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Hello,
I have 2 corrupt clips that will not allow my Prestige to operate. I can bring up the project and see the bad clips (sometimes the icon shows properly, sometimes it is all green, or has a purple line at the top). When I try to delete the clips from the scene bin, and then try to turn off the Prestige to "Save" that version, the Prestige crashes first, and then upon restart I get the message saying the machine was not properly shut down, than a message that says the project is loading from an earlier version - which is the one with the bad clips. The system then gets in a loop that results in anything I try to do crashing the Prestige, the red box error, and then the automatic restart.

How can I delete these clips and "Save"? I believe these clips are causing the machine to crash when you try to do anything, even changing projects. I have another drive in a sled and tried that one in the Prestige and everything works fine. I even tried the bad drive in another Prestige I have with the same results.

I was thinking that I may be able to hook-up the bad drive to my PC as a slave drive and possible delete the clips that way?
I have re-installed the operating system (4.1)a few times with the same results. I have other projects on this drive and really don't want to do a full erase of the drive.

I think if I can delete these two clips, and save that version I can resume my editing.
Any help is great
Thanks
Guy

Guy,

I know you can force a save by switching to a different project and then back again. I think you can also force a save if you stay in the project you are working on and simply switch to the Record screen - then back to the main edit screen. Since you're having a problem I would try deleting only one clip at a time in this fashion.

Last, I would do what has been termed "an old wives tale" and shut down on an empty project.

I would definitely perform a destructive install of the OS as soon as it is convenient.

Let us know how it works out.

Hello Guy,


Here's another approach. If you have an empty project available.... I would start to test the footage to find the problem area and transfer the good footage to the empty project via the Clipboard and work from there.

Do this by selecting about a third of the footage from the Storyboard and making a "scene" of it. Clipboard this scene to your empty project. Then start a new scene from where you left off, render it and then clipboard it to the empty project and add it after your first scene in that storyboard. Then do another scene up till the site of the bad clips and clipboard this to the empty project and add it to the storyboard after the last one. You could clipboard each scene by itself if you like and have an easier time doing a re-edit in the new project.

Now that you have all good footage in the new project and just a few bad clips left in the old project. Test the cllipboarded scenes to make sure they play ok, I would delete them from the original project and see if you can then find the problem with the bad clips....or delete them now and finish your edit by re-capturing those scenes from your camcorder into the new project.

Then do the "NOP" with muted audio trick.....to make your finished project more stable and play all the way through.

As far as the "Shutting down on an empty Project" is concerned, Tim Kennelly and I started reccommending this procedure back in the AVIO days when the software didn't clear out the memory buffers completely when you shut off the machine and then when you started to edit later, you would get all sorts of stray clips and bad audio and glitches all over, even in other projects.

So to fix this we told everyone to shut your editor off after you had switched to an empty project which supposedly had empty memory buffers and didn't mess you up later. This was so successful in curing the buffer problem at the time that many of us still use this practice even today.

This idea is referred to nowdays as an "Urban Legend" and I hope it doesn't get the label of an old wive's tale. The Company has always maintained that there was no reason to do this. But they also sold the 4000 a year too early and collected our money and shipped the 4000 with software that wasn't ready for prime time, and still isn't to this day.

Good luck with getting those bad clips out of there....and do let us know how it works out for you.

Guy,

I should have explained my use of the phrase "old wives tale" further. This is how Macrosystem refers to the practice of closing down on an empty project, not me! You are using an earlier version of the operating system that may still have the problem Jim outlined.

Even though I use OS 8, I still shut down on an empty project. If I am doing a lot of experimenting with effects or transitions on the same clip(s) I frequently switch to another project and back again to clear the buffers and minimize occurences of "the red box of death".

Hello,
Thanks for getting me the suggestions. I have tried all of these before my post, but I will try again. Everytime I try to switch to a different project it crashes, and then reloads the same bad project. The same think happens when I try to go to the record menu, and also trying to use the clipboard.
I have managed to play and record to a separate DVD recorder the from of the edit (about 65 minutes) and I have that on a DVD.
I still have to finish the last part of the video which is about 20 minutes. The big thing is I had to do alot of layering to build what the client wanted on alot of scenes. My fear is that if they want to change any one element I will have to go back to square one. That is why I am desperately trying to save all of the elements.
Thanks
Guy

Can you trim the corrupt clips to maybe 1 frame?? How about Copying the corrupt scene and delete the original scene. I know I'm reaching on that one, but any port in a storm.

Hello, in this thread there is no mention if it's a SD or HD project causing the problems.
I am only on HD now.
I also shut off my S-4000Pro after going to an empty project.
But before doing this I additional go to "Finish " and hit the "Create" button.
Let create for a few seconds and then "Cancel" .
Don't know if this is a "Project Save" method but I think it works.
A 21 minute HD project has been finished, only 1 crash, no other problems.
Another HD project is now edited, 30 minutes have been finished, no problems at all till now.

Hello,
This project is on a Prestige in standard definition. The camera orig. footage was shot with a three chip broadcast camera on Mini DV and fed in via firewire. I have tried to make the clip 1 frame long and it still crashes the system. Any time I try to delete or copy anything it crashes. I even tried to delete a few of the good scenes from the video as well as the scene bin, and it still crashes, and upon restart opens the last saved version which has the bad clips in it.
The other thing is that when it crashes and gets into this loop of powering back up, loading the last saved version (which is bad) and then when I try to do anything it crashes again, I can't turn the system off with either the off button on screen or the power switch on the front. I have to un-plug the power cord to stop the loop.

Thanks
Guy

Hello Guy,

Sounds like time to get a new hard drive in there and re-capture your footage and start over with a clean slate. If you have tried all that you say you have, it's beginning to look like a dying hard drive. I hope not for your sake, but if you have a spare HD that you could throw in there to finish your project on, and then worry about deleting the one you have in there now, you could at least finish what you were working on.

Keep us in the loop here, we want to know how this comes out.

Hello Guy,
as Jim posted after all you have tried there must be a severe OS corruption in connection with your problem project or
it's a dying harddrive.
Sorry to say, but the only way to be sure is a full destructive installation, of course all your projects will then be deleted.