Responding to the latest coercive upgrade we bought a -qualified- Dell 670 dual Xeon 3.2, 3 gig Ram, etc. and bought the MC 2.8.3 upgrade. So of course we are once again out of business for how ever long it takes to get this new system working. After 25 years of this its becoming tiresome.

We basicly just moved our XPress setup to the new machine. Nvidia Quadro fx 1400 in PCIex slot 1, ADS Pyro 64 in PCI-X slot 4, and ATTO UL4D U320 in slot6.

Mojo attached to built in 1394 port on rear. Firewire drives connected to ADS Pyro card. Sony DSR-45 attached to Mojo.

Software installed on C: internal SATA hard drive. All omf storage on external firewire drives.

When digitizing I keep getting audio frags or stuttering. If capturing batch or auto in_out capture this will generate the following message:

 Capture aborted due to lack of Progress

Console reports:

bad video frame was detected near frame 48304(this first lines repeats a gazillion times)

Exception: @ Fri May 23 14:35:14 2008
Exception: Capture aborted due to lack of progress
Caught Exception in DoDigitize: Capture aborted due to lack of progress
Operation stopped due to lack of progress.
 (Capture aborted due to lack of progress)

DIOProducer captured 48340 frames. Average frame size is 117.2KB.

Storage consumed at the rate of 4m:59s per gigabyte

   Captured master clip :: TAB Show Clips.01
All retries consumed!

OK, so sometimes if I try again it works, other times not, doesnt always happen in the same place...

I have the stop capture if dropped frame thing deselected as well as capture across timecode breaks.

Iève seen this issue discussed elsewhere in the forum, usually in relation to HDV, but we are just trying to do plain vanilla SP DV25.

Any help would be appreciated.

(aside- Why dont the quotes and other punctuation work in here)

Nice.  i see you already checked the Dell slot guide:

http://www.avid.com/resources/qualified/Dell%20670.pdf

what happens if you capture to the internal HD?  Also what happens if you bypass the Mojo?  disconnect it and plug in the DSR in its place?

"Responding to the latest coercive upgrade  ..."

If upgrading from Xpress Pro to Media Composer for only $495 is "coercive", what exactly would have made you happy?

"... once again out of business for how ever long it takes to get this new system working ..."

I'm not suggesting your problerms aren't real or significant, but I've built hundreds of systems, and rarely have issues.  I'm sure we can isolate your problem, and get to a properly runni9ng system.  At least, we'll give it our best shot!

"After 25 years of this its becoming tiresome ..."

Avid shipped their first system in 1989, which was 19 years ago.  So, apparently, the first 6 tiresome years weren't Avid's fault.  See notes below.

"Why dont the quotes and other punctuation work in here"

I'm in 100% agreement here.  The old system allowed colored text, and many other enhancements.  Now, while waiting for some new and far off system, all that cool capability has been turned off.  Agreed, it sucks.

**********************

Your system seems built to spec.  According to the Dell 670 Configuration, your cards are in the correct slots:

http://www.avid.com/resources/qualified/Dell%20670.pdf

Are you running Windows XP Pro?  What nVidia driver?  Did you tweak the Display Properties as per the ReadMe?  Did you do the Windows Optimization Tweaks ...

http://tinyurl.com/6xlg76

Whitehorse:

Responding to the latest coercive upgrade we bought a -qualified- Dell 670 dual Xeon 3.2, 3 gig Ram, etc. and bought the MC 2.8.3 upgrade. So of course we are once again out of business for how ever long it takes to get this new system working. After 25 years of this its becoming tiresome.

You just bought a 670 workstation?  Those were replaced by Dell over a year ago.  Dude...that $499 upgrade rocks.  But you could have just stayed on XPress Pro and continued to cut.  If the need to move to MC was for HD, well a 670 isn't going to hack that very well anyway right?  I'm missing something...

If you could do some  testing for us that will help.  As mentioned above, bypass the Mojo and the firewire drives.  Capture to an internal drive so the only firewire device is the deck.  If that doesn't fail then we are on the road to figuring this out a little faster.  Add one piece back to the equation and see what combination tanks it.

Also, check for firmware and/or driver updates for add-on cards - but make sure you can roll back if needed, but try the updates. 

Randall L Rike:

Avid shipped their first system in 1989, which was 19 years ago.  So, apparently, the first 6 tiresome years weren't Avid's fault.

LOL!

Thanks for the responses! (Buncha wiseasses!)

OK, First of all, I've had three FCP systems in house and after two years of total frustration sold them on ebay. FCP sucks way worse than Avid. They tell me it’s much better now…Where have I heard that before?

(Sidebar: Apple cool guy vs. PC Fat Kid. Sure Mac was popular in High School but he got deep into the smack after flunking out. PC guy is now a VP and 6% vested stakeholder at Oracle…it’s TRUE!) heheheh

Actually I've made a decent living off of my Avids over the years. I just look at Avid the way I look at America. I wish it could live up to it's promise.

Anyhoo, I started doing demos for Media Suite Pro at the Javitz center here in New York in 1992? I think? I loved the word processor interface over the flatbed analog of the Composer. Since then I've drunk the KoolAid and let myself be driven along with the rest of the herd, upgrading the hardware & software year after year trying to stay current. Maybe it was only 16 years, but it seems like 25...Since then I've been an active Beta tester on and off (hardware permitting), and user group subversive trying to do my bit to improve the product. Imagine how I felt when after carefully researching the system requirements for the Composer upgrade I discovered that they had switched the SysReq yet again and once again my shiny new computer is obsolete before it’s delivered!! Why can’t the Avid guys just tie the SysReq and Software release together. We know they’re joined at the hip so let’s just make a single document for crying out loud.

I went to the New Think event here in New York and was disappointed to see that the new think is very much like the old stink, pay up or die. The new bus architecture is HOT but the price of entry is prohibitive for the industrial user. For me it's always been about ROI and frankly the 10K+ price of entry for HD monitoring is WAY out of line. I'll just wait a year or two until enough folks have gone bellies up and then buy my DX on ebay...Maybe by then my clients will actually understand what HD BluRay is…”I hear that everything has to be HiDef by 2009!” OMFG.

And don't tell me how great a $50k edit system is compared to the 1/2 million dollar suite of yesteryear, When I was at EUE ScreenGems we got $700 an hour for a room and a guy, now I'm lucky to get a tenth of that, and we're not working 24 hours a day. The math has changed and survival is far more tenuous than back then! Broadcast revenues are down by 96% over 10 years and the end is not in sight!

Now about that "Capture aborted due to lack of progress" message, anyone have any useful comments or are we just starting another rant thread?

Peace!

Horse

 Thank You for an interesting suggestion. I will try this troubleshoot when I get past the immeadiate crisis. I'll let you know if it helps.

Thanks

Funky, Avid doesn't like it when you capture to the same drive (internal) as the software installation. I guess I'll try to bypass the Mojo, but it's never been a problem in the past, in fact it was the preswcribed configuration. IS there a system setup/configuration guide for the MC 2.8.3 / Mojo???

"IS there a system setup/configuration guide for the MC 2.8.3 / Mojo???"

The ReadMe file that acompanied your Avid software has some performance tips.  It also details proper setup of the nVidia card.  The correct nVidia driver is in the Utilities folder, under Avid.  The Windows Optimization goes through additional tweaks.  If you do all those, you're as cl;ose as you can be to a fully Avid spec'ed system.

BTW, the suggestion to capture to the internal, is just a "diagnostic test" to see if the external is problematic.  Once the issue is resolved, you should revert back to caturing to the external.