[Roman Mykytyn]

I have a BR-DV3000 (doesn’t say “U”) and have had no problems with it whatsoever. It’s essentially JVC’s DSR-11, except that it has the 9-pin, which is INFINITELY better and more reliable than firewire for deck control. I bought a DSR-11 and had to return it, because the deck control kept crashing my Avid. This thing has worked flawlessly since I got it.

[Roman Mykytyn]

Thanks for the input. I discovered that if I overwrite the new clip to the end of the sequence, then use segment mode to insert it into the middle, the problem doesn’t occur. For now, it’s a workaround, but I still have no idea why this suddenly began to happen.

Also, it doesn’t seem that there’s any amount of trimming or extracting that will fix it once it happens. I have to go to an earlier backup and pick up where I left off.

[Roman Mykytyn]

Paul,

Thanks for the input. I was just about to totally agree with you, when I started my AVID and just scanned over some existing footage in the timeline – NO DECK IN PLAY HERE. Anyway, I was dragging the bar back and forth across a section, checking for correct sync and it froze! Just like that! and I ended up with a spinning beach ball, then a kernel panic. Everytime I re-started, it panicked again.

So, I think it just MAY have something to do with my drive(s) after all. Right now, I can’t afford it, but what I need to do is buy another drive like my current media drive, RAID them together with Apple’s built-in utility and keep all my media strictly there and nothing else but media on it. Right now, it’s kind of a mess and I can’t rule it out officially.

So, I think I’ll start there, then proceed to checking timecode/tape issues, as you suggest. But thanks for the input, it really does help!

Roman

[Roman Mykytyn]

Please,… Bob… you flatter me…

Seriously, though, I HAVE been getting away with it, although in the case of my XpressPro, I’ve only been doing DV25, so maybe AVID is more picky about this stuff.

However, DV25 is what I’m currently trying to do here, and it crashes. I seem to be able to digitize normally without problem, but as soon as I try to batch it, things fail.

Still, in your opinion, a hard drive issue is where you would start looking? I won’t continue to bother you with this, I just wanted to get your opinion on where to go next, remembering that, using this drive, I’ve captured, edited, and exported several projects, some as long as 10 minutes.

Thanks again, and let me know if you’d like me to come by and bless your system.

Roman

[Roman Mykytyn]

Bob,

Thanks for taking the time. OK, so to be perfectly honest, my media drive is not on a RAID, it’s just a standard, high-speed internal ATA IBM DeskStar. I know this sounds terribly naive, but I’ve been doing the non-linear thing for seven years and while, at the beginning, I was forced to use SCSI drives on an ATTO card, when ATA’s got fast, I switched to them (especially since DV is less demanding than high-rez analog) and started using them in the standard configuration. I realize that many people make RAIDs out of them and use special adaptors, but the basic thing has always worked for me.

However, I’m not so stubborn as to think that I have all the answers. So, if you think that it’s CRUCIAL to set it up that way (pairs of drives, striped, etc.), perhaps I should consider it. Still, I must insist that I’ve been doing it this way under some pretty demanding circumstances and haven’t had problems with dropped frames or buffer underruns or whatever. Either way, I’d like to hear what you have to say on the subject.

Thanks again.

Roman

AVID Xpress Pro 4.6.5, Mac Dual 1.25 G4, 1.25GB RAM, OSX 10.3.8, IBM DeskStar ATA

[Roman Mykytyn]

Bob,

Thanks, I figured that out and it seems to work. Unfortunately, I’m still having crashing issues, so I guess it wasn’t entirely about the firewire deck control.

I know this is a needle in a haystack, but any ideas about why it locks up? Basically, it finds and grabs anywhere from one to ten clips in the batch, then “freezes,” meaning that the deck plays on, but the blinking red capture light stops blinking, the timecode counter in the capture window stops incrementing, and eventually, I get the spinning beach ball.

I know there are dozens of variables, but I don’t seem to have trouble capturing normally (without batching), so I feel like my drive is OK, the firewire connection is OK, the deck is OK. what am I missing?

Thanks in advance.

[Roman Mykytyn]

Thanks, Floh!!!!

[Roman Mykytyn]

MPE:

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! that was pretty much all I needed to do; have the keyspan driver in the system, set it up in the deck configurations and go…

I do not understand why AVID goes to great lengths to make it sound like you need 232 protocols when using a Mac — you just don’t. That whole section in the book is a misprint, apparently…

[Roman Mykytyn]

OK, i just spoke with Addenda, who make the Rosetta Stone products. They can’t see how I could need one, since the mac has 422 built in, not 232. Currently, I have a cable that connects the 9-pin on the deck to my Keyspan 28X USB to Serial converter. I have used this configuration for years with my Media 100 without any problems.

I guess I just don’t understand where the RS-232 comes into play, since the mac is already working at 422.

[Roman Mykytyn]

Thanks for your thoughts. I’m going to keep fiddling with it, as much as I can, but it’s really frustrating, as you know. I’ll try exporting video separate from audio, etc., as you suggest. At least I’ll have some idea of what works and what doesn’t.

Right now, though, I have to troubleshoot my machine in general, as something lately has been causing crashes from all kinds of apps that don’t normally crash. I suspect that this might be related to my EDL Manager woes in some way, but the problem is that with OSX, troubleshooting conflicts is obscure. Apps are supposed to run in their own little segmented blocks of memory, so no app should theoretically be able to write into the space of another, which is what happened frequently in the OS’s before X. On the otherhand, those problems were much easier to solve, as you could remove the questionable files and re-introduce them one by one until you re-created the problem. Now, that option doesn’t exist…

So, off I go to fix my Mac. I’ll let you know if I determine what the problem was.