Problems with using external FireWire drive

jkumorek wrote on 1/25/2004, 5:41 PM
I'm having an odd problem with Vegas Video 3.0c and an external WD 120 GB FireWire drive. Yesterday, when I try and view a clip in either the media trimmer or the timeline, it will play up to 15 seconds of video, and them everything hangs for up to 20 seconds, and then it continues. This happens repeatedly. Oddly enough, the day before I could watch the clips without a problem. I've not changed any hardware. When it first started happening, I would get an error about it being unable to mix the audio - device timed out.

I/m using a SB Audigy 2 cards for sound & FireWire, and a WD FireWIre external 120 GB hard disk. Norton Antivirus is disabled.

If I copy a clip to my internal IDE drive (not nearly large enough to handle the whole project), the clip previews just fine.

Help!!

- Jim

Comments

FuTz wrote on 1/25/2004, 9:11 PM
What kind of enclosure do you have? I figure out you've put the WD drive into an external enclosure?
People that had problems of this kind had enclosures that did NOT have an *Oxford* chipset into the enclosure. In fact, it's the first thing to check out when buying an external enclosure, no matter what the price is.
And this can range from $40 to nearly (if not more than) $150, without the drive of course.
Second thing that would come to my mind: when did you buy this drive? If my rememberance is good, a few months ago (nearly or more than a year) a few people were having problems that could be fixed with a patch with Western Digital drives. But I don't remember if it was related to this kind of delay or simply the compatibility with external cases. A search in this forum would probalby give you a few hints.
But first thing, anyway: check out if you've got this Oxford chipset in your box. If not, that may be the problem.
I got an external enclosure that cost me around $65 (got both USB2 and 1394) (1394 only model was $45) and I installed a "drawer" inside in which I swap different drives. Two of those drives are WD 160Go and I've had no problem so far; the solution may be just in a little detail.
rmack350 wrote on 1/25/2004, 9:23 PM
There are mountains and mountains of posts on this topic.

The Oxford chip may make a difference but it isn't the deciding factor. I have two different enclosures with bridge boards that use the Oxford 911 chip. They still stall.

The issue is more a matter of the make of bridge card, the Oxford chip, and the firmware programming.

You'll find that you get good playback if you mute the audio tracks or (i think) if you turn off the thumbnails. Neither of these is acceptable.

The same media will play back just fine in Media player. As near as I can figure it, the obvious difference is that Vegas also has to read .sfk files as it reads the media. For whatever reason the bridge boards don't like this.

In the end I've gone to ADS dual link enclosures. I don't know if they're the only solution but they work so I'll stick with them. The dual-link feature also means I can fall back to USB2.0 if I need to. (These also use an Oxford911-based board. Some work implementations work, some don't)

Vegas 4.0 recovers from stalls and then continues playing. But it still stalls.

Rob Mack
Spot|DSE wrote on 1/25/2004, 10:13 PM
Key word here is Trimmer.
The Trimmer and Explorer plays are unbuffered, whereas timeline media is buffered. Check it out, you'll likely see no issues from the timeline. If you do, it's a rarity.
PeterWright wrote on 1/26/2004, 12:02 AM
I had a little of this problem with V3 but it disappeared with V4.
FuTz wrote on 1/26/2004, 8:59 AM
"The Trimmer and Explorer plays are unbuffered, whereas timeline media is buffered"

Well.. THAT explains a few things now! I've been having some bizarre behavior recently using the Trimmer. The
Explains too why j-k-l scrubbing won't work with Explorer: Timeline and Explorer must be viewed as 2 different "blocks" in the architecture of the application...

rbmack: lol! I must have been lucky then (thanks God for this time..!). I only checked to be sure it had that chip and nothing else when buying this cheap "no brand name" box with cableS included ! :D

FuTz wrote on 1/31/2004, 7:31 AM

Well, I bought a second one of these cases yesterday, installed it this morning and everything still works like a charm... and it's cheap!
johnmeyer wrote on 1/31/2004, 8:08 AM
Go to the Preferences dialog and check to make sure that the temporary file is being stored on a drive with plenty of data. I had to reset to default all the settings in Vegas a few times, and the defaults set the temp file to my C: drive. This is my smallest partition, used to just hold programs. As soon as I got down to a gigabyte, everything started choking, stopping, freezing. When I changed the temp file to point to my capture drive, everything startied working again.
stormstereo wrote on 1/31/2004, 9:27 PM
Aaaah, that ol' problem. I had it from the timeline as well as the trimmer. Here's an old workaround of mine:

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=174025

Best/Tommy
jkumorek wrote on 2/18/2004, 6:59 AM
What is the make/model of the enclosure that works well with Vegas? I think I'd like to get one. Where did you get yours?

Thanks!
Frenchy wrote on 2/18/2004, 7:08 AM
I've been using two of the ADS pyro 1394 enclosures - one with a 120 GB WD and a new one with a 120 GB Maxtor - they come with clear, concise instructions, install flawlessly and work great - . They're about $100 at Best Buy/Circuit City/Comp USA. I purchased the last one (about two weeks ago) from Dell - $72 with free shipping

-edit-
just checked the Dell site: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A0047173&c=us&l=en&cs=19&category_id=5683&page=external

they're $80.95 today. Dell usually has some kind of promo going on as well.

Frenchy
johnmeyer wrote on 2/18/2004, 11:59 AM
I can't give you the name of an enclosure, but I can give you the name of a complete unit that works perfectly with Vegas: The Maxtor One-Touch 250 Gbyte drive. By contrast, my Western Digital WD800 causes all sorts of problems (which I covered in an earlier post).