External Preview Locks Vegas 5

[Lamar Lamb]

I have searched multiple forums for an answer to this problem but have found nothing like it mentioned anywhere. Using Vegas 5b with External Preview will cause Vegas to lock after a few minutes. Basically what happens is that the external monitor goes blank and, of course, the preview window remains the same with the message about external preview being on. Audio is still going fine and the timeline cursor is still moving. The mouse cursor moves normally too. I'll try and stop the video by using any method available (mouse clicks, key presses) but Vegas simply won't accept the stop or pause events. The only thing that that I am able to do with Vegas at this point is open Task Manager and choose End Process. Even this takes a long while. Subsequent restarting of the Vegas application typically yields very long start-up times if it doesn't lock up on the re-start. If Vegas does start successfully then it will not see the IE1394 device. Checking windows system devices reveals no problems with the IE1394 device and it is available to other programs and works with them. The only recourse I have to restore proper Vegas operation after a lock up is to re-boot my machine.

I have tried numerous configurations of running services and applications and all my drivers are the latest. My system is an Athlon 1GHz with 384 Mb SDRAM with an NVidia Ti200 graphics card (Gainward Ti450) running Windows XP Pro SP2. My motherboard uses a VIA chipset and I’m aware of the latency issues with this chipset. I tried a beta fix for this latency problem called "PCI Latency patch for VIA Chipsets” but it did not do anything to resolve the locking issue with Vegas. I am running out of ideas. Anyone have any suggestions????

Thanks in advance.

[Edward Troxel]

Heat?
IRQ Conflicts?
Bad Cable?
Didn't mention what you are using for converting but, maybe, camera going to sleep?

Unfortunately, this sound like it's probably more related to hardware or drivers rather than Vegas.

[Rob Lohman]

I agree with Edward, sounds like some hardware problem. Make
sure all the connections inside the case (and all cards) are
secure/securely fitted.

I would try another firewire cable as well and do tell us which
device you are using to convert digital to analog.

[Lamar Lamb]

I have two Sony DSR-PD170's that I use for External Preview and its the same issue with both.

I don't think heat is an issue since this system is not overclocked and I've never had any stability issue with this unit, at least not since I got rid of ME and got XP Pro :-) . I have had problems with other systems that I have overclocked so I have an idea of what to look for.

The IE1394 cable works fine for capture and analog to DV. Never any issues. I don't see how it could it work fine for those and fail for External Preview. But I am running out of ideas.......

When this happens and I have to use task manager to kill Vegas, if Vegas will restart without rebooting the computer, which is only about 30% of the time, Vegas won't recognize the capture device even though Windows Movie Maker DOES recognize it and I can capture to Windows Movie Maker without a problem. This is the reason I tend to think the problem is related to Vegas or an interface it utilizes for communicating with the IE1394 device.

Another wierd thing I discovered last night is that sometimes if I click pause first rather than turning off External Preview I will still have to "end process" to kill Vegas but it will be much more likely to start up again without any problems and the capture device is still available.


Man, my head is hurting........ :-(


<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : Heat?
IRQ Conflicts?
Bad Cable?
Didn't mention what you are using for converting but, maybe, camera going to sleep?

Unfortunately, this sound like it's probably more related to hardware or drivers rather than Vegas. -->>>

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Are you SURE your Firewire card is true OHCI? This can be an issue. Do you have VIA chipsets? Promise RAID controller? Shared soundcard and 1394 card resources?

There are 5 pages of 1394 card problems listed on the VASST Vegas FAQ, partially courtesy of John Meyer.
You might also be suffering from a Windows problem that Microsoft has a driver patch for.
http://www.vasst.com/login.htm to get to the FAQ pages.

[Lars Siden]

LL,

When locked up - have you tried to power off and the on the camera to see if Vegas will "wake up"?

// Lazze \\

[Lamar Lamb]

Yes, I have tried many diferent combinations of camera on-off and booting. No change. Within about 2 to 8 minutes of viewing it locks up and nothing will resolve it except ending the Vegas process

.<<<-- Originally posted by Lars Siden :

LL,

When locked up - have you tried to power off and the on the camera to see if Vegas will "wake up"?

// Lazze \\ -->>>

[Lamar Lamb]

XP Pro identifies it as OHCI, for what that's worth. Yes, I do have VIA chipsets from the latency issue era and yes it has manifested itself in a game or two as crackling sound from my Sound Blaster Live 5.0 card. I have been thinking that this is the root of my problem but have not been able to pin it down. I was hoping someone else with a Via chipset from 2001 or earlier would have had the same problem so that at least I could have a little verification of my un-educated guess. As mentioned before, I have applied George E. Breese's PCI Latency patch for VIA Chipsets but it did not improve anything.

No RAID, IE1394 shared with modem - IRQ 3

Here's my system specs http://www.glassdolphinvideo.com/tem...tionreport.htm

<<<-- Originally posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle :

Are you SURE your Firewire card is true OHCI? This can be an issue. Do you have VIA chipsets? Promise RAID controller? Shared soundcard and 1394 card resources?

There are 5 pages of 1394 card problems listed on the VASST Vegas FAQ, partially courtesy of John Meyer.
You might also be suffering from a Windows problem that Microsoft has a driver patch for.
http://www.vasst.com/login.htm to get to the FAQ pages. -->>>

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

I'd try hard to get your priority of the 1394 card up to around 9, 10, 12. That might help. Modem share shouldn't be causing this, but priority could.

[Lamar Lamb]

By this I assume you mean setting the IE1394 IRQ to a higher priority IRQ? XP Pro won't allow that on this device. How is this accomplished?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Move it to another slot, that should help a great deal

[Dan Euritt]

there are a lot of things that you can still try.

make sure you have the latest directx version... try rolling back the video card drivers to older versions... pull that sound card out temporarily... move cards to different slots.

look at the processes running in task manager... get rid of everything that isn't needed, you can control the startup programs easier with spybot... no virus checkers, no defrag programs, check out blackviper.com to see how to stop unnecessary windows o.s. programs from running.

irq conflicts can be checked within windows as well.

[Lamar Lamb]

I swapped things around. It wanted to stay at IRQ3 after the first couple of times so I changed everything around and had to re-activate Windows and re-setup my network because I changed so much stuff. I finally got it to IRQ11 and tested it. Same problem. Sigh....

11 is shared with the network card now. Would that cause a problem?

I did find one other thread, over at the Sony forums, that sounded like the same problem. I posted on that thread but haven't heard from him yet.
http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.co...ssageID=339329

[Dave Largent]

That's when I have my most lockup probs with
Vegas: during external preview.