Hour Glass keeps occuring about every 15 secs.

[smcclendon]

In one of my shows, the hour glass keeps coming up every 10 to 15 secs. This is a large show with several KFs. It is very annoying. I have sent the problem to photodex. It is hard to continue to work on the show with this happening. It does not do this with other shows i have made.
Salli

[lisco]

Salli-

I think I might know what it is, but I believe that I'll yield to the pro's on this one. I would hate to tell you one thing and it be another. There are much better qualified ppl here.

Good Luck,

Scott

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Well Scott, that was a very good guess !! I would have
never thought of that myself

Any chance you could let the rest of us know what your
idea is ? Haven't seen anyone else jump in and say they
know the answer. I know I don't have any ideas right off
hand short of obviously something is periodically doing
something (well duh ! )

mikey

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

Salli --

How much RAM does your computer have onboard? The most likely cause is simply that the show is big enough (and there's enough other stuff running in the background) that Windows is having to "page" stuff in and out heavily (i.e., use your hard drive to supplement the RAM).

One thing you can do is bring up Task Manager (control+alt+del) and look at what's shown on the "processes" tab. When the hour glass comes up, the task with the activity should show much higher CPU usage. If it's ProShow or a windows services process then that's a strong indicator disk activity associated with the show is the issue.

One thing that might help is to shut non-critical things down that are competing for system resources and most systems will have a bunch of them. However, knowing what to turn off and what to leave running can be tricky. If you want to venture into that I'd suggest starting with a freebie tool called What's Running --
www.whatsrunning.net.

Dick

[lisco]

Well Scott, that was a very good guess !! I would have
never thought of that myself

Any chance you could let the rest of us know what your
idea is ? Haven't seen anyone else jump in and say they
know the answer. I know I don't have any ideas right off
hand short of obviously something is periodically doing
something (well duh ! )

mikey

Dick pretty much said what I was thinking. Since Mikey is pushing for my idea, I'll give it. The RAM was one thing and the processor is the other. I was also thinking of programs running in the background. I know that if I am having problems like the one described, it's usually becasue I have been doing a lot of editing and it's still taking up RAM. I usually just restart my computer and it clears all of that and TAHDAH, I'm off and running. My #1 thing would be the RAM and the size of the show.

Just my opinion. I yield to the pros.

Scott

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Sounds reasonable -- Salli, how much RAM do you have in your system ??
Right click "My Computer" then select "Properties" - down near the bottom
of the display, under "Computer" it will say what processor and how much
RAM is in the sytem. That will give us an idea if that is possibly the issue.

mikey

[HunnyB Profile Private message]

I do all of the necessary "maintenance" on my computer....ie. defrag, virus scans, clean-ups, etc.........
I have noticed lately that my computer is running slower and slower and slower. For the past few months now.
Programs are crashing, etc......
My computer guy said I may HAVE to do a system restore.
I have 512 Ram.
He said my high end programs would probally run faster and stay running if I had
a faster processor.
Before I do a system restore, I am going to do what Dick said and check the precesses I have running.
I know that even if I stop one that I truly need, when I restart it should start back up again.

HunnyB

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Well, I don't know which processor/speed you have, but 512 ram
is a bit small. I would up that to at least a gig if you can. I'm not
sure exactly what he has in mind for a "restore" (which implies a
reload from an image of the drive you made earlier). In the
past, especially with the video editing stuff, it was fairly common
for people to get really pissed off and simply flatten the system
and do a clean install starting with the OS followed by patches,
applications etc. While I did do a "restore" in the true sense of
the word a month or so ago when I moved everything on C,D and E
from a 120 gig drive to a 250 gig drive (imaged the partitions then
restored/resized them onto the bigger drive), I have not
done a "flatten and clean" for several years and have had very few
problems. Running XP Pro, SP2, 2 gigs RAM and lots of disk space
(but never enough ! ).

One thing you really have to watch for is installed JUNK !!! Install
scanner software from the disk that came with it and low and behold
3 new applications that they just KNEW you needed installed (and
usually far more trouble than they are worth). You say you run
your antivirus scans (which one do you use?), but did not say anything
about a couple of other necessary FREE apps that you should run
fairly often -- adaware and spybot are both free apps (it takes a bit
of snooping to find the free version on their page) that run around
and find lots of these junk things that get stuffed in corners.

I use Raxco Perfect disk for my defrag utility and have been happy
with the results usually. I do usually see a speed increase on load
times and render times for stuff after I have run it.

How fast is your processor ??
Which A/V do you use ?
You say you have 512 RAM -- that should probably be increased to 1 gig.

My $0.02

mikey

[lostdutchman]

I do all of the necessary "maintenance" on my computer....ie. defrag, virus scans, clean-ups, etc.........
I have noticed lately that my computer is running slower and slower and slower. For the past few months now.
Programs are crashing, etc......
HunnyB

Question: Do you also have anything that cleans your registry?

I have been using Norton SystemWorks which includes a weekly registry clean. But over the last 6 months or so I was also noticing my computer working more slowly. I did a google search for registry cleaners and purchased this one:
http://www.regclean.com/

Two weeks ago I purchased it ($20), installed it and it found over 400 registry problems--and that was with the weekly Norton clean up. After running RegClean my computer actually shuts down much faster and i have been having way fewer other problems.

Messing with the registry can be scary stuff. But so many programs add lines to the registry, and even when you uninstall the program, many times the registry references remain. The registry can get huge and that slows down the performance of your computer.

I'm very happy with RegClean. Now, in three months when my Norton Antivirus and SystemWorks come due I'm going to search for other replacements for them, too.
Ken

[lostdutchman]

Well, I don't know which processor/speed you have, but 512 ram
is a bit small. I would up that to at least a gig if you can.

You say you have 512 RAM -- that should probably be increased to 1 gig.

My $0.02 :D

mikey

I agree, mikey. I recently bought 2gb ram for $135. The performance boost was definitely worth the cost.

I bought my ram from www.crucial.com.

Ken

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Yes, Crucial and Kingston are a couple of the bigger suppliers
(I often buy stuff from Newegg but check the prices). As far
as Norton goes, while this is almost a religious issue in some
circles, if you go to any of the XP support groups, you will, in
general, find the people who deal with systems all the time
don't want anything to do with Symantec memory hogs. I used
to have Norton on here a couple of years back and after
EXTREMELY poor service from them, replaced it. A year or
so ago, I ran into a problem sharing files off my main system
to the rest of the systems in the house -- I would try to access
a shared folder and get some nonsense about "insufficient memory
to complete the requested operation" (with 1 gig in the system after
a clean boot ??? I don't think so !!). After a bit of research, found
a MS KB article that solved it -- seems when you uninstall Norton,
it screws up a registry entry pertaining to stack space that was
causing the problem. There was a few wasted hours -- that solved
it. I am currently using F-Prot ( http://www.f-prot.com/ ) and while
I have had a couple of issues with them, they have been responsive,
it runs quick and has a small memory "footprint" and for $29 you get
a license for 5 computers or for $49 or something like that, you get
the corp. version that gives you licenses for 10 computers. The bad
news is it doesn't have the Symantec fancy interface and hand holding.
The good news is it doesn't have the Symantec fancy interface and hand
holding !!

There are others such as AVG that get good comments too. One of the
best things you can do (especially on a broadband connection) is put
a router between you and your internet connection - absolutely amazing
how much junk that will block !!!!!!!!!

mikey

[HunnyB Profile Private message]

I am running Intel Pentium 4
2.80 GHz
160GB HD
My computer is a HP Media Center.

HunnyB

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

A 2.8 gig P4 isn't bad (mine is a 3.0 gig P4) and in general it
seems fine. The trick is to learn that with things like rendering
to mpeg2 (DVD) the best thing to do is ... something else
Go have a glass of wine, check the sports scores etc -- I have
found that in general, "a watched render never completes" or
something like that. Somewhat typical for many people is
about a 1/3 ratio - a 1 hour video can take around 3 hours to
render. If you look into what is involved in generating an
mpeg 2, you will understand just why it takes so long (even
the big boys have to wait while it crunches). Mpeg 2 takes some
SERIOUS number crunching !!

mikey

[HunnyB Profile Private message]

HUGS HUGS HUGS HUGS
A friend is coming over, so I think I will
have that glass of wine now!!!!!!



HunnyB