saving Project

[bandjc]

Having finished a project that is 74mins long proceeded to copy to Arabesk but when trying rendering it would not render even after 2hrs, tried again with the same result, ( Have recently installed Arabesk 4), I closed the system down and left overnight, next morning on starting up it opened on an earlier project and on selecting the correct project discovered that none of the work carried out on the previous day had been saved, any ideas please on what has happened? Never had so many problems when I only had smart edit 7 and Arabesk 3.

[BobFoster]

I don't know if they are related, but my thread of Feb. 6 on Arabesk 4.1 vs 4.6 also resulted in major problems when trying to incorporate Arabesk 4.1 with SE operating system on two different machines. I had to revert to Arabesk 3.2c to finish the 6 hour seminar. I had not heard of this problem before or I would not have spent the $190 to upgrade the two units to Arabesk 4.

[bandjc]

Thanks for reply, I shall try re-instating Arabesk 3 later, another problem is that if I open a new project and install footage on to it when I return to Select Project it shows no dot signifying that it has footage in there and on opening it again the project is empty and the footage is gone. Could it be the hard drive? although it is not very old.

[TimKennelly]

I used A4 since it's inception on the SE system and currently with Bogart without issues that the two of you have mentioned.

Neither have I heard any others having similar problems with A4.

As for the UK gentlemen, this has nothing to do with Arabesk and has shown up sporadically on all OS versions since the inception of the system, luck you that you have not experienced it before.

Your system will remain suspect and unstable until you do a full, destructive install of you OS.

Save your video/audio out to tape prior to performing this action as full, destructive means exactly that, you will lose all work and current non-default settings, but nothing short of this action will fix this memory loss/crash problem from this point.

The occasional stalling out of Arabesk is another, unrelated issue that occasionally occurs when there is bad footage or corrupt transitions (or at least the system falsely detects the same.

The latest versions of Arabesk supposedly fixes this issue by repairing whatever causes the freeze so a second attempt works.

This is not always successful though and when the second attempt fails you need to use the NOP with audio procedure I have posted here numerous times over the years.

If you need that I will dig it up and repost it.

Bob, no idea (as in a repeatable bug) regarding your experience other than to say it's a personal problem as many people have been using A4 successfully for well over a year now.

Just make sure your OS is compatible with the A4 version you are using as I believe I read somewhere you are on an older OS.

Other than that, I would do the full, destructive install on your system as well to start with a clean slate.

[BobNaughton]

I had a similar problem a couple of years ago. I found that my first three projects, I could not enter any information into it. It would not save. However, I could enter information into the rest of the projects. I don't believe the problem is a bad hard drive, but corruption in your operating system and in order to fix the problem you will need to do a full destructive install of your system. Not a pleasant thought, if you're in the middle of something, but it will likely resolve your issue and probably get your arabesque back in operation also. First though, I would try to use one of the projects far away from your original one if you're trying to download in project 3, try 23 it just might work there until you can do a full destructive install.

[TimKennelly]

I agree with Bob as long as the work does not require an extensive amount of editing.

With a Prestige one cannot backup ones work quickly or effectively short of going out to tape so you need to decide how much editing you need to complete prior to a full, destructive install and balance how much time you are willing to invest in incrementally going out to tape or just chancing a repeat loss of all work.

I will say, regardless of whether you decide to chance more time invested with the current state of the OS or doing a full, destructive install directly after saving your current work, recreating/re-editing stuff you already have done goes surprisingly fast as most of the decision points which take up an amazing amount of edit time is already "rendered" in your head (voice of experience LOL).

[bandjc]

Hi Tim, Thanks for info. would be grateful if you could explain 'NOP with audio procedure' and how do I do a 'Full Destructive install' . By just deleteing all programs?

[BobFoster]

Hi Tim, Arabesk 4 is supposed to be compatible all the way back to OS 5. I am using OS 6.2c on three different machines. (2 Prestige and a Renomee Plus) I wasn't having any problems until I Up dated Arabesk 3.2c to 4.1 on all three machines. I made the update on 4 hard drives. I immediately began having problems on all drives and two different machines that I was editing on.. After working my way thru 2 projects on 2 different hard drives, I deleted Arabesk 4.1 and installed Arabesk 3.2d. 3.2c not available on my All software disc. The problems went away with the deletion of 4.1 Arabesk. The problems weren't major. i.e. When shutting down the machine to swap HDs, the screen would start to dim as usual and then just hang there. A forced shutdown with the power button was required to complete the shut down. Second, Where I had been able to edit on one machine and then move the HD to another machine for "Add Film" and burn the DVD while I was editing a second HD on the first machine, this no longer worked. I may try again with Arabesk 4.4 or something when I have time to experiment. I would like to use some of the new available features of Arabesk 4.
I have Arabesk 4 in the S4000 Pro and have had no problems in that combination.

[Walter]

I've had a similar experience. Whenever I start a large project, I do a complete destructive reinstall of the OS 6.2c. When using Arabesk 4.1, I quite often need to pull the plug to turn off my Prestige. If I go back to Arabesk 2.4, no problems whatsoever!

[TimKennelly]

Truly weird Bob.

Bandjc,

Here is the step by step for NOP with Audio:

Find your longest single scene in the Scene bin and highlight it.

This is normally an original raw input scene, but not a section that includes the direct problem footage Scene.
You want to use a segment of source video that did NOT give you any problems.
IE: A segment you know does NOT have corrupted frames in it.

Go to Special, use Scene->Sample, Ok.

Switch to the Audio Mix menu, highlight (left click on) an empty audio channel, Add, Scroll to the newly created longest audio sample, Ok.

Slide the large Volume slider all the way to the left to Mute this track.

If this audio sample is not as large as your entire Storyboard use Add again, Mute that segment as well.

Do this until you have filled this track the entire length of your Storyboard with all these segments Muted.

Switch back to the main Edit Menu, Go to the beginning of the Storyboard.

Got to IP Effects menu, scroll to NOP, Add.
Left click on the duration window, Range, Ok, Make sure the Band button is in Trim, not Position mode, then choose OUT, scroll the bar all the way to the right(this should now be the duration of the entire Storyboard), left click to come out of the duration bar, Ok.

Left click the Scene button, Range, OUT, scroll the bar all the way to the right(this should now be the duration of the entire Storyboard), left click to come out of the duration bar, Ok.

It will now render the entire Storyboard and create a Scene of it.

This will take some time,but consideraby less than the out to tape and back in method and has been found to be more effective.

When the Scene in created switch to an empty Project.

Go into the Edit menu, Special, Clipboard, Scene from project->Clipboard, select the Project that the newly created Scene is in.

This should bring up that Project's Scene bin at the newly created Scene, select Ok, Clipboard->Project, scroll to the newly created Scene (if you have other stuff in Clipboard), Ok, Ok.

Now you should have the newly created Scene in the Project.

If you want Chapters go into Split and split the Scene at the desired Chapter points, selecting Use for all.

Then put all those Chapter Scenes onto the Storyboard in order.

Switch to Arabesk, Film and remove the problem Project.

Then Add Film selecting the Project where you have the newly created and Split Scene/Storyboard and proceed as normal.

This is far harder to describe than do.

Let me know how it goes.
PS - I believe Control Image could be successfully substituted for NOP if you had a Storyboard that you wanted to tweak in it's entirety, aka: change the brightness, contrast and/or saturation of the entire project.
This alternative does not take any longer (or less) than using NOP, but just remember it will effect the entire Storyboard and not just a few Scenes if done in this procedure to fix a failing Storyboard.
You could alternatively use this procedure on a specific Scene if you know which Scene is causing your problems

As for a full, destructive install you have to insert an OS Product CD as you have a Prestige and follow the instructions.

You answer No to the first question which is "do you want to do an upgrade?"

An upgrade will not fix the bug.

Then YES, to the question of doing a full, destructive OS install.

It will ask you are you sure to which you also answer Yes and follow the rest of the instructions.

As mentioned, save any unfinished Video, Audio out to tape prior to this as all on the drive will be lost.

After the full, destructive install you need to reload and activate any optional software you own by inserting an All software CD.

You don't need to re-input the codes as they are permanently memorized in the bios, just choose Activate for each of those you own.