Hello Vfers!
I think I may have cracked it this time!
After spending something in the order of 3 months and hundreds of “attempts” I applied some slow and steady record keeping and note taking to this “problem”.
Firstly, a solution and then secondly my “thoughts” as to why this may be happening [not being so experienced as others, I cordially invite them to make their comments in light of my humble assessment/s].
SOLUTION: My apologies in advance to all those Dazzlers out there who will find the next description a bit tedious, as they know it already, but it is necessary....
I use a Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge. It has a bank of 3 lights, arranged vertically. From top to bottom:-
Light #1: Is to inform you that a Digital to Analogue [D to A] conversion is functioning correctly when it glows GREEN. When it is RED not good.
Light #2: GREEN means “Pass Through” is successful –RED means not successful or nothing happening.
Light #3: Is to inform you that an Analogue to Digital [A to D] conversion is functioning correctly when it glows GREEN. When it is RED not good.
When I am in PTT I can Preview the clip on my PC and it runs true – no problem. When I have been previewing to “Preview On Device” Light #2 [presently RED – as there is no signal] nicely, automatically switches from Light #2 to Light #1 [D to A], momentarily going from RED [not good] to GREEN. As I have forced a “Record Setup” and a “Record Engage” delay my external TV monitor will “hold” the first frame image until I click the “Play” icon in the PTT window. This is very useful in that it gives me time to click the “Play” icon etc etc. Okay, of we go, the clip plays and finishes. I now wish to re-play this success. The #1 light is still GREEN so I hit the “Play” icon. Success again. I can get up to about 2 to 3 successes this way then the dreaded dropout appears.
What I do now is to run the clip; click back on the “Preview To Device” so that the first “run” is cancelled; wait till the #1 light goes first to RED and then drops down to Light #2 and glows RED and then and only then do I repeat the process of “Preview To Device”. It is as if I am starting afresh with the process each time. What I have been doing is that seeing the Light #1 is remaining GREEN, have thought “Okay, this is good I shall re-preview” re-previewed and have got the Drop-Out. This is where I believe I have been going wrong.
So to re-cap, I now don’t re-preview until I have “cancelled” the previous “Play”. In the future, and if it remains stable then I believe I have found a solution. Simple when you know how eh? I may be wrong, but presently it is working 100% [20 out of 20 attempts – I must get out more!].
Grazie’s thoughts: This is where I am out of my depth and quite likely to get some undiluted “feedback”. I believe that the first [re-previewing without cancelling the first preview ie for the Dazzle] way I have been doing this has been making VF make a second call to the previewing process WHILE the first was still “working” or running down. This works until “something” clogs up the process and it tries/attempts to catch up with itself - dropout.
Because I am using the Dazzle and not a DV-Cammy to feed to, my Preferences are set to “No DV Control Enabled” – as per the suggestion from SoFo - this I believe tells VF that the DV signal going away from the PC has no longer control over it and that VF can not attempt to make a “handshake” of any description. VF will not know that the process, for the Dazzle, has finished, started or whatever and will attempt, when asked to do so, send more clipage to the Dazzle. However, the Dazzle responds by quite rightly by switching from Light #2 to Light #1 – as it should. My mistake was to think that it was VF controlling this – No! The Dazzle and VF are doing what they should under these circumstances and they are doing this separately and quite independently. It has been me forgetting that the two really are not speaking to each other, although they appear to do so. Re-previewing to the Dazzle from VF does not cancel the previous preview. If the Dazzle has not come back to light #2 [or I have “forced” this by cancelling the previous “Preview To Device”] and remains showing #1 as GREEN, then the dropout happens and it happens at different places at different times. I can only put this down to where the actual “feed” of information had got to in the previous run. This has been the “Ghost in the Machine”. Added to which, I was thinking it was my footage and I have spent hours and hours “attempting” to present to PTT “Clean” clipage. Now I know that this also was not the case. Phew!
I provide this in good faith as hopefully it will mean a solution to some of us who use the Dazzle box and have come up against this dropout effect. I don’t provide this as being a cure-all or panacea for what may be another problem others may have. However if there are some Dazzlers out there who have had similar problems, then I would appreciate your feedback if you find this approach has helped you or not.
My thanks go to Chienworks, Kcarroll, Stiffler, Laz, Sarasdad, BillyBoy,laz111, soundguy63 and jrstueve.
Sorry for the long post, but I thought it needed "spelling out" as the Devil or Angel has been in the detail.....
Regards
Grazie
I think I may have cracked it this time!
After spending something in the order of 3 months and hundreds of “attempts” I applied some slow and steady record keeping and note taking to this “problem”.
Firstly, a solution and then secondly my “thoughts” as to why this may be happening [not being so experienced as others, I cordially invite them to make their comments in light of my humble assessment/s].
SOLUTION: My apologies in advance to all those Dazzlers out there who will find the next description a bit tedious, as they know it already, but it is necessary....
I use a Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge. It has a bank of 3 lights, arranged vertically. From top to bottom:-
Light #1: Is to inform you that a Digital to Analogue [D to A] conversion is functioning correctly when it glows GREEN. When it is RED not good.
Light #2: GREEN means “Pass Through” is successful –RED means not successful or nothing happening.
Light #3: Is to inform you that an Analogue to Digital [A to D] conversion is functioning correctly when it glows GREEN. When it is RED not good.
When I am in PTT I can Preview the clip on my PC and it runs true – no problem. When I have been previewing to “Preview On Device” Light #2 [presently RED – as there is no signal] nicely, automatically switches from Light #2 to Light #1 [D to A], momentarily going from RED [not good] to GREEN. As I have forced a “Record Setup” and a “Record Engage” delay my external TV monitor will “hold” the first frame image until I click the “Play” icon in the PTT window. This is very useful in that it gives me time to click the “Play” icon etc etc. Okay, of we go, the clip plays and finishes. I now wish to re-play this success. The #1 light is still GREEN so I hit the “Play” icon. Success again. I can get up to about 2 to 3 successes this way then the dreaded dropout appears.
What I do now is to run the clip; click back on the “Preview To Device” so that the first “run” is cancelled; wait till the #1 light goes first to RED and then drops down to Light #2 and glows RED and then and only then do I repeat the process of “Preview To Device”. It is as if I am starting afresh with the process each time. What I have been doing is that seeing the Light #1 is remaining GREEN, have thought “Okay, this is good I shall re-preview” re-previewed and have got the Drop-Out. This is where I believe I have been going wrong.
So to re-cap, I now don’t re-preview until I have “cancelled” the previous “Play”. In the future, and if it remains stable then I believe I have found a solution. Simple when you know how eh? I may be wrong, but presently it is working 100% [20 out of 20 attempts – I must get out more!].
Grazie’s thoughts: This is where I am out of my depth and quite likely to get some undiluted “feedback”. I believe that the first [re-previewing without cancelling the first preview ie for the Dazzle] way I have been doing this has been making VF make a second call to the previewing process WHILE the first was still “working” or running down. This works until “something” clogs up the process and it tries/attempts to catch up with itself - dropout.
Because I am using the Dazzle and not a DV-Cammy to feed to, my Preferences are set to “No DV Control Enabled” – as per the suggestion from SoFo - this I believe tells VF that the DV signal going away from the PC has no longer control over it and that VF can not attempt to make a “handshake” of any description. VF will not know that the process, for the Dazzle, has finished, started or whatever and will attempt, when asked to do so, send more clipage to the Dazzle. However, the Dazzle responds by quite rightly by switching from Light #2 to Light #1 – as it should. My mistake was to think that it was VF controlling this – No! The Dazzle and VF are doing what they should under these circumstances and they are doing this separately and quite independently. It has been me forgetting that the two really are not speaking to each other, although they appear to do so. Re-previewing to the Dazzle from VF does not cancel the previous preview. If the Dazzle has not come back to light #2 [or I have “forced” this by cancelling the previous “Preview To Device”] and remains showing #1 as GREEN, then the dropout happens and it happens at different places at different times. I can only put this down to where the actual “feed” of information had got to in the previous run. This has been the “Ghost in the Machine”. Added to which, I was thinking it was my footage and I have spent hours and hours “attempting” to present to PTT “Clean” clipage. Now I know that this also was not the case. Phew!
I provide this in good faith as hopefully it will mean a solution to some of us who use the Dazzle box and have come up against this dropout effect. I don’t provide this as being a cure-all or panacea for what may be another problem others may have. However if there are some Dazzlers out there who have had similar problems, then I would appreciate your feedback if you find this approach has helped you or not.
My thanks go to Chienworks, Kcarroll, Stiffler, Laz, Sarasdad, BillyBoy,laz111, soundguy63 and jrstueve.
Sorry for the long post, but I thought it needed "spelling out" as the Devil or Angel has been in the detail.....
Regards
Grazie