Firewire drives and Print To Tape/External Monitor

johnmeyer wrote on 2/3/2004, 12:19 PM
I apologize if this has been covered (I did try to search the forum), but if it hasn't, this should be in the Sony support database.

If you use an external Firewire drive, then two Vegas functions may not work as expected:

1. Print to tape from timeline will not work, if the video on the timeline is stored on an external Firewire (1394) hard drive. It works fine if the video is on an internal IDE drive, even with the Firewire drive connected.

2. The external monitor preview function becomes intermittent if the video on the timeline is stored on the external Firewire drive.

Everything else seems to work just fine.

I'm posting this, not to get advice or hear about how I shouldn't use a Firewire drive, because other than this, they have been working great for me (I just got a second one). I'm posting it because I've seen lots of people reporting problems similar to this, and this could possibly be the cause of their problems.

This could be especially difficult to diagnose if the person had some files on an internal IDE drive (in which case the PTT or external monitor would work), and some on the Firewire drive.

Comments

jetdv wrote on 2/3/2004, 12:26 PM
I have been using a laptop with a firewire drive connected to the computer and a deck connected to the firewire drive. I have been able to both PTT and Preview on the external monitor with the files stored on the firewire drive. So, the problem may be even more difficult to pin down.
DGrob wrote on 2/3/2004, 2:29 PM
So you daisy-chain the deck beyond the firewire drive and it works? Gonna have to try that with my camcorder. DGrob
johnmeyer wrote on 2/3/2004, 5:51 PM
"I have been using a laptop with a firewire drive connected to the computer and a deck connected to the firewire drive. I have been able to both PTT and Preview on the external monitor with the files stored on the firewire drive."

Hmm. It seemed like it should work, given the enormous bandwidth of Firewire. Also, everything else works perfectly (capture, render, etc.). I'll have to think about my configuration a little more and see if there is something I'm overlooking.

... just did another test. It works fine on my Maxtor, but not on my Western Digital (WD) drive (both external Firewire). However, the WD drive is daisy-chained from the Maxtor, so perhaps that is the problem. When I get a chance, I'll take the Maxtor out and connect the WD directly and see if that works
jetdv wrote on 2/3/2004, 8:31 PM
It certainly seems to work fine. Haven't noticed any problems.
wethree wrote on 2/3/2004, 8:51 PM
I've got WD200G, WD200G, Hitachi180G daisy chained to a Shuttle SB51G with a 200W power supply and just printed to tape with most media on the Hitachi (furthest daisychained drive). No problem.

Recently, however I had a heck of a time getting the Hitachi to show up when put in its ADS 1394 enclosure. I finally had to swap ADS shoe out for a CompUSA Micro-Plus (noname) enclosure that showed up with Oxford bridge driver in Device manager. When I tried to hook up the ADS shoe ( two drives before it running the Oxford driver-- ADS, when it finally installed sports an ADS yada yada driver, different from the Oxford yada drivers-- why I don't know...

Long and short, I even resorted to bringing home a Belkin 1394 4-firewire hub ($79 Compusa), thinking it might be an under power issue--- I returned everything when I switched to the Oxford driver shoe (NOT ADS) and all was well again...

Alas, I've had NO fun with ADS to date... Howcome?
logiquem wrote on 2/4/2004, 1:23 PM
Never had a problem since i have switched for an USB 2 drive case (capture, print to tape, etc.). Previously, when i used Firewire disk and camcorder, capture was really troublesome.