Firewire drive...

newUzer wrote on 6/7/2006, 9:12 AM
I put my old 40gig drive in a firewire enclosure after I upgraded, so I could move small projects and media around. The other day, however, I noticed some blocking artifacts during a VirtualDub render. I checked the clips in Vegas, and the preview before dropping on the timeline was fine. I checked the clips using Windows Media Player, and it was block-city. Same thing with WinDVD. At first I suspected my video card or overlay settings, but everything else looked fine, so that was out. I couldn't blame the clip because, after all, it was fine in Vegas. Just by accident, however, I played a copy of the same clip from my primary drive - it was fine! At that point I suspected read speed, so I checked the firewire drive against my primary drive - I got 18MB/sec vs 50MB/sec, respectively. Anyone else experience this from a firewire enclosure? Is that a big enough difference to explain what I'm seeing? I guess the reason I didn't notice anything in Vegas was because it buffers very well - right? I'm thinking of putting a decent drive in that enclosure - will that solve my problem?

P.S. Just played same clip from a CDROM and it was fine - what the heck is going on there?

Comments

DJPadre wrote on 6/7/2006, 9:47 AM
seems there might be a problem with ur interface within the enclosure.. maybe....
newUzer wrote on 6/7/2006, 11:43 AM
Interestingly, the USB 2.0 side of this enclosure seems to work fine, and has a slightly slower read rate than the Firewire side. So, I guess it's either the Firewire interface in the enclosure or the card in my computer.

P.S. Does the same thing on another computer, so it must be the Firewire interface in the enclosue. : (
Ken Llewellyn wrote on 6/7/2006, 1:18 PM
Believe the problem you are having is with the Firewire enclosure. I was told sometime ago that most are not capable af sustained high data rates for video editing unless they are using a bridge similar to the Oxford 911 firewire bridge.
newUzer wrote on 6/7/2006, 6:27 PM
The strangest thing, though, is when you use HDTach to compare this enclosure's USB performance to its Firewire performance, the Firewire side wins hands-down. More interesting still, is the fact that a CDROM's performance pales in comparison to either bus, but the same clip plays just fine, without any artifacts. It just blows my mind...
DJPadre wrote on 6/7/2006, 8:36 PM
try a new enclosure...
im using a Blue eye dual (usb2 and 1394) as well as a skymaster unit and (knock on wood) i havent had any issues..

I used to use a Lacie, but that one died long ago and no it wasnt the drive, it was the bridge which nuked itself, killing off about half a terrabyte of data.. so i ripped the HDD's out and threw them into new enclosures and for 2 years i havent had a problem.

Now with windows and Vegas, i ONLY use USB2... i run multple streams and ive never had an issue with speed, however with 1394, i have noticed that in the past when using it, ive lost my MBR on almost every drive.. this is due to windows management of 1394 devices...
Thank god for a lil program called "getdataback"