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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Sat Oct 04, 2008 11:55 pm

Thanks once again, will do that.
Pauline

Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Fri Feb 27, 2009 8:06 pm

Thanks so much for posting this guide! I started having an issue with the program not wanting to close??????
I was having to use the windows task manager to close it. I deleted proshow.cfg and proshow.phd and it seems to have solved this problem. ProShow sure does have some weird bugs :?

Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Sat Oct 24, 2009 8:22 am

I would like to add:

If you're using videos and transitions seems to not work in the right way (sometime the video may flicker or seems distorted,etc...), the problem can be the soundtrack. Try removing the soundtrack and render again, if it works you've to convert the soundtrack to .wav (wave format, not compressed).
This issue appear if you works with videos and the soundtrack is MP3 VBR (works ok with MP3 CBR).


This is a bug...but finally I found the solution!

Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Tue Apr 23, 2013 5:26 pm

Thanks for the info!

Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Tue Sep 10, 2013 5:56 am

Hi. I read through this useful thread and find it very useful. However, one word of caution regarding data archiving:

When archiving data, using DVDs is a mixed bag. Yes they are read only and easy to organize or give to a client. The only problem is lifespan. A burnable DVD uses dye material to store the data. This dye will fade and degrade over time and after a few years, will likely begin to reach a state that is unreadable. Higher quality DVD media will last longer but still suffers from the same problem.

Therefore, serious archiving should still be done on an external hard drive and then stored safely offsite protected from fire, etc. A hard drive is surprisingly very stable for storage. Most hard drives fail due to mechanical problems, not problems with the platter surfaces or magnetic data. Using a lower capacity hard drive is also safer since the data is stored in such a massive density on the platter. If any sector corruption occurs, there is less data to error correct. (IE: 500 GB drive vs 4 TB drive, 8x density.)

If you Google about data archiving, you'll likely discover that this is a problem that the National Archives is struggling with, how to safely store digital content for decades. Not only is it a media lifespan problem, it's an interface problem. Storage technology from only 20 years ago is now outdated and gone. (Remember floppy disks, parallel or scsi zip drives, etc? Now go try to find a way to connect or read one.)

So in 20 years from now, what are the chances that you will be able to dust off that DVD (likely unreadable) or external USB/Firewire hard drive and just plug it in to your then current computer? Will the filesystem format even still be readable? Sobering thought, eh?

Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Tue Sep 10, 2013 9:39 am

All good points, however, hard drives are also an issue - the data may be valid on the disk, but how many people still have systems that can read the MFM interface drives (or even the IDE drives these days). There is also the consideration of what format you save the images in. JPG is probably fairly safe, but many of the camera raw formats (or other proprietary formats) are likely to not be around 10 or 20 years from now. There is no simple answer - many of us have old photos from 100 years ago that have been laying around in drawers. They may have cracks and coffee stains on them, but in general, still useable - unfortunately, with digital media, it tends to be "all here" or "all gone". People think that DVD's will be around for a long time (and if you watch the ads on TV, then they will last well into the next ice age ... yeah, right) - even if they do, how many people will still have the hardware to read them? People thought that they would always have a reader, but what we are seeing is more and more videos etc simply being streamed on-liine. Many people don't have DVD players any more (or VHS for that matter). Having the bits on the media doesn't help if you can't find a way to read it. There is no simple answer out there (at least so far), bit it is certainly worth thinking about. If you back up data to DVD's, use good quality media, make duplicates of the media (perhaps even on two different brands of good media) and periodically scan the disks. Any time you start to get read errors (soft ones), then re-create the archives on new media. I can't count the number of times I have seen people post in the various photography related forums that have had a hard drive crash and all of the images of their kids growing up etc. on that drive - "help - how do we get it back" - unfortunately, the answer in many cases is "you don't".

mikey

Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Tue Sep 10, 2013 10:44 am

The best approach for me is to back up to different methods - DVD, aux hard drive and on line. One of them might be useable if/when they are needed.

Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Tue Sep 10, 2013 1:00 pm

Yeah, so far, we don't have a best way, but I have sure seen a lot of "worst" ways to do it (like not at all ... nothing can happen right?)

mikey
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