Am I in trouble? show wont run!!

[eldoradoboy]

Ok so a while back I blew up the PC i was going to use for the light show and thought about runniong an MP3 card on my 1602.. then later on, I wanted to play christmas music during the day while the hsow is off so I thought.. well i'll build another show PC.. and I did... my display is about 85% complete now so I was running some show tests over the weekend only to run into issues...

the PC is a 2.2 Ghz Core 2 Duo pentium with 2 gigs of RAM in it...

I hooked up my RS232 port to the serial.. hardware utility verified all controllers are on the network and off I go...

went to show builder// set up a schedule.. and then went to the tray utility and did enable shows..

first song starts playing as normal... well sort of.. throughout the show the Music Jumps periodically ... sometimes stutters for a half second or so...

the lights follow the music.. but the stutters are 2 or 3 times per song and random each time the show plays...

any ideas? because at this late date and a holiday in there im afraid i wont be able to get an MP3 player board to my house in time.. and not sure i have time to build another new PC...
-Christopher

[Max-Paul]

Disconnect your ethernet cable. Or if wi-fi, turn it off at the computer. Besides the show scheduler, what other icons do you have down in the task bar? Get rid of anything that does not have to do with running a show. Exit your IM, and any other chatting B.S. programs.

Sure individually each program does not hog that much resources. But add them all together and people will choke their computers to the point that they can not hardly function. I have told my 30 yr old daughter many times to not load up her task bar. Just this past year her computer choked to death. Lucky for her some female room mate knows something about computers and removed all of the crap from the task bar. Works reall good again she reports. Till next time she loads up the task bar.

And the ethernet will show up on the Task Manager as CPU % load. But it does load up the data Buss which slows data to the CPU and back out on the comm cables to your controllers. OR the sequence editor. Making everything stutter.

Give the above a try.

[Jeff Sand]

Get rid of any antivirus software you may be running, as well as anything else that might be running in the background. Check taskbar down by the clock as well as the Startup group in the Start Menu.

[eldoradoboy]

im running it with as little as possible.. the ethernet has to be hooked up so that I can remotely access the PC if needbe..

I first tried VNC server, but then shut that off and just had it available for RDP...

when I run tested the shows I was NOT remoted into the machine.. as I know all that rendering of screens can cause issues...

since it is on the network it has BitDefender Virus protection on it... perhaps the on-access scanning is eating the machine up....

its just wierd because i used to run my AL software on a 1.5 Ghz Celeron Mobile Laptop with 512 megs ram...

but I guess now I have grown up to 176 channels and the PC has to process a lot more than it did previously... and maybe the LOR is a little CPU more intensive ??...

-Christopher

[eldoradoboy]

I also just looked and some of my MP3's are 320 constant bitrate, and a couple others are 192 constant bitrate.... and another is 128 COnstant bitrate... the errors seem to occur in ALL my songs not just a couple...

if I re-render them to 128 are my sequences going to be off timed??

-Christopher

[Jeff Sand]

eldoradoboy wrote:

I also just looked and some of my MP3's are 320 constant bitrate, and a couple others are 192 constant bitrate.... and another is 128 COnstant bitrate... the errors seem to occur in ALL my songs not just a couple...

if I re-render them to 128 are my sequences going to be off timed??

-Christopher

Theoretically no, but I don't think this is going to make any difference for you. I'd really try removing that anti-virus first. If the box is just being used for LOR, there's no reason to have AV on it.

[eldoradoboy]

I killed the AV software... in fact completely uninstalled it... still a No go.. show wants to sputter... doesnt seem to matter if I have the serial port plugged in or not the music still jumps and jitters a bit...

is there a certain version of windows media player I need on my PC? somewhere I read the LOR uses the windows media player engine...
-Christopher

[Alan C]

Do you have any power saving features set on the computer?

Regards,

Alan.

[eldoradoboy]

all turned off.. no hard drive power down.. no CPU speedstepping, no monitor power off, no suspend.. I have ACPI disabled in the BIOS.. i cant even power it completely off by doing a windows shutdown... windows will wait for me to power off the PC...

thats why this is bizarre because this machine runs everything else i throw at it perfectly.... tried doing an uninstall of LOR and reinstall also just to see if that would help...

what kind of machines do you guys with big light shows run on??

176 channels seems small to me in the scheme of what I see here and on PlanetChristmas
-Christopher

[Jeff Sand]

I run the real shows off MP3 directors, but I do testing on an old P3-1000Mhz laptop with 256MB and XP with WMP 9. I do 160-180 channels with no problem, but then again that's with LOR1. Can't speak to LOR2 yet, but it does seem a little more resource hungry in my cursory observation.

[Salts]

You were asking about Windows Media Player. I think I read that it needs to be WMP 9 or later. Also you said you built a new machine. Have you done the updates to Windows. I had to do that on mine in order for to even get WMP9 b/c the install disk had WMP 8.

[basis21b]

For what its worth...

I have a Dell laptop that pauses and sputters when I play music. I was surprised to learn that if I disabled the wireless card the pauses stop.

The point being that some poorly behaving component/driver could be impacting the behavior of WMP. Try disabling the network. If it corrects the problem maybe you can replace the existing NIC with another and not have the issue.

[eldoradoboy]

I think I found it!!

I had forgotten when I put this machine together (yes it is a laptop) that I had loaded LORvis on it to play around.. its a windows media player plugin to use 16 channels as a dance lights controller...

well i had left that plugin selected.. and so I suspect when LOR called the WMP engine it may have tried to also load that plugin.. and conflicted wit hthe serial port so more than likely that plugin kept dropping exceptions...

I turned that plugin off

I'll know more when I do some more testing but now at least I can get through the show without hearing the Music Blip...

thanks for everyones suggestions because regardless I think all this will help things to run smoother...

I was really Not wanting to have to order an MP3 card and then have to learn to use it on a Live show... looks like I wont have to,..
-Christopher

[rgardner518]

How does everyone who uses
LORVisThink of it? Is it worth it? does anyone have a video of what it looks like?

[eldoradoboy]

I only played with LORVis but wouldnt even consider running a live show with it.. for one it only uses 16 channels.. for another its just WAY TOO blinky for my tastes..

it would work great if you are having a dance party and want to use some LOR channels for dance lights but to run a christmas show on it.. definately NOT the way to go...

I didnt take any video of it.. it is free so if you have LOR controllers just download it and give it a shot with some lights on the floor..
-Christopher

[Guest guest]

eldoradoboy wrote:

I also just looked and some of my MP3's are 320 constant bitrate, and a couple others are 192 constant bitrate.... and another is 128 COnstant bitrate... the errors seem to occur in ALL my songs not just a couple...

if I re-render them to 128 are my sequences going to be off timed??

-Christopher

Chris, since I am going to be running my shows off a LOR1602MP3 Showtime Director I have converted all my MP3 files from their VBR and CBR rates down to the 128kbps. It doesn't affect anything really, supposedly the sound quality isn't as good, but to be quite honest, I don't really hear much of a difference at all between a 320kbps MP3 and the same MP3 converted to 128kbps used on an SD card in the MP3 director unit.

Just a side note here: I know LOR recommends these SD cards in their manual for the DC-MP3 director: Lexar Media and Simple Tech are known to work.

I have used the following SD cards: Dane-Elec 1GB and 2GB SD cards, Sans Disk SD Cards in 128MB, 512MB, 1GB and 2GB cards in my LOR1602MP3 director and all have worked with no problems. This is if you decide to ever go this route and use a stand-alone MP3 director to run your shows, instead of your computer.



BTW: my system I program and test my sequences on is the following:

Windows XP Home Edition w/SP3

Windows Media Player 11

MagicJack Telephone Hardware (which this can be a real p.i.t.a. too, when a call comes in or someone picks up the phone to make a call the darn phonebook/dialer pops up and gets to be really annoying, especially since it takes precedence over anything being done on the computer! That's the only real complaint I have with the MJ phone system. If I could disable the pop-up override everytime someone picks up the phone or a call comes in that would be great.)

Connected via Ethernet and Linksys Router to Internet

Memory: 512MB (maximum allowed in this old tower)

1.2 Ghz Processor

80GB main drive

320GB secondary drive

2 HP DVD Recorders

and still has a 3-1/2" 1.44 floppy drive

external USB Card Reader/Writer by Digital (older one I aleady had)

CapWiz Video Recording Hardware

LOR USB485B connected to my CTB16PC contrioller and LOR 1602MP3 Showtime Director and Mobile BlackBox Eclipse 4000 FM Transmitter.

Radeon 9250 Graphics Accelerator PCI Card

Ethernet PCI card

5 port High Speed USB PCI

Canon MP190 scanner/printer

This is an old HP Pavillion, think it is an xt528 (there's no cover and the front plate that denoted what the computer is/was is also long gone. LOL)

And I have a few programs loaded on the taskbar that load when Windows starts up or gets rebooted during updates.



Mainly the Magicjack, LOR Control Panel, ATI Radeon Display Drivers, Canon My Printer, Volume Control, Internet connection and ethernet connection status and IM. And none of these have ever affected how any of my MP3's play when running a test show before I'm ready to copy it to the SD Card. The only annoyance is the MJ, when the phone rings it also rings through both the computer internal speaker and the amplified speakers. In some ways that's a plus if I'm using my FM transmitter and listening to music while doing yardwork, I know if the phone starts ringing because it also gets transmitted. But during a live show, that wouldn't be a good thing. This is why I went with getting the LOR1602MP3 Showtime Director to run everything off an SD card in standalone mode.

[-klb-]

Just as a reference, the CPU in this case was definitely powerful enough. My home show is running about 250 channels on a Pentium III 600Mhz system, with 512Meg, and windows XP, with LOR 2.5.2...

[rgardner518]

Orville wrote:

Mainly the Magicjack, LOR Control Panel, ATI Radeon Display Drivers, Canon My Printer, Volume Control, Internet connection and ethernet connection status and IM. And none of these have ever affected how any of my MP3's play when running a test show before I'm ready to copy it to the SD Card. The only annoyance is the MJ, when the phone rings it also rings through both the computer internal speaker and the amplified speakers. In some ways that's a plus if I'm using my FM transmitter and listening to music while doing yardwork, I know if the phone starts ringing because it also gets transmitted. But during a live show, that wouldn't be a good thing. This is why I went with getting the LOR1602MP3 Showtime Director to run everything off an SD card in standalone mode.

I see you have magic jack! Are you REALLY happy with it? I hated mine, I had so many problems, and with no phone support to help you, it sucked!

[Guest guest]

ny_yankee_25 wrote:

Orville wrote:

Mainly the Magicjack, LOR Control Panel, ATI Radeon Display Drivers, Canon My Printer, Volume Control, Internet connection and ethernet connection status and IM. And none of these have ever affected how any of my MP3's play when running a test show before I'm ready to copy it to the SD Card. The only annoyance is the MJ, when the phone rings it also rings through both the computer internal speaker and the amplified speakers. In some ways that's a plus if I'm using my FM transmitter and listening to music while doing yardwork, I know if the phone starts ringing because it also gets transmitted. But during a live show, that wouldn't be a good thing. This is why I went with getting the LOR1602MP3 Showtime Director to run everything off an SD card in standalone mode.

I see you have magic jack! Are you REALLY happy with it? I hated mine, I had so many problems, and with no phone support to help you, it sucked!

Hi ny-yankee, yes and no. It serves its purpose for the moment, but I agree their is no phone support for it. I've been in chat a lot over mine not getting along with my system. I actually had to do some kludging to get it to even work, plug and play IT IS NOT!

And their tech support, if you can call it that is a joke, they tell you to do this, do that and when you tell them you already tried the very stuff they're telling you at least twice or more, they still insist you do it and it still didn't work! Duh uh!

Once the time runs out on mine, which I think that will happen in May, I doubt I'll renew it or "extend it".

I wouldn't recommend it, not to anyone that uses their computer to run a LOR Controller off of.



I have to say, the vocal quality has been really excellent, but I don't like the fact I can't talk to a live person except in a chat and that isn't always the best way to handle customer issues. Nor do they have an e-mail address to contact them about problems, always have to go their live chat. And what the heck is up with advertising Magic Jack on their own phone dialer that NO ONE else may see but the computer owner/family members that use it? Waste of advertising space and resources!

Then there's the voicemail, it'd be great and I suggested this to them when I first got mine, add a freaking blinking red light to alert you if you have new VM's! I mean it can't be that hard to add to it. It already has a red light there that could be made brighter or change color to show a new VM has come in. That was suggested well over 7 months ago, still haven't seen it implemented.

And because of the way my computer system is, every time they do an automatic upgrade, which that in itself annoys me no end, I want to know and be asked, upgrade or not, but they just auto-upgrade, then I have to go back and re-kludge the settings in my computer to make the darn thing work again, which usually takes about 30 minutes to an hour. EXTREMELY ANNOYING!

So yea, I kind of actually hate the thing, give me a regular land line phone anytime. Less problems, less issues and I have phone numbers, e-mails and sometimes even an retail outlet I can go to to get problems solved. MJ is okay, but I won't recommend it to anyone!

Sorry for straying off topic folks, but a question was asked and I did feel obliged to give my opinion and answer the question about it.

[rgardner518]

Orville wrote:

MJ is okay, but I won't recommend it to anyone!

Sorry for straying off topic folks, but a question was asked and I did feel obliged to give my opinion and answer the question about it.

Sorry Everyone for what follows!

I had magic Jack for 2 months before I canceled it and got a refund for the services. I also Had all the same issues you had, but the clearness of calls ALWAYS sounded like, one of the parties was a a cell phone in a really bad service area. I really liked the number I got, so I ported my number over to TWC.

I remember a time when I had an issue and to troubleshoot it while I was chatting with them online, they wanted me to unplug my modem and rest it, than bypass my router. So when I did it and got disconnected from the chat, (like you didnt know that was going to happen) I had to explain it all over again to another person via chat. that to have the person tell me to do they same thing after telling them I was done. They said its a issue with your router and you will have to go without a router. I was like No! find another way to fix it.

There was even a time they were troubleing shooting it down to the little 6" usb cable being bad. So when I requested they replace it they said they dont warrenty the usb cable and to just plug it directlly into the back! I dont they relize how many people dont have the ability to pug a big thing like that in because everything connection on the back is all on top of each other. I told them NO! In order for me to do that I would have to unplug my keyboard, mouse, and monitor, than I can plug in the magic jack. When they said go a head, THATS, when I knew they did not know what they were talking about.