#PAR access on WIN95
25 messages in this thread
I just installed WIN95 but now I can't access the PAR drives. I reloaded the
most recent PAR MCI drivers but that still doesn't help. Windows tells me, the
drives are not available at this time, retry later. If anyone has a solution I
would really appreciate it.
Thanks,
Don
I put a long message up a month ago regarding this problem. My results were the
same as yours. My PAR drive is a mirror of my C drive, as far as directory
structure is concerned. I am running the latest PAR software and have discussed
this w/ Alex at DPS in Canada. This inability to see the PAR drive is constant
throughout the WIN95 platform and I imagine will be resolved by DPS or
Microsoft w/ a new driver. I'd love to hear if someone is up and running and
how they managed it.
Good Luck,
Paul
I just installed the latest PAR MCI Windows drivers (PARW123) over whatever
version I had before (and this is under Windows for Workgroups 3.11) and I have
the same problem — the dir listing is my C: drives, even though it reads the
volume label from the PAR drive. I didn't have any problems before.
The NT drivers off DPS's ftp site work, although there's no install routine or
readme, and the .HLP file is missing….
dave
>>The NT Drivers work…
David, Is there any chance of uploading those drivers here. It sure would be
nice of you. It's bizzare how the PAR directory structure shows up. Seems
something related to WIN95 and it's networking. I can't get it do anything but
show my C: drive. Weird. Anyway, if you could please upload the NT drivers it
would be a life saver. Otherwise if you could just tell me the location I'll
get em' somehow. Thanks.
DM
Paul, Have you had any luck getting the PAR up under Win95? I installed 95 the
other day just to look at and I get the same results. I can't access it with
Razor Pro and directory structure is a mirror of C:. Boy this sucks. I like the
feel of 95 – it's much faster than WFWG but I may just go get NT if I can't get
this thing up. It _seems_ to me like it has something to do with Win95 not
allowing a protected mode driver to work properly. Hmmm. Well, please let me
know if you find anything out.
DM
<< par and win95 >>
Have you seen Gus' msg# 187841?
Yeah I saw it. Thanks.
DM
Hi Dave,
I haven't got it going yet, but I am trying to get the NT drivers as David
suggested. I am also in touch w/ DPS regarding this and hope to have a response
by next week. I'll post to you as soon as I find anything out.
Do the same and we'll have this licked in no time.
Talk to you,
Paul
Paul…
Saw your post regarding a PAR/W95. Have you been able to get it running?
Reason I ask is that I'm trying to decide on whether to buy a PAR or PVR, and
had hoped to run it on W95. BTW, does DPS have windows software of any kind.
I have to apologize because I have not had the opportunity to use a PAR or PVR
first-hand, so all my info is gleaned from ads and heresay.
Mike/MA
Hi Mike,
No I haven't got it going inside of WIN95, but it runs fine from a DOS window
and you can "alt tab" back and forth between windows and the PAR software, no
problem.
The problem of running the DPS software in WIN95 can't go on forever(I hope),
but you never know.
My clients have always been impressed by the quality of the Beta SP tapes I
give them, as well the video houses that work on them.
The PVR has better quality, but has approximately 1/3 the compression
capability. This can be adjusted through the software to compress at a higher
ratio, I believe. The PVR can also daisy chain up to seven SCSI drives, and if
you can afford seven 4 gig drives, that's a heck of a lot of animation time. I
also read up here that the PVR software works fine under WIN95(no hands on
knowledge).
I guess, if you are concerned about price, the PAR might be a better choice.
Although the DPS hardware costs the same, the drives are certainly more
expensive. I like my PAR just fine and it's treated me really well, considering
the incredible things it does w/ 24 bit, 30 frame per second video.
I believe the info here is accurate, but my apologies to DPS and the group if
I'm in error on some points.
I don't think you will go wrong either way, best of luck,
Paul
>I guess, if you are concerned about price, the PAR might be a better choice.
Although the DPS hardware costs the same, the drives are certainly more
expensive.<
I don't think there is that big a price difference. You can get a 2GB SCSI AV
drive for $800. The PVR and PAR are the same price like you said. The choice on
PVR or PAR comes down to having PCI slots or not. I would spend the extra
$100-150 to get the PVR with a SCSI drive. The quality is better.
Thanks for the info Tim,
You're right, that is a pretty close price.
Thanks for the info, I hope Mike reads your message.
Paul
Tim…
Thanks for the feedback on the drives. Do you have a source for these drives?
I'm curious as to which SCSI drives are "approved" by DPS as being OK for the
PVR. Also, I was wondering… can you use the PVR's SCSI interface to chain
other SCSI devices like a CD-ROM, Scanner or whatever to the host PC? Or is it
devoted to A/V drives only?
I note your comment on "quality being better" and was wondering if you can
elaborate? BTW, are you running the PVR in W95, W3.1 or N/T? Thanks again for
the good information!
Mike/MA
Paul…
Thanks for the feedback. My end users would certainly appreciate 30 FPS video
instead of me using a camera to shoot the animationdirect from the tube…
always complaining about flicker <BG>. But then, we're basically looking at
mechanisms and we don't loose too much… it's just annoying.
Well, we're going to buy a PCI machine (Micron P120) so I'll have the option of
the PVR. Am I right in assuming that it needs to run on N/T or will it run OK
on W95? We don't anticipate using really big files, so I'm hoping that one
drive of about 1.5 gigs would suffice. The SCSI drives required by the PVR can
be expensive (I think) as opposed to the EIDE drives and the PAR.
BTW, do you have the latest rev of the DPS software? Did it make a difference?
And also, are you using Razor Pro or Premiere to edit your work?
Mike/MA
Does anyone following this thread use Razor Pro with Win95 and the PAR?
What I've found is that the PAR MCI driver that worked so well in Win 3.11 does
not work at all now in 95, Razor Pro still works but can't access any files
from the PAR drive(Mic2210A).
So, I have no way in WIN95 to to play PAR projects that are liked w/ sound
files. Has anyone else had any of these same problems? And if so, what
solutions if any have you found?
Thanks,
Jack
Jack,
Razor PRO does work with the PAR under Win 95. If you haven't got it to work
talk with Eron (301) 320 0220 and he will help you out or email him at
eron@in-sync.com.
Jamie Carr in:sync
Thanks Jamie!
hello Jamie,
PMFJI…. I spoke to Eron just yesterday and he said that Razor PRO does not
work with Win95. Has that changed since yesterday (9/11/95)?
TIA George Omura
Jack,
Munch, Munch, Munch !
(the sound of man eating his hat!)
What I should have said was that Razor PRO works in Win95. PAR.EXE works in
Win95, however they can't work together because of the
32 bit file access problem that users who were using Win 3.11 would know
about. As the Razor PRO and the PAR bypass the regular Windows file system to
communicate with each other and this
communication method was written for Windows 3.1, then there is no method to
communicate under Win95. Sorry !
Jamie Carr in:sync
So I'm doomed to Windows 3.11 to get any sound triggering or to use Razor Pro
w/ the PAR?
Is my only choice to buy a PVR and Razor MACH3 and run it in NT, a very
substantial investment? Not to mention it will be very difficult to find
someone to buy the PAR when its only editing capabilities are its own lame DOS
utilities or having to run Razor in a Operating 'Shell' that no one will
continue to develop for.
Not happy w/ Win 95,
Jack
Jack,
The reality is that Microsoft have not made it easy for hardware developers
to develop drivers for Win 95. The driver scheme is different for Win 95
and Win NT, the driver scheme for Win 95 and Win NT is changing in a few
months time, so that there is not much point in developing a driver
right now because it takes 6 months to write one, and the new scheme will
be out at that point, Win 95 has inherent limitations which mean that
especially for hardware developers in the video business that it doesn't
make a lot of sense, Win NT is just easier to develop drivers for.
Having said all this, Win 95 drivers will probably appear anyhow but I
have no idea in what timeframe that will be.
There are plenty of people interested in buying the PAR. I am sure that
you will have takers if you mention that you are interested in selling
yours.
The bottom line is: Win 95 is attractive eye candy, but it won't help you
getting a job done at least at this stage.
Jamie Carr
in:sync
Hi Mike,
I believe you can use the PVR under WIN95, this was stated here in a message
about a week ago.
I'm not using Premier or Razor Pro.
The latest Rev. of the DPS software adds some nice features that allow the user
to do some conversion between .AVI and .ANI formats (currently available on WIN
3.1, not WIN95). The new software is supposed to prevent accidental disk
corruption during an optimize. You may not be familiar with these terms, but
lets just say the 1 gig of animation that I lost during a normal software
function should be prevented in the future.
BTW make sure you have (2) full length PCI slots, not obstructed by the CPU fan
or other hardware. The TBC-IV card (video capture) also needs a full slot.
See Ya,
Paul
Paul…
Thanks for the info on the slots. BTW, does the TBC IV card also need a PCI
slot in the PVR setup or do you use a ISA or maybe VLB? Since I haven't
bought/installed yet, everything will be based on W95 on a fresh machine so
maybe I won't experience some of the bugs that appear in the transition files.
Do you know of anyone discounting the PVR to PAR levels? And yes <G> all tose
terms are somewhat unfamiliar to me at this time.
\\\.
========================= >-==<MIKE(>=– >-==*-
/
Hi Mike,
Looks like you're getting a lot of good advice up here. This place sure is a
great resource.
The TBC-IV card does need a full length PCI slot (unobstructed).
I hope you're right about the bugs and so on. I think someone mentioned the
problem running the PAR software under WIN95 being attributed to a 16 bit
versus a 32 bit conflict. I don't know enough about it to comment.
Talk to ya,
Paul
Paul…
<<< Looks like you're getting a lot of good advice up here. This place sure is
a great resource.>>>
I'm thrilled to have found this group. There seems to be a lot of PAR/PVR
understanding and knowledge available and everyone's been very helpful.
<<< The TBC-IV card does need a full length PCI slot (unobstructed).>>>
So the ISA TBC cannot be used with the PCI PVR? I tried to call Digital today
but didn't realize it was almost 6PM (they were closed). The miocronics mobo
places the PCI slots right over the CPU and fan. I'm hoping we could use the
shared PCI slot for the PVR and the other three for video, network, TBC IV, and
whatever. To that end, do the TBC and PVR have to be adjacent to each other,
or can they be a couple of slots apart? Reason I called DPS was to find out if
they've used a Micronics mobo yet and how the cards fit.
BTW, is there a reasonably accurate formula for estimating the amount of
animation you can store/run on a PVR drive?
\\\.
========================= >-==<MIKE(>=– >-==*-
/
I hope you're right about the bugs and so on. I think someone mentioned the
problem running the PAR software under WIN95 being attributed to a 16 bit
versus a 32 bit conflict. I don't know enough about it to comment.
Talk to ya,
Paul