In this case I am using an external firewire drive (7200rpm) for the work (including setting the temp directory to this drive as well).

Thanks for replying.

Did you try rebuilding your peak files (F5 will do it)?

I'll try that.

In Vegas 3 the source of these problems for many people was using an external firewire drive with the Oxford chipset. I had these symptoms with one external drive with an Oxford chipset, but the no-name enclosure I bought off e-bay and installed my own drive in works perfectly.
Adjusting the audio buffer to a smaller setting did help, but didnt completely solve the problem. Supposedly this was one of the things Vegas 4 was supposed to fix.
Other than that I never heard a definitive answer, but it has been discussed here for several months off and on so I may have missed it.

Thanks for the idea... I'll check my external drives (they are Maxtor). I have actually been INCREASING the buffers as I was thinking that would be what what is most needed... so I'll try decreasing the buffers instead.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

-Liam

CorporateSound (or anyone else):

Slightly OT, but since you mentioned external FW with oxford chipset, I need to ask. I just got a generic external FW/USB2 drive enclosure with the Oxford chipset. I'm using it (or trying to) with firewire. Put a new WD1200JB HDD inside, and my PC (P3-600, 384MB RAM, Win98SE)doesn't recognize it. I have the jumper settings to the default of "Cable Select". I've downloaded the 1394 storage supplement from MS, and the Data Lifeguard EX INstall software from WD (which freezes the PC when I run Install). Do you have any words of wisdom?

thanks

Frenchy

Just a guess... how about setting the drive jumper to Master and giving that a try?

I had that problem too with a SONY VAIO and an external IOMEGA firewire drive (120GB). The way I solved that was to set the folder for the temp rendered files on my C drive (and not the external one). I am only keeping the media files on the external drive. I works fine now. I think if the media files and the temp files are on the external drive, there might be a problem with the throughput of the drive but I am not sure. Anyway it works fine for me now. Regards Dr.Z

I'm getting the same problem with a fast desktop P4 and a new Ezquest Cobra firewire drive, which got great internet reviews, partly because it has the reliable Oxford 911 chipset. It's a little distressing after happy days with VV3, to hit this unexpected incompatibility. I'll see that the temp folder is on the C: drive, but hopefully V4 doesn't have a touch of Pinnacle fever....

I'm having the exact same problem as you guys. I've got a pretty powerful desktop machine. I'm using a LaCie 120GB Firewire drive connected to an SB Audigy Platinum Card. Can't find any info in SoFo's (Lack of)Knowledge Base! I have an email to Tech Support on this. It would be great if someone from SoFo Tech Support would chime in on this thread.

Hi All,

There are reports that redrawing the waveforms helps...

I don't have this problem but would appreciate if someone withthe problem would try turning off waveforms and thumbails in preferences to see if it helps. Just a hunch.

Maybe even scrolling the audio tracks out of view might help.

Thanks, MPH

I changed the temp folder to my c: drive... didn't seem to make any difference. I still get the lock-ups.

I also reduced the audio bufferes (as recommended by earlier message) and agin it had little effect.

Not sure if the drives I have use the Oxford chip-set but I suspect they do.

I will setup a dummy project with all my files on the c: drive) to see if the issue is indeed purely related to the external drives.

Thanks for the ideas.

-Liam

Didn't seem to make any difference (I de-selected "Display Waveforms and frames in Events")

Just tried checking the "Use Microsoft DV Codec" in prefs and it seems to have cured some of my problems. I don't know if it is coincidental or what. I'll report back.

Throughput may well be the issue and there may be a number of things affecting it.

I have temp files on a separate drive and still occasionally have the problem.

The post above recommending NOT using the Oxford bridge chip is news to me. I wnet out of my way to build a box with the Oxford 911 bridge.

Hmmmm....

Rob Mack

Marty,

Forgot to mention in my last ramble on the Cow that I couldn't get a freeze when I turned thumbnails and waveforms off.
Rob Mack

Hi Liam,

This has been a problem with 1394 drives for a while and the SoFo engineers have shown an interest in fixing it. They did make some progress-V4 freezes much more politely than VV3 did.

I think I was the guy insisting that reducing the buffer might help. I won't push that now. There are a lot of voodoo fixes out there but no one seems to know why this happens so the fixes are about the same as superstition. Currently I hit F5 and then throw some salt over my right shoulder.

The surest fixes so far are to mute your audio tracks or to use anything but a 1394 drive. Several people who had problems switched to USB2.0 and have achieved outer peace. This isn't happy news.

I can remember older posts stating that other NLEs also had this problem but they would just crash outright.

BTW, some people have no trouble whatsoever with 1394 drives.

I'd say that if you just bought a drive and have trouble return it immediately. Otherwise you're looking at throwing money at it by replacing the drive with USB2.0.

The error VV3 would give was "Unable to mix audio". I think that maybe audio somehow gets out of sync with video when playing from 1394 drives.

Rob Mack

Thanks Rob...

>>>>>"I couldn't get a freeze when I turned thumbnails and waveforms off."
Rob Mack<<<<<<

Anyone else?

Does scrolling the audio out-of-view help anybody?


Here's a theory/speculation:

Reading the .sfk files that create the TL waveforms may be interrupting the playback... that could explain why moving the temp files could help, Vegas may write a temp file for each screen-display of waveforms... that could explain why redrawing peaks may help, the new file may be in a new location... that may be why altering audio buffers could help, it might give the drive time to seek the .sfk files... I really don't know.

I could be waaayyy of the mark, but the theory could still help us find a workaround... like killing the .sfk files and rewriting them... or having a hotkey that turns waveforms off for playback...

I'll try to replicate the problem here somehow and see what I can come up with.

Any input is appreciated.


MPH

I did re-render a long sequence of DV AVI clips into WMV to allow me to fit it all onto my C: Drive (I ONLY have 10GB free on my notebook hard drive).

This allowed me to test previewing a project where everything was being accessed from a non-firewire drive.

The result: I can preview any lenght of this video without any freezes in play.

So that does seem pretty conclusive that it has a lot to do with the 1394 interface (although there might be a very long chance that it is related to me altering the video format to WMV... but I doubt that).

So... the solution is maybe to switch to USB 2.0.... or just switch to using a desktop with internal drives.

This does seem to me to be a pretty critical problem. I have used many other NLE's with external 1394 drives and i have not ever found a problem related to this confguration.

Thanks for all the help and ideas. I think that a lot of us have at least found peace with the fact that we now know what the issue is. Now we just neet SoFo to work some magic on a quick fix.

-Liam

SoFo has worked on this for a while to no avail. I'm not sure that anyone really knows what's wrong. Since it only happens on a few systems I think SoFo should offer to buy your computer from you and replace it with a known good system. Then at least they'd have a system with problems in house to work with.

I find that hitting f5 at the first sign of trouble works well enough.

Rob Mack

You know, I've never noticed a way to just turn off waveforms. I wish there was a way. This is something the M100 does. Maybe they had a good reason.

Rob Mack

Hold the phone...

the wmv file is a much lower datarate that the DV avi, so it should play without any trouble, even from the 1394 drive... you might copy it to the FW drive and see.



You can kill the audio sfk files and cancel the rebuild to see if it helps... that would be a very interesting test.



HTH, MPH