timeline playback problem

altphase wrote on 6/7/2002, 8:52 AM
I have an ongoing problem playing back video in the timeline of VV3. I is getting very annoying and I would like to find out what's causing me all this grief. I capture DV video to an external FW drive (7200rpm NTFS formatted). When I put the DV clips on the timeline, things are fine until I try to play a continuos block of video. The playback almost always freezes after about 20-30 seconds of playback (actually VV3 freezes as I'm unable to use any controls in the program). The playback resumes after about 5-10 seconds. This is a big issue when trying to play long segments from the timeline as it takes forever to get through a few minutes of playback. Also, I should mention that the captured clips play just fine with WindowsMP, no matter how long the segments. Any ideas??

Comments

swarrine wrote on 6/7/2002, 11:09 AM
If you can, try installing your HD directly in your computer as either secondary master or slave. Then run your timeline and see what happens.

If you are unable to do that, try transferring a minute or two of video to your C: drive and run it from there.

If either one of these methods allows you to play continuosly, you probably have a firewire issue.
Frenchy wrote on 6/7/2002, 11:22 AM
I don't have a solution to your problem, but I am concerned, as I am considering an external firewire HD. What make/model HD do you have? Other system specs? Is your DV camera daisy-chained with the HD? Have you received any recommends from SF support?

Sorry about answering your questions with more questions.

Frenchy
jeffy82 wrote on 6/7/2002, 11:46 AM
Sorry, Don't have any solutions either.

Frenchy,
If I might make a suggestion/recommendation. I am very please with the Pyro Firewire Drive Kit from ADS Technologies. Even with a crappy old Fujitsu 10GB drive, it was able to sustain 22MB/Sec. I'm sure a nice IBM or WD drive will perform even faster. If you've read any articles on firewire cards for DV editng purposes, the vast majority recommend ADS-Tech. They may be a little bit more expensive than the "Sunday Circular" bargans. But, I think you will agree, that for a few extra dollars, reliabilty is worth the added cost.

This is just a "Drive kit" so you would still have to buy a hard drive. You can find just the drive kit for $95 or Drive kit & Firewire Card for $119.00 at provantage.com. Personally I like the idea of knowing the brand and exact model number of the hard drive inside, and an added bonus -- this kit also supports cd-rom, CDRW,DVD, and,DVDRW drives. This does require a flashing of their controller chip. But that's simple; you to run this little program thats included with the package that does it all for you. They say you can switch it over 10,000 times.

jeffy82
altphase wrote on 6/7/2002, 6:42 PM
I did some tests with the same DV clip on the FW drive and on my internal ATA drive and so far the playback does not freeze when playing from the internal. This is really strange, because if it is a FW issue, why do the DV clips play just fine in media player all day long? I will do a few more tests just to be sure, but in case anyone wants to know the FW drive is a custom enclosure using the Oxford 911 bridge and a 60Gb IBM 7200rpm drive (running Win XP Pro) and besides this problem it's performance is great! I'll do some more tests and post again, but i have a feeling it may have something to do with the way Vegas caches data on playback and the FW drive (?)