Hi,

I recently upgraded from Xpress Pro (5.7.7 I believe) to MC 3.0. I'm experiencing some problems with timelines routinely stuttering during playback, but ONLY on the Mojo output -- the record monitor plays just fine, and the CPU doesn't seem to be having a hard time.

Some specs: This machine is slightly below specs for MC3.0, it's a dual 2GHz Xeon (2.8 recommended), QuadroFX 1100 card (driver is 169.47_quadro_winxp2k_english_whql.exe which came with MC3.0), multi-segment PCI bus with Areca 10 disk RAID 5 on one segment and firewire card on other PCI segment, as is required. The Mojo is the one that came with XPress Pro when I bought it -- I call it legacy, but it's still supposed to work. I made sure to make a fundamental uninstall before upgrading. All material is DV Codec, no HD. I don't use the 3GB swapfile upgrade, because (1) it doesn't effect performance, and (2) my system, entirely loaded, still has about 700MB of physical memory left (2GB system).

I'm experiencing playback stuttering when ANY effect is on the timeline, even just a single title, even a StageTools Moving Picture effect that is *rendered*. Basically, anything but a single video clip without processing, will stutter once every couple of seconds, and audio will stutter at the same time. In XPress Pro with same hardware, I could routinely play large stacks of real-time layers.

Disk throughput is not a problem. I believe this RAID has tested to about 80MB/sec, of which I'm using 3.5MB/sec. The CPU load in Task Manager sits at around 40%-50% for playback, all very normal, actually I'm surprised it's not more. And, as I said, it's very important to remember that playback is JUST FINE on the desktop.

So this has to do with Mojo.

Any ideas? I'm not prepared to buy another Mojo or another computer or another graphics card. i believe that there's a specific reason for this behavior, and I want to solve it, not simply replace hardware at random. Everything above should be within spec, except the CPU, which is obviously not a problem, as the CPU is hardly even doing anything currently -- 40% average load.

I'm going to try to uninstall the Mojo once more and see if it makes a difference. Is it possible that Mojo needs a new driver or new firmware? If so, how would one find out?

Thanks,

Per

 OK, I'm not very smart. I have 3TB of detachable backup storage that is used for creating a mirror of the entire project which is stored in a firesafe, and Avid has started using these drives. Obviously, they're not RAID or even striped, they're single drives on USB, which is probably on the same segment as the Mojo as well. I detached the drive, rendered to the RAID, and my playback seems just fine.

So I don't believe the above post is an issue. But I'll find out soon.

I assume that the best way to lock these drives away from the Avid is to make Avid MediaFiles and empty directory and set it to read-only?

Best,

Per

 On what bus does the Mojo reside? We've seen a lot of stuttering issues when the Mojo is on a PCI bus segment.

If you are going to run a DNA, it needs to be on the CPU's internal FW bus. Hopefuly that's where yours is.

 As I said, Mojo is exactly on the OTHER segment as the storage. Mojo has the PCI bus segment completely to itself. It's not possible to not have firewire on a PCI bus segment. Even a computer with internet FireWire creates a virtual PCI Bridge on the motherboard to do it. FireWire will ALWAYS be on a segment, the point is just that whatever you use for media storage has to be on the OTHER segment. Not all motherboards have multiple PCI segments available to the end user, which is why Avid is very specific about this.

BUT, there's no problem. The problem was that Avid had started to create media on the backup drives, which ARE on the same segment, because this USB card sits on the same segment -- not a conflict, because the USB is never used at the same time as the Avid -- except if Avid starts to use those drives for media.

Just move all that captured and rendered media back on the RAID, started Avid again, plays like a charm. I've put the "Avid MediaFiles" text files without .txt extension to prevent future media creation on those drives.

Best,

Per

 Good grief, Charlie Brown, now I'm having the same problem as millions of users have had for decades with Avid, that there's no apparent way to prevent Avid from barging all over drives it shouldn't be putting media on.

I've tried the trick with creating Avid Mediafiles and OMFI Mediafiles folders and locking them. No luck, it doesn't work anymore, Avid keep writing to these drives.

I've tried the trick with creating the text-files with the folder-names, but this actually crashes Avid now in MC3.0. You get an error, and then your source/record monitors go black with Unable To Allocate Memory For Playback.

The trick with creating a separate Windows XP user JUST for editing Avid and then NOT giving permissions to that folder to that user, is so impractical it's ridiculous.

I have also tried looking for some sort of Windows program that can Hide drives. But since Avid is, and the caps are on purpose, THE ONLY COMPANY IN THE WORLD THAT WILL TAKE A DRIVE HOSTAGE, there doesn't even exist a Windows program to hide a hard disk from Avid. There exists only programs to hide hard disk from EVERY program, because noone has ever heard of a program that will not allow the user to select which drive is used. Noone except Avid has ever been so absurd. But I guess I'm the millionth person to whine about it, and Avid has probably heard about it for 20 years. But Avid still apparently believes that any drive hooked up to the computer, even a USB flash drive, is fair game. Come on, man!

I have to say that nice as Avid is, one really wants to bang one's head against a wall. I feel like I'm being given the finger as a user.

But OK, sorry about that, let's calm down here. If anyone has a hack, I would absolutely love to hear about it.

We CAN NOT disconnect these drives. It is legally not an option for us. We HAVE to take nightly backups. This is 3TB of backup space that Avid insists on hijacking. That's not fair.

Best,

Per

 Hmm, this is really hard. I tried to take the permission solution one step further, and Deny Write Permissions to all users, including Administrators to this folder. It doesn't matter. Avid now not only insists on rendering to this drive besides the fact that rendering is set to another drive which isn't even half full, it generates an error when this writing produces an error and won't render.

Sigh.

Per

 Since I'm probably not the only one going through grief about drive filtering, I thought I'd document my search.

I've since tried making the database files Read-Only. This also causes an Avid error, and you aren't even allowed to quit Avid, because it can't save, and thus won't quit. So that doesn't work.

I've tried the NODRIVES registry key that's supposed to hide drives. But it only works after a reboot. Then it's much more convenient to disconnect the USB drive while Avid is being started, and then attach it again. There's a slight amount of sarcasm here, because this is really idiotic.

Again, if anybody knows how to prevent Avid from hijacking a drive drive, I'd still love to hear about it.

Best,

Per

 And I've also tried detaching the drive as I start Avid, but it doesn't matter, as soon as it's reattached, Avid recognizes it and starts seeing it as a destination for stuff.

I think the solution is to be meticulous that every time you render, you check that Avid hasn't changed the desired destination drive. I've seen it switch back, because just before, I rendered an effect, selected the right drive for it. Then I rendered another effect, and it had jumped back. I think.

I'll have to check. But it doesn't appear that any of the tradititional hacks people have used work anymore. It may be that one just has to be religious about making sure a good destination drive is selected.

I must submit, though, that I find it fascinating that Avid has existed for all these years without a way to exclude drives, and there's plenty of grief about it around the internet, just no solutions, and Avid must have heard about this a million times. Especially nowadays, where Terabytes are a dime a dozen. You'll invariably have ridiculous amounts of storage space on the computer, but not all of it suitable for media. The Avid is obviously not smart enough to figure out if a drive is fast enough to play a certain kind of media, or it wouldn't have selected an USB drive to being with. But the point is that it's absurd that Avid forces you to use any drive that their primitive detection algorithm thinks is a good drive. And not only, that, there doesn't appear to be any workaround.

I can't see what Avid possibly has to gain from this "feature". Does it have something to do with wanting to sell one networked storage product and not another, or is there some kind of Avid product that Avid wants people to have on their machines? Why does Avid insist on putting media onto drives that can't handle it? Why is there not even the simplest drive exclusion dialog box, where you have your drives C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N etc, you get the point, with the checkbox next to each? What does Avid possibly stand to gain from preventing this painfully obvious and necessary control? Is there an Avid product I can buy to get a system that behaves rationally? Does Avid really assume that a computer will only have Avid, Notepad and Wordpad installed? Then why do they interface with all products? Isn't it reasonable to assume that Avid will be coexisting with other programs? How did Avid make it a decade into the 21st century and still not allow users to prevent a drive from being trampled all over, and the only solution is to disconnect it. This is a DOS mentality.

I just don't get stuff like that. Sorry for that rant. I apologize.

Best,

Per

perholmes:

As I said, Mojo is exactly on the OTHER segment as the storage.

Without trying to be offensive, Blkdog is trying to make sure you do have your PCI segment correct. There is a common mistake among users that PCI segment = PCI slot. This is not the case. A PCI slot can share the segment with not only other PCI slots, it can also share it with other hardware native to your motherboard. For example, the HP xw8000 shares the FW controller with the 2 33 Mhz PCI slot and the ethernet controller. On the same computer the 2 PCI-X 100 Mhz slots shares the same PCI segment.

If you can state your motherboard and slot configuration I may be able to help. 95% of the time stuttering during playback is a hardware/config issue.

The reason Avid is using the USB-harddrives is that the primary harddrives is full. There are parameters in the Settings. I do not remember where, but some is in media creation(creation media?) choice, but there is also one there You can tell Avid how to do then harddisk if full.

And Yes, Avid assume it is the only software on the computer. It is not a computer, it is a Editing tool which use a computer to make things work.

 I think this issue can be tracked back to a LONG STANDING BUG in Media Composer since version 2.2.3 - Media creation settings NOT being consistently honored, even after dragging them into the site settings window. Both BLKDOG and I have made multiple requests for this issue to get fixed and so far, no results. Maybe a picket line at Tewksbury?

I'm there with you picketing I have a few site settings that don't stick either!

[:'(]

Not to mention the the emo's not working either

 Hi,

It's described quote heavily above that the problem is solved, as it had nothing to do with any PCI segmenting directly. Avid had simply started writing to 3TB of SLOW backup media that it wasn't supposed to be writing on, and out of its own accord. As it should, it rendered and rendered and rendered onto the drive it was supposed to be rendering on. But then one day, maybe out of boredom, it suddenly picked a different drive.

And just for the record, the drive currently set as the destination for all capturing and rendering, still has about 100GB free. So Avid did this of their own accord. It's also not a matter of the RAID being temporarily unavailable so that Avid had picked another drive, as the RAID is a 10 drive RAID 5 monster that is directly inside the computer, and the OS is *booting* off of a partition on the RAID, so the RAID is been unavailable for exactly 0 seconds since the beginning of time.

Nope, the Avid did this on its own.

I don't think the current drive filtering needs to be justified or Avid defended. This is just stupid, and Avid should be helping by at the very least allow you to put a "noavid.txt" file on a drive like Google honors a "robots.txt" file, to exclude a drive. They don't have to make a GUI for it, but help a brother out!

But alas, I'm the millionth person to say it. Avid obviously doesn't care, because they've known about this for 10 years. I don't know what the logic is at the developer table. Certainly they're aware of it, i.e. "Many of our users are having trouble with drive filtering and our software puts media on drives it's not supposed to go on". And their answer is...? What IS their answer? "Whatever"?

Why is that not a critical issue? And moreover, they could fix it in less than 10 minutes. If their code is written in C++, here's the code that would fix all drive filtering problems:

while (stillScanning) {
    if (FileExists("G:/noavid.txt")) // Substitute drive letter
        continue;     // Skip scanning for this drive
}

There, that's it. How long did that take? 10 seconds? That's why Avid is intentionally omitting giving users control over which drive media is placed on. The question is just why. What conceivable benefit does Avid have? Is there some sort of product they want you to buy? Heck, I'll buy it!

But the solution, for now, is to be religious about checking that you're rendering on the right drive. It will say the correct drive 2,000 times. But one day, when you least expect it, it will have arbitrarily selected a different drive. That's not a feature, that's a bug.

Best,

Per

perholmes:

But the solution, for now, is to be religious about checking that you're rendering on the right drive. It will say the correct drive 2,000 times. But one day, when you least expect it, it will have arbitrarily selected a different drive.

This is exactly what I have been doing since discovering this problem years ago. Every time you capture, render, mixdown or import, CHECK THE DESTINATION DRIVE! Even with the system drive "filtered out" in the drive filtering taq in media creation settings, I occasionally, STILL see the C: drive show up as the destination! This is very frustrating and a situation that is LONG OVERDUE FOR REPAIR.

I wonder what would happen if we actually went to Avid HQ and picketed

Imagine this, a bunch of guys outside with pickets that say "We Want Drive Filtering Now!". Wouldn't that be an image. I think it would actually be so unusual and ridiculous that it would work.

Cheers,

Per