Shows 'sticking'part-way through

[cjdnzl]

Hello all,

Occasionally I have had a show just simply pause on one picture, and while the sound track continues, the image just sits there, stalled. This has happened on my desktop machine, 3.00GHz P4 Pentium and 1 GB ram, GeForce 6600GT graphics card, and now it has happened again on my brand-new Dell laptop, Intel Duo 1.8GHz, 3 GB ram, GeForce 8600GT graphics card. Program source is a 1 GB usb 2 flash drive (Imation) but I am fairly sure it has happened when the source is a HDD.

Replaying the show will run properly, and I cannot seem to be able to trigger this stalling. In front of a room full of viewers it's a bit embarrassing.

Has anyone else struck this, or does anyone have an idea why it happens. It doesn't seem to be linked to any one show.

Colin

PS: OS's are win 2000 and XP Pro. Happens with both.

[Ken Cox]

try it without sound

try it un synced

and/or

try it with another sound track

ken

[cjdnzl]

try it without sound

try it un synced

and/or

try it with another sound track

ken

Aaahh, sorry Ken, it's happening on downloaded shows where all I have is the exe file.

Colin

[Ken Cox]

FORGOT TO ASK

is it always same picture?

try repositioning pict in the sequence

or removing it resaving it with a different name and put it back in

also you could try the exe directly on hard drive

remove files off stick and reformat stick and put everything back on stick

there all sorts of combinations you can try

ken

[nobeefstu]

Colin,

First ... verify that your issue is from both the Hard Drive and your USB Flash Drive. USB Flash Drives transfer speeds are considerably slower than that of a Hard Drive. USB Flash Drives were originally intended as storage devices ... alot of newer generation of USB Flash Drives have higher transfer speeds that may better handle the running of an application.

Flash Drives "typical overall file transfer speeds are about 3 Mbytes/s. The highest current overall file transfer speeds are about 10-30 Mbytes/s."

Check your Imtation vendor site for specs on your model flash drive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive

[Conflow]

Colin,

Just had a look at your problem ~ interesting one is that ~ and you are using Win 2000 and XP-Pro

which I also use and the common PTE Source File(s) are copied from your Flash Drive Memory.

You say that this happens to other Shows randomly when these are replayed on the XP and 2000.

QUESTION

Are all these Shows origionally sourced from the Flash Drive Memory ? or External Sources ?

You are using USB.2 Protocol to transfer the Shows from the Flash Drive to the other PCs' ?

QUESTION

How are you running the USB...In direct Play Mode thro' the PC ?....Or transfer to PC Hard Drives ?

Assuming you are running the 'Copy Shows' from the XP and 2000 Hard Drives !

QUESTION

Did you replay the 'Copy Shows' directly from the XP and 2000 HD's without Re-starting the PC ?

What Anti-Virus are you using ?.....

QUESTION

Is this Anti-Virus running when the Copy Shows are Playing ?

Forgive the questions, I am simply trying to zero-in on to a possible cause & effect situation.

Brian.Conflow.

[cjdnzl]

Colin,

Just had a look at your problem ~ interesting one is that ~ and you are using Win 2000 and XP-Pro

which I also use and the common PTE Source File(s) are copied from your Flash Drive Memory.

You say that this happens to other Shows randomly when these are replayed on the XP and 2000.

QUESTION

Are all these Shows origionally sourced from the Flash Drive Memory ? or External Sources ?

Almost all are downloads from beechbrook or mediafire straight onto the HDD in the desktop.

You are using USB.2 Protocol to transfer the Shows from the Flash Drive to the other PCs' ?

Yes, so far to run on an Alienware laptop (since returned) and now on a Dell 1520, specs as my prevous post.

QUESTION

How are you running the USB...In direct Play Mode thro' the PC ?....Or transfer to PC Hard Drives ?

Playing the show direct from the flash drive. On restarting the show, the problem does not occur a second time.

Assuming you are running the 'Copy Shows' from the XP and 2000 Hard Drives !

QUESTION

Did you replay the 'Copy Shows' directly from the XP and 2000 HD's without Re-starting the PC ?

From the HDD on the desktop, from the flash drive with the other machines.

What Anti-Virus are you using ?.....

I do not have AntiV or antiSpyware running at all. I use ZoneAlarm Pro as my protection. It runs scheduled scans at selected intervals, and I have it on both desk and laptop machines. Never had a problem with nasties, BTW.

QUESTION

Is this Anti-Virus running when the Copy Shows are Playing ?

No

Forgive the questions, I am simply trying to zero-in on to a possible cause & effect situation.

No problem at all, Brian, I'm very pleased that you are interested enough to comment.

Brian.Conflow.

Regarding the 1MB Imation flash drive, 'HD Tach' (a speed-measuring program) measures this drive at 11MB/sec, which I would think ample for replay speed. Also, exe files are completely loaded into memory before running, so I should imagine the source would be irrelevant.

My thoughts so far are on something like a happenchance interrupt taking the CPU away from the show enough to miss a transition marker of some sort, but then I would expect the show to pick up the next slide transition and run one slide behind, but not so. It remains stalled on the one slide.

This is not a common happening, unfortunately, and seems unreproducible on demand. But it is often enough to have me sweating a bit when I have an audience.

Regards,

Colin

[Conflow]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the quick replies ~ the "Attachment" below will show the most likely cause

for the Exe 'Lockup' ~ there are other reasons, but the attachment explaination is the

most likely culprit.

Brian.Conflow.

[fh1805]

Colin,

In one of your posts above you wrote: "...Also, exe files are completely loaded into memory before running..."

Don't be too sure about this!

I occasionally move my exe files from desktop PC to laptop PC and vice versa using a USB memory stick. Mine has a little green LED which illuminates when the stick is being accessed. I, like you, thought that Windows would load the entire exe file into memory and run it from memory. Let's face it both PCs have at least 1GB of RAM and the biggest PTE exe file I have is only 125MB - so there should be enough RAM to fit the exe in completely.

But when the sequence is run directly off the USB stick, the little green LED flashes away like mad all the way through the play of the exe. And this happens on both systems - laptop is XP Home SP2, desktop is Vista Home Premium.

So, when the PTE exe file is actually running, something is accessing the USB stick on a very frequent basis.

[cjdnzl]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the quick replies ~ the "Attachment" below will show the most likely cause

for the Exe 'Lockup' ~ there are other reasons, but the attachment explaination is the

most likely culprit.

Brian.Conflow.

Thank you, Brian, I think you have nailed it there. Which raises the question as to how to tell the computer about the exe file when it is on a flash drive the computer hasn't seen before? If I take the FD to the club computer and run a show straight off the drive, I am risking the lockup happening, right? What if I use Windows Explorer or My Computer to open the drive and display the exe files, would that give the computer the chance to 'log' the files? or do I have to copy the files to the HDD?

Sorry for the questions. Doesn't matter how much one knows about these things, there is more to learn ...

Regards,

Colin.

[cjdnzl]

Colin,

In one of your posts above you wrote: "...Also, exe files are completely loaded into memory before running..."

Don't be too sure about this!

I occasionally move my exe files from desktop PC to laptop PC and vice versa using a USB memory stick. Mine has a little green LED which illuminates when the stick is being accessed. I, like you, thought that Windows would load the entire exe file into memory and run it from memory. Let's face it both PCs have at least 1GB of RAM and the biggest PTE exe file I have is only 125MB - so there should be enough RAM to fit the exe in completely.

But when the sequence is run directly off the USB stick, the little green LED flashes away like mad all the way through the play of the exe. And this happens on both systems - laptop is XP Home SP2, desktop is Vista Home Premium.

So, when the PTE exe file is actually running, something is accessing the USB stick on a very frequent basis.

Peter,

You have raised a good point there. I experimented by starting a show from the flash drive, and after the first frame or two, I yanked the flash drive out of the usb socket.

The show continued for a few more frames, and then stopped with the message "Cannot find Image ...".

I figure from that, what actually happens is that the executable part of the show and maybe the sound track is loaded at once, but it fetches the images as they are required, which will minimize memory requirements, but means the flash drive will be constantly active.

This also implies that the speed of the flash drive is relevant as well where fast slide changes are happening, and would also be a good reason to pre-size the images.

Anybody with more knowledge out there?

[Conflow]

Colin and Peter,

Yes both of you are correct for different reasons due to different approach's to the problem.

Peters assumption is correct, the PC treats a Memory-Pen as a HD under USB.2 Protocol and

will drive directly from the Pen. ~ USB.2 has a max transfer speed of 480mB/sec ~

When playing directly from the Pen the Shows are not registered in the Registry -no need to-

because the Pen goes through the PCs 'USB Root Hub' which is already a pre-registered device.

Colin~

The easiest way out of your dilema without having to 'Load' the Shows on to your PC without

always having to invoke a 'Restart' of your PC is to load the Shows on to a 1.Gb Memory-Pen.

It costs about £12 from Argus. Now go down to the Club and Transfer the Files to a 'Temp-Folder'

on the Clubs PC. name this folder 'Download'. (You can reuse the Pen over and over)

Create this in Win.Explorer on the HD and send a Shortcut to the Desktop, you will reuse it again.

Simply load the Memory-Pen into the Shortcut and restart the PC ~ all will work fine for you.

When finished -->Open Folder-->Edit-->Select All-->File-->Delete. This clears the Folder

which is left intact for the next user. It takes longer to explain how, but doing it is a few seconds.

Hope this is of some help...

Brian.Conflow.

[cjdnzl]

<snip>

Colin~

The easiest way out of your dilema without having to 'Load' the Shows on to your PC without

always having to invoke a 'Restart' of your PC is to load the Shows on to a 1.Gb Memory-Pen.

It costs about £12 from Argus. Now go down to the Club and Transfer the Files to a 'Temp-Folder'

on the Clubs PC. name this folder 'Download'. (You can reuse the Pen over and over)

Create this in Win.Explorer on the HD and send a Shortcut to the Desktop, you will reuse it again.

Simply load the Memory-Pen into the Shortcut and restart the PC ~ all will work fine for you.

When finished -->Open Folder-->Edit-->Select All-->File-->Delete. This clears the Folder

which is left intact for the next user. It takes longer to explain how, but doing it is a few seconds.

Hope this is of some help...

Brian.Conflow.

Would it not be the same if I boot the computer with the flash drive inserted? When it finds the FD it should register the programs the same as if they were on the HD?

Colin

[Conflow]

Hi Colin,

I can't answer that question because I don't know what USB.2 Protocol the Flash Drive is using.

There are many types of 'Flash Drives' very much like the old USB1.0 and USB1.1 Systems, thankfully

all these varients are now unified into the Industrial USB.2 Standard. Flash Drives never got to that stage of Standardisation due to the various 'reading-speeds' used by different Manufacturers and the different driver requirements of each.

On the other hand USB.2 is automatically recognised by 99% of PCs ~except Vista~ which makes a great song and dance about checking this and checking that etc,etc and Bla..Bla..Bla !

What a load of 'old-cobblers' because I have just spent the entire Friday installing 3 New Dell Vistas

and each in turn "stalled" when asked to read & run 2 different makes of (expensive) Memory-Pens.

My Industrial Client was rather shaken with this experience and I know what he is going to do next.

Vista is mis-named, it should have been called the "Narcissus Operating System" because it loves itself......too much !!

Brian.Conflow.