Thanks Smyers63, even though nothing is solved it gives me hope that it might not be hardware issues.

I experience that Vista is doing all kind of stuff behind my back. One thing is that whenever you need to "accept" something that installs or whatever and the screen goes dimmed except for the option window, I found that the language bar is showed top right or somewhere on the screen... it never shows up other then that.

The monitor in Avid also has a pixelated image. I know that it looks like that when windows has been infront of it and it disappears on working systems when you play. Some kind of antialiasing is happening to it when doing so. When I play in fullscreen the image isn't pixelated, which should indicate that there's some kind of overlay that mess everything up.

I never experienced a crash or something that as you say is what everyone else talks about.
I wonder if there is some process going on that I should cancel? I'm not very familiar with Vista so I don't know what is Billy G crap or what's necessary for windows to run.

Here's my specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad 2,5 GHz
Geforce 8800 GTX 512mb
4gb RAM
Windows Vista Business 64 SP1

I'm not sure, but maybe people just point at the 8800 card and scream without caring for the nature of the problem. Like you said, earlier solutions resolve the crash issues at startup. This isn't a crash issue, everything is working except the motion of video in the video-monitor.
And of course, what bugs me most is that it works in full screen mode.

 UPDATE

I tested to shut off as much running processors as possible and this is what happened.
The video still doesn't play, but it's not pixalated anymore. The stillimage is locked at a certain point, it doesn't update on playback stop. There are no flashes anymore when pressing play.
It runs instantly, but without the video image moving.

After I did the LegacyOverlay and Disable3d things, the fullscreen playback is screwed, so that didn't help AT ALL, in fact id made it worse. Now there's no playback of any kind.

Still, something "improved" and made the monitor not flash anymore, though the video still isn't playing.

 UPDATE

This is for everyone!!!!!!!!

If this is indeed something that worked and fixed it in the long run, I don't know.
But, if you have hotkeys of some sorts, TURN THAT XXXX OFF!!
After I followed the tips on LegacyOverlay and Disable3d it screwed up the entire program so I draw back with system restore to precisely before installing anything. I installed everything again and what I did now was looking for the exact process that made the antialiasing disappear when shut off. When I removed a hotkey process it suddenly all worked. It works in full screen and in the monitors...   I sincerly hope that this is something that will keep on working, but for now I just want to party. Thanks all for the inputs, but in the end I think I'm the one that should get a cookie for this

So, if you experience shait with Media Composer in the way I did...  crash the process for everything related to "hotkey".

If the problem comes back, I'm getting back here, but a good think now would be to know what the hell hotkeys do that is so damaging to the playback...

UPDATE

The cancelled process that interfer with Avid is called OSDShow.exe
Killing that made everything fine. Now, what is it and where can I kill it permanently?
I'm gonna torture that file until it bleeds binary blood!

I'm glad that something I suggested helped you, Glans.  It's always best not to have background processes running - that doesn't mean you can't but it's best not to just to avoid trouble.

Even updating something you've been running successfully in the background can mess things up.  I always disable automatic updating of anything so that I can know for sure when an update causes problems.

That process may be something provided by your laptop's manufacturer.  You could do a web search for the file's name and discover more about it.  There are several sites which give details about processes.

Glans:

The cancelled process that interfer with Avid is called OSDShow.exe
Killing that made everything fine.

In another thread I posted comments about the problems that laptop "helper" programs can cause MC.  OSDShow.exe is obviously another such program.  Just restating here:  Anything that produces its own taskbar, whether normally hidden or not, is likely to interfere with Avid's video display.  I think that you could probably translate that name to On Screen Display Show, and if so, it's not surprising that it interfered.

So how do you stop it permanently?  It depends how it's being started.  A good place to start would be in the Control Panel.  Open Programs and Features, and check the list of installed programs.  If you see it there, uninstall it.  If not, select Turn Windows Features On or Off.  See if it's listed there (it's unlikely, but hey...), and if it is, turn it off.  If neither of those work, close the Control Panel.

Now, if and only if you're competent at editing the registry manually, open regedit and search for any reference to OSDShow.exe and remove it.  That should fix it forever.  Make sure that you have backed your registry up first, though.

 Thing is that OSDShow.exe doesn't show anything, it's just there. I did turn off anything related to any kind of taskbar and I turned of the Vista graphic enhancements, but it was still there.
Right now, I just took the file out of the windows directory and put in a "Files that destroy everything for you" folder. Now I can start the computer and edit and do stuff without any problems.

I did a search for OSDShow.exe and I found out that it's not a very common file. It's something put into the computer during production in china I think... 

So it's not something that people would point at as a process interfering.

One page I saw just now with info on that file says it belongs to Chicony OSD.  I got a lot of hits when I ran a Google search on the file name.  Another site shows more info about the file.

What we know about OSDSHOW.EXE:

The filename OSDSHOW.EXE was first seen on Jan 18 2008 in JAPAN. It has also been seen in the following geographical regions of the Prevx community:

• CZECH REPUBLIC on Jan 18 2008
• The EUROPEAN UNION on May 3 2008

The filename OSDSHOW.EXE refers to many versions of an executable program. They share a common file size of 28,672 bytes.

These files may have the following Vendor, Product, Version Information in the file header

• CHICONY; OSD application for mHotkey.; 1, 0, 0, 0
• The following Vendor, Product, Version Information has also been reported:

CHICONY; OSD application for mHotkey.; 1, 0, 2, 0

OSDSHOW.EXE has been the subject of the following behavior(s):

• Added as a Registry auto start to load Program on Boot up

The info I've seen so far shows that it hasn't been determined to be safe (the sites reporting on processes are usually looking for malware).  That doesn't mean it's unsafe but just that none of the sites have been able to figure it out for sure with what they know.

 I am having what sounds like an identical problem with my system.  It's new, just installed MC 3.0 (I had 2.8 running on a different box just to get familiar with it before the new machine arrived, and that other box never had any problems, though probably all unsupported stuff in it...I think my new box has supported hardware and such, but that problem where the audio plays but the clip doesn't is exactly what I've got.... I can stop the scroll and the current video frame shows..... or manually move the scroll bar and the video changes...it just doesn't play.

I posted my own message about this before seeing this, and someone tried to help...suggested installing the Nvidia drivers that came with 3.0 and I did, that did not fix this.

OSDShow doesn't come up as a running process...

But the text below that was typed in message above....could you be more specific about "turning off hotkeys".  I mean, what step-by-step did you do, other than shutting down this OSDShow program???

thanks

GettingFrustratedToo

 I just shut down that process, it keeps popping up whenever you start the computer, but I removed the file OSDShow.exe from the windows folder and now I can start anything without problems.

Look in windows for the file, it doesn't turn up in search if you haven't turned on "show hidden and system files".

As for the origin; the computer is purely new and haven't been connected to the internet, so there's little chance of it being malware or malicious. I'ts just something someone in china put in to mess with us

That said, I'm glad I bought this so called unsupported system. According to something I read, I actually bought the worlds most powerful laptop...   and all that for a price extremely lower then what Dell and Hp. I saved around $1500 on this one, money I can use for other equipment.

Glans:

I actually bought the worlds most powerful laptop...   and all that for a price extremely lower then what Dell and Hp.

The problem with that approach is the assumption powerful=good.  This isn't necessarily the case.  What you're dealing with when you use Avid is a purpose-designed non-linear editor.  It isn't software designed to run on a general-purpose computer.  For that reason Avid test and specify particular hardware and operating system configurations.  They are also quite specific with driver versions and Quicktime releases.  Deviation from those specifications may not work at all, or may work for a time then fail unexpectedly for no apparent reason.

Additionally, once you have a stable system it isn't a good idea to enable Windows update.  In fact it's better still if you sequester your NLE from the internet completely.  That way you won't need antivirus software which can bring its own slew of problems.  Only install the minimum amount of support software on your system thus minimising the risk of software conflicts.  Use a separate media drive or drives to your boot and Avid launch disk(s).  And above all, never defrag your media drives.

 Glans,

Jwrl has just reinforced my points earlier in this thread. It's a dedicated workstation, not an all purpose personal computer. Treat it as such.

 Hi,

As I am having the same problem, and have joined in here, other things draw my curiosity in my task in getting MC 3.0 to run.

"Never defrag your media drives".  I haven't seen that in Avid documentation.  Why would you not defrag?  After deleting clips at some point there's going to be all sorts of physical gaps on the drives and newly added clips will be segmented more than they need be, and basic computer 101 says that's inefficient, thus potentially slowing things down.... (I'm running a Raid 5 on 4 drives...)

Anti-virus software.  In reading other posts and maybe some Avid documentation, I thought I read in the last several days that Symantec Corporate (or some version that's over and above the basic consumer level) was certified by Avid.... I'm not sitting at my system right now, so I can't check, but I have that exact AV software installed... my son-in-law is an IBM tech and helped me with that, so I'm confident that what I have installed matches what I read....  (it would seem that if AV software was causing problems it would be more drastic than Play only playing the audio and not the video...like, it wouldn't play at all, or play jerky, for example.

It seems to me like I'm searching for some setting in MC that says "actually play the video with the audio".   Really is starting to bug me, as I ran 2.8, as a test before getting all this new stuff, on an older machine with who-knows-what it has for hardware, and I didn't have this problem.  So new computer, right specs, MC 3.0, and I can't get it to work....

Oh, I did look up the Nvidia drivers that came with the 3.0 download, installed that, I have the version number installed that has been stated by Avid.... I looked at Nvidia's control panel, don't see anything suspicous there (and even fiddled with different things, like their "3D" control options...none of that helped.

I'm wondering if my imported clip from my Sony PMW-EX1 (XDCAM) and MC 3.0 aren't communicating completely....  I guess I could install the older version of MC and see how that works, or fiddle with the import options on the clip.  I only have so much time to fiddle with hardware and software...I'd really like to create instead.... Maybe I should just get Sony Vegas 8... I have a Sony camera, used Sony software in the past without any problems at all....

PS. Glans, thanks for the extra input on where to look for that OSDShow.exe ap.  My computer was made in China as well...

thanks,

Greg

 Greg:

Regarding "never de-frag your media drives". Absolutely true. When you capture or import images, Avid creates a media file that it deliberately breaks into fragmented stream "bits and pieces" which it distributes across a partition, drive, or RAID drive array. It does this for storing, retrieving, cueing and playing media seamlessly and in real time. It is for this reason you should never defrag your media drives. De-fragging the system drive is OK if and when you feel you need to.

Regarding Anti-virus. Symantec is on our system, but we do not have it running in the background. It is activated when we finish our editing day and does a full virus scan overnight. If you have Anti-virus, try temporarily disabling it and see if that helps.

Hi Greg,

greg2790:

"Never defrag your media drives".  I haven't seen that in Avid documentation.  Why would you not defrag?  After deleting clips at some point there's going to be all sorts of physical gaps on the drives and newly added clips will be segmented more than they need be, and basic computer 101 says that's inefficient, thus potentially slowing things down.... (I'm running a Raid 5 on 4 drives...)

It's explained in a note at the bottom of this Knowledge Base article.  For those of you who don't feel like clicking on the link, the note says:

"It is recommended to NOT defragment media drives, only the system drive.  Due to the high volume of data written to and read from the media drives, the drives are always in a fragmented state and Avid is designed to work with them like this."

good luck,
Carl

 I'm not using it for general purpose, it's a designated workstation, BUT it's a designated workstation for number of different things. Photography, illustrations, Video.

I'm also working with Red files which means I need superpower to transcode r3d.
So, I didn't choose power because I want to play games, I choosed it because I need that power when crossworking so many things.

And I also said earlier that buying a powerful system doesn't mean playing games, it means I need that power. I'm actually recommending this Clevo computer because it runs Avid and Redcine flawlessly, high quality 2K at realtime... on a laptop!