Crossfade glitches after long cues

[micpool@mac.com]

Thanks for your prompt reply.

I think the main thrust of my initial problem might have got obscured by my later points.

Leaving aside the loss of sync issue (which I accept is unrelated if Catalyst couldn't have caused it):

I am unclear as to whether you are saying that when Catalyst is overloaded it should only drop frame rate and pause momentarily, or whether blank output can be expected under some overload conditions.

I still have a glitch, which has caused screen blanking, that occurs at 2 specific points in the show which have the common condition that they have been playing long cues before a crossfade.

We have replicated these problems outside show running when all other systems have been off so I don't think its a power or RF issue.

The crossfades on these cues are also quite long (20s) and I appreciate that, as originally programmed, for the duration of these crossfades Catalyst was playing out 4 layers of 800x600 photojpeg. But having changed the incoming footage to inframe it is only playing moving video on 2 of the 4 layers involved for the crossfade duration which should be well within the system capability.


Thanks

Mic

BTW the performance of 3.31 on the G5 Quad has been very good. I am playing out 1024x768 Photo jpegs on screen1 and 800x600 jpegs on screen 2 and everything is pretty solid during simultaneous crossfades on both screens.

[samsc]

I still have a glitch, which has caused screen blanking, that occurs at 2 specific points in the show which have the common condition that they have been playing long cues before a crossfade.

i can think of nothing in software that would case a screen to go blank.
nothing - no overload - or anything. it would never do that.
unless something is going wierd in your dmx.


suggest you check the dmx input/output and check whether there isnt some funky dmx error, that the console is not outputting zero for a brief moment.

in my experience it would not be impossible that you have encountered some kindof math error in the lighting console....

---

as far as the monitor loosing sync- that HAS to be a hardware issue...
nothing in any software would ever turn the video output from the entire computer off.

[Spam Butterfly]

I'm not sure I've ever seen a Mac 'lose' a display under any conditions. However, it might be something else in the chain...? Perhaps some spurious RF like walkie talkies?

Hugh

[samsc]

have you noticed the mac loose sync at any other time?

it is a new graphics card...

is it still doing this?

[micpool@mac.com]

We have now completely eliminated the Catalyst system as the cause of this problem!

Sorry, it was just a series of unfortunate coincidences where every thing we did to reduce the load on the Catalyst systems seemed to directly correlate to an improvement in the time between glitch incidents and the fact that this is a show with very little heavy mains equipment or motors in a modern purpose built venue with no history of power supply or RF problems

We are now trying to work out whether the projectors or the Smart E Cat5 convertors are the problem, and the source of the interference.

Thanks for reponding so quickly and firmly but politely pointing us away from the Catalysts being the likely source of the problem.

Mic

[samsc]

thanks mike.

it didnt have the profile of a computer or software problem.

i have worked in this field long enough to check for other types of things like interference and power issues.