working with pcdjvj

[501damian501]

James I appreciate that you are trying to help, but I have been also been running software for years with my machines optimised for music playback and problems still happen occasionally. Crashguard does not always work. I had the software crash to windows for no apparent reason and without a crashguard report.

Oh, and the problems I did have boiled down to an mp3 that the software didn't like.

whats the differance beween a powered hard drive and a usb powered drive, ok two different sizes, and doesnt have a change in if the system will crash, stardard usb gives out xx voltage which is enough to power the drive and exchange data, its the fact its external, the data needs to travell, so hard drives off and use an hot swappable harddrive on a pc... job sloved, no problemo

acording to the htfr book, you can use an 2.5inch unpowered harddrive with the denons and cortex, i havent used mine yet, but i,ll report back once i do,

ok quick update, am here with my trusty cortex with my small 60gb usb powered hard drive, and its working a treat, i reckon if you keep the drives smallish, then they will be fine...

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

And you have quoted me because....?

[Vectis]

ok quick update, am here with my trusty cortex with my small 60gb usb powered hard drive, and its working a treat, i reckon if you keep the drives smallish, then they will be fine...

No. You need to use drives that have a current draw less than or equal to the capability of the host device.

I run 250GB and 320GB unpowered drives from my d2 with no issues.

[501damian501]

No. You need to use drives that have a current draw less than or equal to the capability of the host device.

I run 250GB and 320GB unpowered drives from my d2 with no issues.

it,ll do untill i get the dodgy denon...

[DJ James Lake]

whats the differance beween a powered hard drive and a usb powered drive, ok two different sizes, and doesnt have a change in if the system will crash, stardard usb gives out xx voltage which is enough to power the drive and exchange data, its the fact its external, the data needs to travell, so hard drives off and use an hot swappable harddrive on a pc... job sloved, no problemo

acording to the htfr book, you can use an 2.5inch unpowered harddrive with the denons and cortex, i havent used mine yet, but i,ll report back once i do,

ok quick update, am here with my trusty cortex with my small 60gb usb powered hard drive, and its working a treat, i reckon if you keep the drives smallish, then they will be fine...

USB powered drives tend to put more strain on the USB ports, you start running into problems if you are using multiple drives with the ports running out of power.

One other problem I have encountered on numerous occassions over the years with running laptops specifically is that if the power supply in a venue isnt totally clean (and 5 out of 10 venues it isnt), not quite sure whether its voltage supply or noise in the mains circuits (perhaps someone else can explain), it can wreak havoc with software doing all sorts of crazy things. Laptops seem to be very fussy with this.

Now I always run through a UPS and dont have any problems at all.

[welby]

James I appreciate that you are trying to help, but I have been also been running software for years with my machines optimised for music playback and problems still happen occasionally. Crashguard does not always work. I had the software crash to windows for no apparent reason and without a crashguard report.

Oh, and the problems I did have boiled down to an mp3 that the software didn't like.

I echo what you say - it's happened to me and noted which mp3 crashed it and it turned out to be a corrupt MP3 so crashguard does not always work.

And to say that PCDJ VJ is designed primarily on Vista is a nonsense as PCDJ VJ is a reskinned version of virtual dj, which is designed to run on windows 98 and upwards. I would't however run it on 98!

I have set my laptop to have minimum services running and went through my mp3 collection as my previous post cleaning and re-coding as required and can say that it runs very sooth without crashes and I have gigged many times without fault!

[DJ James Lake]

And to say that PCDJ VJ is designed primarily on Vista is a nonsense as PCDJ VJ is a reskinned version of virtual dj, which is designed to run on windows 98 and upwards. I would't however run it on 98!!

Virtual DJ designed for previous systems yes, but was completely rebuilt with complete new code optimised for vista from version 5.0 and yes VJ does share the same code. I never said it would not run on previous systems it just runs best on Vista. Which is against the grain for mostdjing software which tends to run poorly on vista.

Ask Ryan from PCDJ on the PCDJ forums and he will confirm that.

[welby]

Virtual DJ designed for previous systems yes, but was completely rebuilt with complete new code optimised for vista from version 5.0 and yes VJ does share the same code. I never said it would not run on previous systems it just runs best on Vista. Which is against the grain for mostdjing software which tends to run poorly on vista.

Ask Ryan from PCDJ on the PCDJ forums and he will confirm that.

Point taken James, equally I think you must agree there is mileage in what I say about "tweaking" your OS for optimium performance as why would Paul and his team at PCDJ offer a "laptop tweak!" service. To give a simple example, you wouldn't want the Net Time service kicking off every half hour or so, and that's just one of the many uncessary services that gets in the way of running a laptop/pc with optimum resources for PCDJ VJ.

I think it's also fair to conclude that other users have experienced sudden crashes that crashguard does not even catch, so I personally wouldn't put total faith in crashguard either. Computers crash unexpectedly for many reasons and whatever you can do to minimise these crashes is worth doing however small the "tweak".

[Jiggles]

Anyone though about slipstreaming a XP disc with all the things they need and don't need? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slipstream_(computing)

[DJ James Lake]

Point taken James, equally I think you must agree there is mileage in what I say about "tweaking" your OS for optimium performance as why would Paul and his team at PCDJ offer a "laptop tweak!" service. To give a simple example, you wouldn't want the Net Time service kicking off every half hour or so, and that's just one of the many uncessary services that gets in the way of running a laptop/pc with optimum resources for PCDJ VJ.

I think it's also fair to conclude that other users have experienced sudden crashes that crashguard does not even catch, so I personally wouldn't put total faith in crashguard either. Computers crash unexpectedly for many reasons and whatever you can do to minimise these crashes is worth doing however small the "tweak".

I get the feeling that they offer the tweaking service for users that are not very experienced with computers, it really isnt difficult to do.

I never put faith entirely in a computer and always have a backup ready, but I guess I've just been lucky so far because VJ has always behaved well for me except for the problems between the Denon DNHC4500 and Allen & Heath Xone 3d drivers I mentioned earlier.

All in all I love PCDJ VJ and would highly recommend it.