Laptop + OtsAV + External is skipping for me!!

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buddyboy1234

New DJ
Jul 5, 2008
7
0
43
Hi everyone!!!!

just found this place and ive found some valuable information here

ive just moved over from using CDs and DVDs to using a Laptop

I have OtsAV DJ installed on it and it stutters once every couple of songs, sometimes twice in a song without fail when running videos and karaoke (music is fine)

Ive tried different enclosures and that didn't solve my issue
The CPU Usage stays around 35-40% and spikes up to 55% at the most when playing videos and the ram is always under 800MB

I am suspect that it is my video card but i want to get some input before i go ahead and return the one i just bought

It is a Core 2 Duo T7500
2GB DDR2 667 Ram
80GB Hard Drive
Intel Integrated Graphics 8MB dedicated, up to 350MB Shared (I have searched the BIOS long and hard and there is no way to manually add the extra video memory....some kinda intel dynamic video technology)
Windows XP Pro
External USB Creative Sound Card

I have tried using PCDJ and i see that the video drops frames from time to time but the audio never stutters. I dont want to switch to PCDJ unless i have to since i have about 3000 videos already in the Ots format (without the originals :( )

Any experience or any input?

Thanks
 
no, like many others i deleted my library after converting them not knowing that i am unable to convert back :(

I read that i can convert MP3's and Wav's back but didn't bother to check for the videos.
 
Hi Buddyboy1234,

Your system specifications are fine for video and CD+G playback, so there must be something on your system that is creating the bottleneck.

Does your system have a WiFi card?

If so, try disabling it. If you're in an area that doesn't have WiFi access when you're working, your WiFI card will be constantly searching for a signal. This places an increased load on your system periodically (e.g. several times per song).

Audio only tracks may not skip, as less of a buffer is required for playback. Video and CD+G on the other hand uses more system resources for playback, and the WiFi card may be taking up enough resources for skipping to occur.

Does disabling your WiFi card solve the problem?

Cheers,
Glen
 
buddyboy1234 said:
no, like many others i deleted my library after converting them not knowing that i am unable to convert back :(

I read that i can convert MP3's and Wav's back but didn't bother to check for the videos.
Click to expand...

That didn't answer the question.... was all you had just files? Where are the original discs that the video's and karaoke came from?

If all you had were files how did you get the files?

I'm only asking because if you can't recover from disc then that leads me to believe that the music, karaoke and video was ill obtained (ie pirated)
 
Ots_Glen said:
Hi Buddyboy1234,
Does disabling your WiFi card solve the problem?

Cheers,
Glen
Click to expand...

I tried that but it didn't solve the problem. I also tried removing the files from my external firewire enclosure and putting them on to my C: drive but they still skip (less, but they still skip)

any other suggestions?

@jokerswild

I have all of my Super CD+G Discs that i have been using in the past with my CAVS player. I also have my music library so I am not worried about those. I have not done any video shows yet but I am getting requests from my clients so I decided to move to the laptop route at the same time (which has been nothing but headaches). The technician who set me up with the equipment suggested that I use the iTunes store so I only have the videos i want rather than a disc full of unwanted videos (makes sense to me). We purchased the songs from there and he converted them to a format that allowed me to convert them to ots. My question to you is why would I keep 300 iTunes video's on my hard drive if I didn't think i needed them? That's over 60GB of space taken up that i thought i could free up. makes sense?
 
jokerswild said:
That didn't answer the question.... was all you had just files? Where are the original discs that the video's and karaoke came from?

If all you had were files how did you get the files?

I'm only asking because if you can't recover from disc then that leads me to believe that the music, karaoke and video was ill obtained (ie pirated)
Click to expand...

jokerwild aka PP (pirate police):sqbiggrin:
 
The only reason I asked was because you had purported to have over 3000 video's and no way to restore them because you didn't have the originals... what was I to think other than (pirate)... anyway I'm glad you explained.

iTunes is a great way to go but how did you convert them to an Ots format?

Aside from the Sirwolfy is right most laptops just aren't powerful enough for video... they are ok for karaoke though...

Do you experience just an audio glitch or is it just video or both?
 
sorry the 3000 was a typo....and, like i said before, my technician converted them to a format (mpg i believe) and then i was able to use Ots studio to convert them to ots

both the audio and the video stutter and i cant have that during a show

would it work if i used a powerful desktop computer?
 
SirWolfy said:
Aside from the fact that your embedded video is woefully under-suited for the job, do you have additional programs installed on your laptop such as AOhell, MS Office, etc.?
Click to expand...

no the only thing i have installed on there is windows, adobe reader, creative sound software for my external sound card, and thats about it

what i tried doing is looking at the ram in the system properties....it never drops below 2GB so that probably means that intel dynamic memory junk isnt working?
 
Try IMToo software for converting formats. Most laptops wont handle the video duties. Maybe you should think about a rack mount PC
 
another thing to look at too for the skipping problem is the screen resolution..what is your set at.. mine is at 800x600 with the colors set as low as i can go, i belive it is set to 16bit..would have to fire it up and check it out. i too use itunes and my neighbor converted them for me, not really computer program knowledgeable, if its not broke don't touch it..anyways i have no problem with videos skipping but i did with the bigger resolution and color depth.maybe something to check..
 
I am interested in the process for converting super CDGs to MP3 format. No matter how hard I try I can't seem to get a usable file from them! How do you rip from the Cavs player files also is it just a straight conversion? What compression do you use for the MP3 files I find that most files suck when under 192 my preference is 256 as a compromise between quality of 320 versus storage.
 
buddyboy1234 said:
no the only thing i have installed on there is windows, adobe reader, creative sound software for my external sound card, and thats about it

what i tried doing is looking at the ram in the system properties....it never drops below 2GB so that probably means that intel dynamic memory junk isnt working?
Click to expand...

Glen touched upon what I believe the issue is - system resource conflicts. There is also a bottleneck in your system with the video because even though you can port to a portion of the system RAM, the buffer - or window if you will - is only 8MB. When running graphics/video intensive operations, this is like funneling rush-hour traffic from a major highway through a side alley... it's slow! Thus the issues with stuttering.

Going back to the potential resource conflict/sharing issue, with all those USB devices (another one of those evils I highly recommend avoiding), there are going to be memory mapping or addressing overlaps with some of those devices. This is also probably where a good 10% - 15% of your overall CPU time is being used up too - USB is "dumb" so to say and uses the CPU for controlling bandwidth allocation, buffers, memory addressing and a whole host of other sordid functions.

The bottom line is that unless you are dropping several $G on a laptop with balls, you will have assorted issues from time to time when running resource intensive operations, especially video.
 
i was doing some research on this intel dynamic video memory technology and i came across the intel speed step....i noticed that when i right clicked on my computer --> properties it said my CPU was running at 753MHz!!!!....so i did some more research and downloaded a program called notebook hardware control and i was able to make the CPU stay at 2.2GHz...I also removed everything like adobe reader and the intel wireless utilities and such, turned off the wireless, dropped the resolution, and disabled things like the network card and modem through device manager.....a combination of those, or all of them, seem to have solved the issue...i played the videos for about 2 hours without a stutter!!!!....i appreciate all of your help!!....i will have to do more testing but i will keep everyone updated

@SirWolfy

yeah i just came across some posts on how stupid and how much of a hog USB is...im hoping that just having my sound card on USB wont do too much damage....the external hard drive that i have is firewire so hopefully everything will work out

@Thunder

I called my technician and he said he used a program called cdg fix to convert them to 2 files, an .MP3 and .CDG....from there i imported them into ots studio for conversion into ots format and they work just fine
 
buddyboy1234,

Thanks for posting the solution to your particular problem. I knew there had to be a bottleneck on your system somewhere!

Hopefully your feedback will help others achieve maximum performance from their system(s).

Glen
 
Intel SpeedStep is a utility for extending the life of your battery when you are running on it. As you found out, this reduces the CPU clock speed as well as controlling the power consumption of the chipset, system RAM and embedded devices - all in order to reduce power consumption and therefore extending the life of a charge on the laptop's battery. Since most folks run off of external power while DJing, disabling or uninstalling this program from a dedicated machine is a good idea.

Start >> Settings >> Control Panel >> Add/Remove Programs

Firewire is good - it features its own controller and buffer memory so it is faster, more stable and less resource intensive than USB.
 
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