Edius 4.5 is skipping occasionally

[Philip]

I just built a new C2Q system with 2gb RAM, ASUS P5E VM-DO MATX Motherboard, and am having an annoying little oddity. About every minute or 2 when playing back a time line Edius will start stuttering like the buffer is full and it can't keep up. I have Edius setup to stop on a frame drop so it isn't that setting. I have my buffers set to 512mb.

I went into MSCONFIG startup and turned off a bunch of installed apps that run on start up. I set my visual settings for optimal performance. I also setup my virtual memory to be min and max of 2046. The memory I put in was spec'ed out to be 800mhz with 4,4,4,12 latency. The Motherboard saw it as 667mhz with 5,5,5,15 latency. I have set the bios to be 800 mhz memory but left all other settings alone. The CPU fan monitor is telling me the CPU fan is not working but it is spinning fine. I think I am just going to plug the CPU fan in directly to the power supply with an adaptor plug so it won't look for it. These are the only 2 small issues I have encountered on my build and don't know if they affect my problem or not.

I have run task manager while playing back a timeline and when it stutters a little one of the Cores will have a little spike in it. The PF Usage in Task Manager is running at 1gb and steady. The CPU Usage is running around 6-10% till the stuttering starts and one core will spike to about 20-30% but the PF stays steady.

Everything seems to work pretty well otherwise in Edius....just this little stuttering thing is bugging me. My AMD x2 4800 works fine (but way less RT).

Anyone have ideas of what else to look into....should I try and flash the bios...would it help? Is it an Edius setting I have overlooked in my setup?

Thanks,

[antonsvideo]

next time you see it stutter, look at the buffer remaining in the Edius timeline taskbar

always make sure the audio mixer is closed while playing or you will lose all buffer right away

[pjsssss]

Also does the clip turn to yellow or red when the stutter occurs?

[Bluetongue]

Try This
Start <>Settings<>Control Panel
Select Sound and Audio
In the "Volume" Tab
Select "Advanced"
Set Speaker settings to "Desktop Stereo Speakers"
Click the "Performance" Tab
Set Acceleration to the second position from the left "Basic Acceleration: use this setting to enable only the required acceleration features"
And this should fix the problem
Do not set to full left "None" or the audio will not play
Regards Barry

[Philip]

next time you see it stutter, look at the buffer remaining in the Edius timeline taskbar

always make sure the audio mixer is closed while playing or you will lose all buffer right away

I never have the audio mixer open. I'm sure it has a use but I have never incorporated it into my workflow. When it stutters the buffer remains at the peak. No change. I checked that right away when I noticed the problem.

Still happening.

[Philip]

Also does the clip turn to yellow or red when the stutter occurs?

I have been trouble shooting the problem with only an audio clip on the timeline. No video clip at all so naturally it doesn't show a render bar. When I was editing a 3 cam project yesterday it would happen occassionally during the multicam edit (this is where I started noticing the problem). It never showed a render bar as a result of the skipping.

[Philip]

Try This
Start <>Settings<>Control Panel
Select Sound and Audio
In the "Volume" Tab
Select "Advanced"
Set Speaker settings to "Desktop Stereo Speakers"
Click the "Performance" Tab
Set Acceleration to the second position from the left "Basic Acceleration: use this setting to enable only the required acceleration features"
And this should fix the problem
Do not set to full left "None" or the audio will not play
Regards Barry

I tried this and rebooted. The problem still exists. Any other ideas to try?

[antonsvideo]

can you check the properties of the audio clips to make sure they are all wav stereo 48k

[Philip]

can you check the properties of the audio clips to make sure they are all wav stereo 48k

Couple of new developments on my end. I checked the audio file and forgot that it was a wma file. I re-encoded to a WAV file (48/16) and it still stutters. This time when it started stuttering I noticed a clip about 2 or 3 clips down the timeline got the red render bar on it. Usually the clip I am playing gets a red render bar when it is loaded up. The thing is, the clip that got the red render bar a few clips down the timeline didn't have any filters on it the first time I tested. The second time I tested it had a few filters but nothing that will bog the buffer down when it was prefilled.

It looks now like it is something in the buffer settings. I watched the buffer and it was continually sitting between 167 and 169 frames. When it stutters it stays the same. No change. I watched again to see if the buffer took a hit a few seconds before the stutter and it just stays consistent at 167-169 the whole time.

I just did more tests since I posted this. I took an entire highlight clip almost 3 minutes long, set an in and out point and rendered the entire thing. The top is one long green rendered bar now. I then tried to play it back. After about a minute or so it started stuttering again but the green bar stayed green and didn't show a need to render.

I am wondering if maybe it is a RAM problem with filling the buffers. I have dual channel RAM and the MB had 4 slots for RAM Sticks. There were 2 banks of 2 slots. Each bank had 2 different colors of RAM slots. I put my 2 sticks in the same colored slot in each bank. Should the sticks be in the same bank.

Just trying to think of what it could be.

[antonsvideo]

is there any Canopus hardware in your PC such as NX etc?

what is the exact project setting?

can you see if hardware acceleration is on or off on windows media player properties? try the opposite of what it is

can you make sure the microsoft wav converter has priority 1 and the audio card is set as default device

http://www.videoproductions.com.au/html/edius-audio.html

is your audio card driver up to date?

[Philip]

is there any Canopus hardware in your PC such as NX etc?

No NX card. Just running in OHCI mode.

what is the exact project setting?

Here is my project setting description:

Frame size: 1440x1080
Frame rate: 29.97
Pixel Aspect: 1.33333
Field Order Top Field First

Audio

Rate: 48000 KHZ
Sample Size 16 bit
Channel 2

Additional Info

HDV
AVCHD
AVC-Intra50
HDCAM

I am using Canopus HQ rendering format and TC Mode is drop frame.

can you see if hardware acceleration is on or off on windows media player properties? try the opposite of what it is

It was set full acceleration. I turned it all the way to none and it is still has a stutter after about a minute.

can you make sure the microsoft wav converter has priority 1 and the audio card is set as default device
http://www.videoproductions.com.au/h...ius-audio.html

It was set to 11. I changed it to 1. Still stuttering.

is your audio card driver up to date?

I just checked the driver numbers tonight and they are up to date. I am using onboard audio. The Realtek High Definition Audio setup is installed. The driver number matches the most recent version number on the motherboard website.

The changes as you defined above have all been made. It didn't seem to fix anything...should I leave them or set them back to the original default settings.

I never mentioned the graphics card but it is a GeForce 8500GT. I have tried both overlay settings as well just in case. I also just checked my Graphics Card information in the settings and it is showing I have 512mb of graphics memory when the card is only a 256mb card. Does this matter?

Since a clip a few seconds down the line will go red when it stutters it seems the problem would be in the buffer somehow. I changed the project to SD and tried it. It still did the stutter thing and the clip that went red for render was much farther down the timeline. That would indicate the buffer is having trouble filling out to the end wouldn't it. I'm just trying to think logically like I did in my old programmer days. It must be in the pipeline to the memory or the memory itself. Would it help to remove a stick, lower the buffer and see if it still does it? If it is better wouldn't that indicate a bad memory stick? All of this is brand new but that doesn't mean I couldn't have received a bad part. Just a few thoughts. Any more ideas?

[antonsvideo]

turn windows media player back to what it was and leave the rest

however, I have my Edius buffer set to only 128 which is fine for me, try lowering yours and see if that helps

now that I know you are working in HD, are all clips on timeline HQ clips or are there mixed formats?

what is your video hard disk setup and diskspeed? www.roadkil.net (free diskspeed software)

[Philip]

turn windows media player back to what it was and leave the rest

however, I have my Edius buffer set to only 128 which is fine for me, try lowering yours and see if that helps

now that I know you are working in HD, are all clips on timeline HQ clips or are there mixed formats?

what is your video hard disk setup and diskspeed? www.roadkil.net (free diskspeed software)

All the clips are HQ. No HDV or anything else.

I ran the disk speed test. From my video drive I got:

Linear Read 379.9375
Random Read 20.463
Overal Score 11136

I have my video drive as an external eSATA drive. The drive is a 500gb 7200rpm drive. I initially thought the problem was because I initially had the project on a different eSATA drive that was over 90% full. I just got a new set of eSATA 500gb drives and moved the whole project to brand a brand new drive. The files are now on a brand new, newly formatted drive. Everything is on a single drive. No RAID. I have been using this setup on my other computers for over a year and have not had this issue.

I tried setting my buffers to 128 like you and it still stuttered...just sooner and the clip that went red was the actual clip it was on. It is looking like a buffer issue. Today I tried to remove the RAM and replace it with some RAM from my other computer. Turns out they are different types and don't fit the slots. I thought they were the same. Guess I can't test that way.

I tried running a SD project from an archive drive and it still stuttered as well.

Is it possible that the Intel Speed Step in the bios could cause the problem? I have disabled it in the bios to see. Also are there any disc or memory related bios items that could be causing the issue?

I'm game for trying other things if you have any other ideas.

And BTW Anton....thank you so much for your time. Your expertise is an asset around here. I still swear by DVD Lab Pro that you recommended a few years back...now if they will just get BluRay support since it is the winner of the war. :-)

[antonsvideo]

before we can go on, I need to see the speed test result of the third line down as seen here, and of the second last line

http://www.videoproductions.com.au/edius45/diskspeed-C.gif

I need to see the results of the C drive and the video drive

[Philip]

before we can go on, I need to see the speed test result of the third line down as seen here, and of the second last line

http://www.videoproductions.com.au/edius45/diskspeed-C.gif

I need to see the results of the C drive and the video drive

Here is a link to the actual screen for you.

C: Drive: www.frogmanproductions.com/uploads/Disc_C.jpg

E: Drive: www.frogmanproductions.com/uploads/Disc_E.jpg

I got a little brave today and tried to do more trouble shooting. I created a restore point and loaded Version 4.6. At least 4.6 is working fine but it didn't fix the problem. The stutter is still there. I also "flashed" my bios to the most recent version hoping there may be something in the pipeline there causing the problem. It flashed successfully but didn't solve the problem.

The motherboard I got for the small form factor machine is the Asus P5E-VM-DO and has some remote office type technology in it. I am wondering if some of those remote functions built into the bios may be hitting the system every minute or so during playback to see what's up. Just another thought.