Firewire Output Problems

[Jon Zanone]

I’d say first problem may be your CPU. I’d also try hooking your Mojo back up. It’s not just a way of getting video into your system. It’s like a turbo charger on a car. It really ups the performance.

Jon

[Megloth]

True the CPU’s could turn out to be the culpret. But why is the problem intermittent? It would seem that if the CPU’s were the problem…they would fail consistantly. And why did they work consistantly on this computer before, but not now? Does the upgraded XP Pro HD software tax my sweet compy that much more than the old XP Pro?

As far as the MOJO goes…. that’s a whole ‘nuther kettle of fish:

A friend offered me a “free” BetaSP machine to keep indefinitely. Shorly after that I bought the MOJO (brand new) to hook the SP machine into my system. A month or so later the friend called and said he was moving out of state. So bye-bye SP deck. But for the time I had it, I couldn’t make it work right. (The Xpress Pro HD upgrade came with the MOJO.) The MOJO caused problems capturing footage from both the SP deck and my DSR-45. It introduced noise into the capture (It looked like pulsing dirty head dropouts.) Remove the MOJO and the capture artifacts went away. Before I could trouble shoot the problem fully, the Beta SP deck was removed from the system…never to return. I wanted to install a black burst generator to see if that would sovle the problem, but the thought of spending MORE money irked me. And since my DSR-45 was working fine for capture, I saw no need to keep the MOJO in the mix.

I’m taking my MOJO with me to NAB to see if AVID will troubleshoot it…to verify that it works correctly. If it does that would point another dirty finger at my CPU’s.

But I’m still looking for someone to say that there’s something running in the background without my knowledge….checking for upgrades to some unrelated software (like my Quick Books or Gaming software)…or performing some stupid maintenance task…. Any Windows experts?

I may have more than one problem in play here…

All comments are appreciated.

[Megloth]

Thanks for the reply Jon…I noticed you quoted Del Amitri in your profile!! I’m a member of the fan club. Go figure. Have you heard the Uncle Devil Show Tunes?

[Jon Zanone]

I got into Del Amitri when I lived in England. ‘Change Everything’ is the greatest divorce album in the world.

I haven’t heard anything new from them for a while.

Jon

“The Almighty tells me He can get me out of this mess. But He’s pretty sure you’re F%$#*D!”

[Jon Zanone]

I don’t know the CPU would fail consistently. It could be a combination of a lot of things. There could be one part of your system that doesn’t have the throughput Avid needs. If you have multiple video layers, try doing a mixdown.

Have you tried capturing via firewire with the Mojo? It really does speed up the performance of your whole system. And your taking in DV natively. I’ve got two systems with Mojo, and they’ve been pretty flawless. BTW, Mojo does need black burst for analog video. It may even need it for FW.

Here are a couple of links to ‘qualified’ Avid systems:

https://www.avid.com/products/xpresspro/qualified_pc_workstations.pdf
https://www.avid.com/products/xpresspro/specs.asp#pc

Compare your system with what Avid wants. See if you can find a part that could be causing problems.

Jon

“The Almighty tells me He can get me out of this mess. But He’s pretty sure you’re F%$#*D!”

[Bill Stephan]

Two possible sources of Capture and/or Digital Cut problems are anti-virus software and internet firewalls. I’ve seen it intermittently halt both processes on Avid systems that use them. I recommend that Avids not be connected to the internet unless required for installing an Avid update.

I agree with Jon Zanone that you should give the Mojo another try, as it provides the CPU power to make many effects into real-time effects. But remember that Mojo must connect to a PCI bus segment that is not shared with any other storage controller being used for local or shared storage. Certified PCs (workstations) have 3 PCI bus segments, and you connect the Mojo and storage to different PCI bus segments, which might require installing a second board with Firewire ports. Normal home/office PCs have only 1 PCI bus segment.

I don’t like to beat people up about non-certified systems, but the fact remains that all NLE editing software is highly complex. It expects certain hardware resources to exist in the computer at a certain level of performance. Otherwise, as they say, “Your mileage may vary.” You might luck-out and have everything work fine, and you might end up with nothing.

I run XpressProHD on a certified system, and I don’t remember having even the slightest hiccup. So the software can work as advertised.

Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City

[Megloth]

Yeah…”Change Everything” is a Good one. “Waking Hours” is in my opinion their best. But “Can You do Me Good” which was their last big release was excellent. “Lousy With Love – The B-Sides” is way underrated.

Justin Currie, the Del’s lead singer teamed up with a couple of former Del’s to form a tongue-in-cheek band called “The Uncle Devil Show”. The resulting album called “A Terrible Beauty” is pretty funny. The best songs are the ones Justin sings on. The others…meh…they’re ok.

There is an new Del’s CD in the works according to their website. And Justin has a solo album also coming up. But the early tunes I heard from both of them are disappointing.

You’re right about the divorce music. There’s nothing better than some good, bitter, self-loathing, binge-drinking, hyphenated-word laden, Del’s tunes to get you through it.

Cheers,

Mike

[Megloth]

Thanks Jon, I’ll look into those links. I have tried capturing via firewire through the MOJO and as I recall, I still got the noise. I’ll give it another go. I’ll post my findings. It will probably be later this week.

Meanwhile take a trip to the record shop (or Amazon) and pick up Del’s “Can You Do Me Good” .. and The Uncle Devil Show’s “Terrible Beauty”. Have a pint and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Mike aka Megloth

[Megloth]

Thanks Bill. I know I’ve got it coming to me trying to run on a non-certified system. And on top of that using my system for other applications such as internet, gaming, book keeping….are good ways to introduce problems into the system. Hopefully I can get a system to dedicate to the AVID.

When I built this computer I paid attention to the system requirements for Xpress Pro with regards to the Graphics card, but not the processors. I guess I just thought that any two processor system would by nature be enough to handle AVID. This computer will ultimately become my personal PC and I’ll have to get another system for the AVID.

In the mean time, regarding the busses: I have my external hard drive connedted to a 1394 connector on the front of the computer…and the DVD recorder to one of the three 1394 connectors on the FireWire port that came with my AVID software. I realize this doesn’t mean that they are on seperate busses. I’ll get my mother board schematic and look to see if the mobo has more than one bus. Thanks for that tip.

I do run Norton Antivirus. I have a hardware firewall, and I undestand NAV has a firewall built into it. And I’m thinking Windows XP Pro also has some kind of firewall running in it. The trick is how to turn them all off. But you’re onto something here… NAV and firewalls would cause the kind of background operations that would tax the processors.

I could pull the internet plug, and uninstall NAV to see if that rectify’s the problem. I do have windows auto updates turned off.

As trouble shooting goes I’d like to try to solve one problem at a time. If I can elimitate the output problem. I’d fee better about reconnecting the MOJO and solving whatever problems it has. I haven’t considered that NOT having the mojo connected could be CAUSING the problem, since it all worked fine before the MOJO/XP PRO Upgrade.

Thank you for your input.

[Michael Hancock]

If you have Norton running, the first thing I’d try is to completely uninstall it. Disconnect your computer from the internet, completely unintall Norton, then try to output again. You may still have problems, but Norton is notorious on Avid systems for causing problems. That’s where I’d start.

Michael.