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HELP using firewire 800 drive on my Avid Media Composer
I have two Avid Meridian-based systems on Windows 2000. System 1 is a Media Composer version 11.0.8. System 2 is a Express (remember it’s Meridian) v 5.2.6. I’ve figured that firewire technology has come along enough, that I could use a new G-Raid firewire 800 drive instead of my old, clunky SCSI drives. I get much better drive space and much smaller amounts of noise and footprint.
On paper, the deal seems simple. I’ve been told my data transfer rates on the G-Raid using FW800 are better than that of my old Ultra-SCSI. So, I purchase everything I need… 1) A LaCie FireWire 800 PCI card and 2) a G-Raid 500 GB external FW800 drive.
So I hook it up, format the drive to NTFS, Avid recognizes it fine, even digitizes at 1:1 without any errors. However, when I try to playback I get the following errors on my video:
VDM Fatal Error: 17 VDM Timed Out
SFCONS_Video_Timeout
HW Fatal Error: 59Dragon_PB_Late_EOF_ErrorI’ve hooked the equipment to both systems and have got the exact same results. I’ve tried every resolution – even 20:1 – with the same results. I’ve copied OMF files from my SCSI drives and tried to play them back. I got the same errors using this method.
Any suggestions? It wouldn’t work at 20:1, and I would think even a old ATA33 drive would keep up with that! So I don’t think it’s a problem with getting data off of the drive.
Any ideas?
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5 Replies
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I personally don’t think that it has anything to do with the drives. I’ve used my G-Raid for 1:1 and DV50 for about one and a half years now with no problems whatsoever. My G-Raid is also connected through firewire 800.
PANDVCPRO
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Which comptuer are you using? If you are on a hp XW8000 or compaq W8000, Avid has made a guide with recommendations on which PCI slot to use which not to use. That’s because some PCI slots share the bandwidth with some others and you don’t want this to happen, or at least not with the video card or the meridian board for example.
XW8000
https://www.avid.com/products/dna/adrenaline/pcConfigGuidelines.shtmlW8000
https://www.avid.com/content/5452/Setup_guide_Compaq_W8000.pdfor a more general docment:
https://www.avid.com/products/dna/PCIBusSegReq.shtml -
I feel your pain. The AVID Meridian card set is VERY SENSITIVE to absolutely everything, and almost anything causes a conflict with it. You do not see these problems with new AVID Xpres Pro or AVID Adrenaline systems that do not use the Meridian card set.
The posts that you have seen refer to the HP xw8000 and xw8200, which (in an AVID Adreanline and AVID Xpress Pro/Mojo) use SLOT 3 with an ADS Pyro 1394 card – but there are no other cards in the system (the Mojo and Adrenaline use the Firewire 400 port). You stick a ADS Pyro in Slot 3, plug in your Firewire, and away you go.
NOT WITH MERIDIAN CARD SET.
I also extensively use SATA drives on new AVID and FCP systems. I have found that these work wonderfully with Xpress Pro and Adrenaline, but ALMOST NEVER do they work with the Meridian card set. If you pull out the ATTO card and substitute a SATA host card, the Media Composer application will not even launch.
In newer configurations, I have found that the OLD IBM Intellistation works with a SATA host card (the Firmtek 4 port) and the Meridian cardset, but that exact same configuration DOES NOT WORK with the “later” Compaq w8000.
BOTTOM LINE – forget it. Time to sell off your Meridan (I know it works fine), and get a newer system, that will run just fine with your FW and SATA drives.
Bob Zelin
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Thanks for the links. I actually have both an old IBM (my Xpress box) and a Compaq (my Composer box). I got the same results on both.
Any other suggestions or possible fixes?
Thanks for your help!
-Ben -
I think you’re out of luck. Like Bob said, the Meridien systems are incredibly picky about what you put in them. There are specific configurations that work, and anything outside of that is likely to just not work.
I cut on an Xpress Meridien (Compaq Evo W8000 version 6.1) and we leave it exactly as it is because it works fine now and messing around with it gives us more problems than solutions. We also have an Xpress Pro v5.6 system and a Media Composer Adrenaline v2.6, both running on HP xw8200s. They’re a treat to play with because we can use the RAID storage or hook up some firewire drives and edit off those. I’ve even cut stuff (15:1s) off a USB drive and it did okay. The Meridien, on the other hand, locks up half the time if I try to even consolidate to a firewire drive. I’ve got my fingers crossed it will just melt down one day so I can get a new system, but until then…
Good luck, and if the budget allows get rid of your Meridien systems and get a new Xpress Pro or Media Composer. If the budget doesn’t allow just stick with the tried and true.
Mike.
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