Avid Media Composer - PC

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

general_failure — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:37:13 GMT

jwrl:
I think that your assumption that the faulty drive caused all of your issues is pretty close to the mark.

Sometimes compromises are a good way to go, aren't they? So together we saved one hard drive, but you are certainly right up to the point that it's unsave to run hardware that might be faulty and on the other hand is cheap. But having bad experiences with software "RAIDs" I really thought it could be the culprit and that doublechecking* the drives un-raided could save some money.

In the end I am also just glad you're able to work again, Marc! Regards, g_f

*S.M.A.R.T.-test and checkdisk should sort the most hardware related problems out. Also when a drive gets formated (not fast-formated) bad sectors should get sorted out, AFAIK.

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

jwrl — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:51:15 GMT

Glad you found the problem. I think that your assumption that the faulty drive caused all of your issues is pretty close to the mark.

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

mfantu — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:18:51 GMT

Thanks for the add info jwrl. For some reason my SMART software as well as windows XP tools tell me that all my drives are healthy. So i unstriped the HDD's like Gen_fail suggested. I reformatted them and tried using both as my avid mediafiles import drive. 1 worked and the other didnt. So i found my problem. It was one faulty drive. Im gonna keep the other one but ill get a SATAII 10,000rpm one for my media going forward. Mine are all 7200 at the moment.

I can assume all of this happened because of that drive. My media went offline cause the drive corrupted my avid media folder (wich i stupidly failed to backup occasionally). Then i had playback issues cause i was trying access media that was being bottlenecked by the faulty HDD. This would have been a huge pain in the ass if i didnt learn all that i did about Avid going through it. It also made me realize i should do much more learning.

Thanks,

Marc

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

jwrl — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:30:09 GMT

Back on this thread after a day of commissioning a new system...

general_failure:
do not set up a software RAID!

g_f is right. In simple terms, with hardware RAID the CPU just says to the RAID subsystem "here's some data I need saved (or recovered)" and gets on with whatever other tasks it has to do. With software RAID it has to split the incoming data into separate data streams to write, and merge the incoming data streams to one to read.

With a fast enough system you can still get a sufficent performance improvement to make it worthwhile, but how much better is it not to load your CPU with unnecessary tasks?

general_failure:
Before going out purchasing new drives I would try to reformat the old ones

This is where I differ from g_f. Drives are cheap enough nowadays to replace at the first hint of trouble. I regard the added cost as cheap peace-of-mind insurance.

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

general_failure — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:47:32 GMT

Before going out purchasing new drives I would try to reformat the old ones (once the media folders are backed up!) and then do not set up a software RAID! Especially no software RAID0! The only reason for choosing a RAID0 is speed, if a hardware RAID controller is installed. Whenever you use software (e.g. Windows spanned drives) you will lose performance you might need.

BTW: how fast are your drives spinning 'round? You should know that you need at least 7.200rpm drives as media drives. But 10.000rpm-SATA II drives are quite cheap out there , so...

mfantu:
But anyways... Thanks to everyone on this forum who was kind enough to lend a hand.

We are all happy if we can lend a helping hand (I hope noone feels being patronised because I said "we").

Kind regards, g_f

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

mfantu — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:48:46 GMT

After the reinstall, i was still stuck with sluggish video playback. I figured the only thing it could be at this point was the hard drive. Even though my computer is showing that it has perfect health. So i did a batch import and set the destination drive to a different drive and bingo. It started working perfectly. Im glad its working but it also really suck cause now i have to get rid of two fairly new drives and buy new ones.

But anyways... Thanks to everyone on this forum who was kind enough to lend a hand.

Happy editing.

Marc

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

mfantu — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:17:49 GMT

No Prob Carl. your absolutely right anyways. It's important to learn this stuff. Were not dealing with MS Word here. Avid is a powerful tool that is an essential part of my career, and probably that of many others on this forum.

And i tried your suggestion, unfortunately it didnt work for me either. I will do the unistall and let you know how it goes.

Thanks,

Marc

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

camoscato — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:59:59 GMT

Hi Marc,

Wasn't trying to bust your chops with that post, more like a cautionary note. Anyway, try creating a new user and a new project. Then open up one of the bins with media that isn't playing back correctly (File > Open Bin, and navigate to the project that's causing trouble) and see if the problem persists. If it doesn't, then your project or user settings are corrupt.

good luck,
Carl

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

mfantu — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:55:06 GMT

Thanks Carl,

I have never defragmented my Media drive before, but i felt this casw was different bewcause it was showing up that my HD had much more info on it than it really did. So i thought that might have been part of the problem. I wouldnt have done it otherwise. And yes i agree, i will spend the time to gain the knowledge i need to better understand how Avid actually works. But for now, i really need to get my system up and running as soon as i can.

Well, i pretty much hit a dead end except for a complete uninstall/reinstall of Avid. My sofware RAID0 HDD's are fine. My OS HDD is perfect. I defraged the OS HDD. Reformatted my Media Drive. Dropped my MXF files in there and my Avid mediafiles folder as well. Restarted the computer. And finally, i checked to see if the video i was importing with the same setting as before and it is. But still, i get all that lagging when i scrub or play.

Any more ideas or suggestions before i uninstall?

Thanks,

Marc

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

camoscato — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 09:37:10 GMT

Hi Marc,

mfantu:
When i went to defrag, it told me that im using 550G of space on that media drive but really i had only 100G of data. Plus it was all over the place. Completely scattered. That seems like one reason my video was lagging so hard.

Actually, it's ok if Avid media is fragmented. Take a look at the note at the bottom of this Knowledge Base article:

Knowledge Base:
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.

Like the others have mentioned, I think the key to this is understanding how Avid manages media. If I remember correctly, the Advanced Techniques for Media Composer class covers this, and you might take a look and see if it's offered in your area, or take a class from Avid online:

http://www.avid.com/training/alex.asp

good luck,
Carl

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

mfantu — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 09:10:50 GMT

Guys, youve all been wicked in helping me get through my issues on this forum. Big time thanks.

Just to clarify, i have a software RAID0. @jwrl: Currently, building a RAID5 array isnt an option for me either.

Somehow it seems that my drive was backed up with ghost files. When i went to defrag, it told me that im using 550G of space on that media drive but really i had only 100G of data. Plus it was all over the place. Completely scattered. That seems like one reason my video was lagging so hard. So i just reformatted it and did a SMART check. It's telling me both the drives are at perfect health. So im bringing back the MXF files that i need and the "Avid MediaFiles" folder. Then i will do a batch import. I think it will go smooth. ill let you know.

Thanks for the great info and advice.

Marc

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

jwrl — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:54:45 GMT

general_failure:
One last thing: if you need to re-install the software there is no need to delete the "Avid MediaFiles" folder structure!

Marc didn't delete that folder, checkdisk did. Add to that the choppy playback, and that's why I suggested

jwrl:
You could have a media drive on the way out.

Since you're already using RAID, Marc, is it possible for you to go to RAID 5? It requires more disks, but it does give increased peace of mind.

I have had a total drive failure on a RAID 5 array. Apart from the array rebuild that the RAID firmware did in the background after I replaced the drive I had no further inconvenience.

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

mcabery — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:52:25 GMT

Another cause of choppy playback is that you may not have imported the video in the same format as you did originally. You might check what format you brought it in as and see how that compares with your original...

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

Galo — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:49:26 GMT

Hi Marc, put the media files in a RAID 0 array is not necessary a bad idea but you must be conscious that the probability of a failure is multiplied for the number of disc member of the RAID, this is the reason why I use RAID 0 only for files that I can recreate. Before change the hard drives check the cables, the SATA connections can be oxidates (here, in a tropical land, is a quite common problem) and slow down dramatically the transfer rate. If the problem persist and the HD diagnostic tool reveal the existence of problems, replace without hesitation the hard drive, better all the RAID member discs if they have more then two years of usage.

Galo

Re: XDCAM EX MXF + Media Offline

mfantu — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:13:33 GMT

Thanks a lot for your help guys. G_F, You are absolutely right. Understanding how Avid manages media is essential. I overlooked that big time, but im doing a lot of researching now. Thanks.

I am in the process of doing a smart check on that drive, but it's getting complicated i think, lol.

I have a 250G HDD for my OS only, A 500G HDD for Storage only, and then i have my 2x500 (RAID 0) HDD for my G:/Media. Im not certain SMART will work for this... Ill let you know.

By the way, is it a bad thing to put my "...Avid MediaFiles/" folder on the RAID 0?

I really appreciate your help,

Marc