Edius 5.51 Eventually becomes Sluggish

[SaullyG]

Hi,
I recently upgraded my edit system & installed Edius 5.51.
Not editing in HI-Def, only working with standard DV.
All seems smooth for the first 15-20 mins of making cuts
and adding crossfades.... then suddenly playback starts
to studder, dropping frames, and render area turns
red in the area of the timeline I am working in. The audio
mixer is closed & my clips do not have any filters applied.

I am stumped being this is a fresh Windows XP Install,
no anti virus installed, nothing running in the background,
no hardware conflicts, etc. I never had this issue with
Edius 4 and my older mobo set up which only had 1 gig
of ram buy the way.

I just upgraded the video card driver a short while ago & didn't
improve anything. The only culprit I suspect at this point
is my video drive (WD - 7200 rpm, 500 Gig).

Any suggestions would be appreciated....

Thank you!

Saully G

[Jerry]

How full is that 500gb drive? Once the drives get around that 50% mark, it is all downhill from there. Just like when you get old like me:)
I noticed you have 4gb of ram. What are your buffer settings in Edius. What were your buffer settings in Edius 4.6?
What are your project settings? Do they match the video properties? Gotta ask.

[SaullyG]

Hi Jerry,
Disk has 93% of free space.
I left the buffer settings (default) at 32, same as I had in Edius 4.6.
With 4 gb of Ram, would I fare better with an increased buffer setting?

Thanx.
Saully G.

[SaullyG]

Also Project settings are matched with the files,
SD, 59.94i 48 khz. 720x480.

[Jerry]

The 4gb of ram...all is not being seen by Windows. 32bit is designed to see 2gbs.
It can see more but you have to do .ini changes. Don't mess with this unless you know how!!!
Did you install SP3?
Increase your buffer to 512 and see what happens. Try it, anyway. It may make things unstable, but I don't think so.

[SaullyG]

Hi Jerry,
With 4 Gb of Ram Installed, the system shows 3.25 GB....I assumed
Windows XP 32 Bit could not read more than 4 Gb.

Anyhow, I will try increasing the buffer to 512 & see what
happens from there. If I had to put my life on it I would
still suspect a defective video drive. I remember I did
purchase it used..... probably my "bargain" turned out
to be a ripoff perhaps??

I'll keep you posted... thanx.

Saully G.

[tingsern]

It might be some bad sectors on your video drive - causing lots of retries at the disk level. Run some disk diagnostics and see ...

[Jerry]

Your hardware automatcally activated
the PAE switch which allows Win XP to see
mire than 2gb. 512 should work fine.

[antonsvideo]

Your hardware automatcally activated
the PAE switch which allows Win XP to see
mire than 2gb. 512 should work fine.

using the PAE switch when NX is installed will prevent the OS from booting, been there done that :)

without NX, no problem

[Jerry]

It's not just the NX, Storm 3g won't either. But, there is a way around it.
He has a DV Storm2, I guess that is not effected. Some hardware configs automatically activate the switch. I know my second machine did.
In order to shut it off, you have to add a line of code. It is easier to turn on than it is to turn off :)

[tingsern]

Just go 64 bits OS and you dig the grave for the PAE switch :-).

[SoundFreak]

I can't agree more regarding upgrading from a 32bit OS to a 64bit OS, even if some or all apps are still 32bit, but I read that the OP has a DVstorm2, don't think there are any 64bit drivers made for that tank of a card, I never had issues with and it will most likely outlive me on XP 32bit :)

[SoundFreak]

I might remember wrongly but didn't the official support of the DVstorm series Stop at Edius version 4.61 ?
That was I think the reason that I bought a NX without HD expansion to use Edius 5, the HD component expansion only was added much later in my system.
Or was it SD only, confused now, some one please verify :)

[Jerry]

Being that he is using 5.51, I am guessing is he is working OHCI with his firewire card...per the signature.
If you are not using other apps at the same time as you use Edius, you can stick to XP SP3 and the 4gb of ram. This will work fine.
Do you have a different hard drive to try. If you do, install it and see if it works better.

[SaullyG]

Hi Jerry,

Happy to announce I located the problem :)

Though I suspected the video drive was bad or failing,
turns out the problem was a bad removable mobil rack
the drive sits in. I should of suspected this as well being
I never had any luck with any mobil rack set up I had
in the past ........ seems most of them are cheaply made
& are always doomed to fail!

I confirmed this by removing the drive from the rack &
connected the drive directly to the motherboard.
I then opened the project, ran thru the timeline several times,
made my basic cuts, transitions, ect. and all seems well with
no drop frames or nothing to render.

Strange problem indeed....as most of the problems I encounter
are always strange to begin with ;P

I appreciate your responses & help thru this. Just to note I am
using Edius 5.51 via the OHCI hardware even though I left
the DV Storm2 hardware intact.

Cheers!

Saully G.