives and the FW connections are inherently flaky. I have had lots of trouble with FW drives and next to no problems running with USB 2.0 drives for SD footage.

Try just having the one drive plugged in with no other ones and see if that helps out. You could have the board that controls the FW interface in one of the drives going bad or there could also be a bad cable in the mix. It could be the FW port in your computer or the FW card in the computer if you have one of those installed. There are lots of possiblities.

Start trying to solve the problem by using the process of elimination till you find which piece of the puzzle is the culprit. I would start with removing the daisy chain and just having one plugged into the FW port. You have to eliminate all possibilities one at a time and you will eventually find the problem.

Make sure to save your project often cause things can get ugly and you can lose work when connections start getting lost.

Hope that helps.

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

Ezra
User

Oct 21, 2007, 10:56 PM

Post #3 of 4 (1570 views)
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Re: [fr0gm@n] Another Glitch Question... [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks. It might be a bad cable. It would make sense since when I switched drives, and place in the chain, I was using the same FW cable. Also, when I used another existing drive in the chain, It worked fine. I will take your advice and start the process of elimination. Thanks.

I wonder, do you think a Firewire hub is more reliable than chaining the drives together. If not more reliable, I would think using a hub makes diagnosing problems (cables, drives) easier.

Ezra

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Oct 21, 2007, 11:12 PM

Post #4 of 4 (1568 views)
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Re: [Ezra] Another Glitch Question... [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hard to say on a FW hub as I am not a fan of them.

Thinking about it though I would imagine that a FW hub would be a bigger bottle neck since you will have multiple FW drives fighting for bandwidth off a single bus. 4 drives could be fighting for bandwidth through that single port....that could be ugly. Just a theory though.

The obvious solution would be to save a few pennies here and there and upgrade to a newer computer and use USB2.0 drives. Some people say the bandwidth in USB drives isn't enough for DV editing but I do it all the time and it works great. A basic computer with a low end dual core can be had really cheap now and would blow away the one you are currently using for editing. Your storm card may not work in a new one but with the current speed of computers you don't need a storm card for DV editing anymore. I have a storm card and haven't used it since going dual core over a year ago. I can't remember the last time I fired it up. I don't use the preview out to external screen so I haven't needed it.

Daisychaining FW drives has trouble written all over it in my opinion. I used FW drives for a little while but lost all my data on one when the interface went bad. I switched to USB2.0 and have had no problems in 4-5 years.

Good luck and let me know if I can help anymore. I used to work at a help desk years ago so I got pretty good at walking through the elimination process. Computer technology has changed on my over the years but the troubleshooting process remains the same. I try to keep up as best I can on the computer stuff but please don't think I know it all cause I know enough to be dangerous and not much more. Wink

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog