[David Grantham]

Randy, you seem to have a lot of experience on these setups. I hope modreators wil excuse a non-buiness question here as I ahve your attetnion: ANy advice on how to manage project size and memory use to ensure prodcutivty on a problem system. I”m trying to mke progress as I look for a replacemnt.

If I delete all my unused clips from the bin (do you think then the project size should go way down and perhaps not stretch my system resources ?) (but it’s going to make it really hard to choose further clips wihtout ready access to the in and out point lists I was realying on the bin list to tell me. I’l have to open up an old project for that – but maybemost of that is finished for this project for now.)

I”ave also closed all but my most current sequences, which may be helping reduce the (every-five-minutes) crahses (though tnot by much). But as I’m starting to merge those seqeunce sint oa bigger one IM” creating more demands for one indivual sequence.

[David Grantham]

Hi Tim. Thanks.

Desperate for a solution as I begin merging smaller sequences into larger ones.

(It’s clear that I should have decided not to rely on this setup for the reasons you cite, but I received eoncourgement down the oppsoite path from Matrox through the years of troubleshooting and into last year.)

I’ve got 2 GB of ram, but my project takes half of that. I have been running with task manager open to check that.

You refer to a method to get the page file to decrease. Clicking out to another window. Does that mean activating the window of another programme running concurrently with PPro? If so, can you recommend a benigh windows accessory uitility to run for that purpose? If not, can you explain a bit more? This could provide immedaite relief for which I’m[ despearate.

As to PF use, everytime I chekc it’;s only at about 1.5 GB. But of course it may spike at chras h moment when Im’ occupied on the interface. Frequently after a crash there’ll be much disc activity, I assuem deleting the PF.

(Re mohterboard replacement, I got outbid on a replacement computer yseterday – couldn’t face tthe prospect of a possible reinstallation and configuration at the moment without some predictablitiy of success on it. An optimal system type to seek may have arisen on the business for um this morning, though.)

[David Grantham]

Thanks Randy. Helpful. I’m tending in that direction.

[David Grantham]

Resolution appears to mean seeking a used computer to have a project-compatible machine to finish this work on. Not a great situation. MOving on. But its’ beside the business point of where accountability lies; and I think it’s an important one.

MOtherboard problem has been suggested. If that’s the porblme it didn’t evince itself in any of the demanding aplications I’ve now removed in a vain effort to get the NLE to work. SO if it’s bad it’s a specific problem in delivering compatibility claimed only by the NLE folks, for which they won’t take much responsibility.

It seems reasonable that an advertised tested configuration implies some sort of promise to be honoured by the tester, especially when the results enable the sales of their product. Otherwise – whether I’m a user or a VAR serving one – it’s an extremely risky report to base a configuration on. If that risk is considered acceptable, the cost of it will be passed on to the user either directly as in my case or via the VAR.

In any event, where the problem lies isn’t clear. Mfr guess is the board or the accelerator card itself.

[David Grantham]

I apreciate your input. I haven’t been looking to know whether to get redress, but how to best seek it.

[David Grantham]

“I think the success has a lot more to do with the fact that the machines are perfectly and properly configured by a VAR that builds turnkey systems for a living. ”

If this is necessary, system providers need to let that be known.

[David Grantham]

No – Windows Media plyer won’t scrub properly. I wonder if having WinDVD – which scrubs nicely and I have to scan DVds of al my footage regularly – might cause a problme.

There’s nothing else on this that the mfr didn’t add. maybe there’s a known-to-be-benign DVD player I can use.

Gotta take that Q to the techforum somewhere.

[David Grantham]

Wow, effective tale. Thanks. Strangely comforting to imagine such a hassle for someone else… I’ll get something that works somehow.

I thank you for the encouragement not to delay a solution.

And I get your main point I think, but I don’t completely share your conclusions.

This wasn’t bad luck only for you, but for those providing the gear. But who took the huge hit if you had to retire your gear because they couldn’t find what you could? Only you. That’s not right. If we’re in this together with the supplier for good or ill, then we share the good and the bad. “Tough luck for you,” here’s your money back is no loss for them. It’s the absence of gain. Seems different to me. By all means let’s be reasonable, but folks in creative fields like ours shouldn’t be doormats; it’s hard enough here.

I wouldn’t specify a motherboard to anyone without pinning it down to a specific version of it. Besides, they checked all that and found that I had the right chipset. There’s nothing left to swap out on this machine. Its’ just two hard drives and a video card and a motherboard and power supply, all with current drivers.

We wouldn’t make someone a movie that might not play on their DVD player and refund the cost of the show if it didn’t. If that happened we would move heaven and earth to correct it – and if we could not there would there not rightly be hell to pay? I propose that it be the same with our suppliers, even if it’s as difficult for them as you relate.

Maybe I’ll try taking the DVD player off of it. It’s probably the only expendable (which it isn’t, really) utility on it.

[David Grantham]

Thankful for your thoughtful comments I look forward to reading the whole article after this dust settles.

Every marketplace responds to the demand for highest quality at the lowest price. Let’s not use that reason to excuse this one from delivering.

I used to be symathetic to the troubleshooting time encurred to a manufacturer, but not after all this. I’m afraid I have little sympathy for the cost of support technicians when they waste my time without fruitful results. Not anymore. It’s not about the value of their time, it’s about the value of their gear. Either the gear should basically work or supportable or they shouldn’t be selling it. Mine doesn’t. I don’t think it ever will.

It would have been annoying but more useful to hear from tech-support months or even years ago “you know, we can’t solve your problem, you’ll have to work aroudn it or replace the unit.” Instead they strung me along for months of interruptions to my work with drastic attempted fixes at great expense to us all. It cost them way more to do that. It goes deeper than bad support. It appears to be bad engineering, and bad testing. And it cost them a lot of their troubleshooter’s time, so it appears to be bad management as well.

The destructiveness of all this on my life and professional circumstances is enormous, and before embarking with this gear on a major proejct I gave them every direct oportunity to tell me in advance if it wouldn’t do the job.

[David Grantham]

Thankyou Chris. It’s great to get all these stories and possibilities. I’m still looking at all solutions.

I’ll iterate (reiterate, I think) that the choice of this motherboard wasn’t at all arbitrary or recommended by unknown sources. It was listed on the accelerator card mf’rs website for every possible purchaser to see as one of a handful officially sanctioned as tested to be compatible for this purpose, and to make matters worse, a bad slot for it identified as the only one that would work (overheating next to the video card). (That slot recommendation was eventually changed, but not in any offical follow-up sort of way. It eventually sort of came up in tech-support sessions years after the fact.)

THere’s got to be some basic accountability there with a card mf’r who claims it’s been tested as compatible with something if – as you say and I seem to be experiencing – it is not.

Compatibility was a simple claim and yours is a simple assertion: that it’s false. If we consider such failures to deliver as a labyrinth of interdependent components too complicated to be followed up and accoutnability demanded, we’re doormats inviting others to propose slipshod assemblies in the future.

This systme is really on the threshold of not working at all. I don’t know if I can get to the finish line. THe NLE isn’t the problem as far as I know, it’s the accelerator card mf’rs claims.

Sure I’ll have to find a remedy and that’s ongoing, but it seems to me some redress is required after all this. It simply seems wrong not to stand up for that.