Oh, yeah, I remember that. Our living room wasn't quite big enough for iPi Studio so we moved the gear to the garage, and it took me many months to clear enough space in the garage to be able to set up the system. With or without iPi Studio, the garage really needed the cleaning though. :)

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Ha! Yea, I'm getting my spring cleaning started early - doesn't hurt to have some fun motivation for a change.

I started having problems with dropped frames again, and found out that it was the usb extender cables. If I use 20 meters, there's too much loss, but it works fine with 10 meters. I'm scrambling to get 5 meter cables and powered hubs for the site shoot. I'll post how that works.

Back to the cleaning,

Michael

were you using passive or active cables? USB spec is only 5m for passive, try active cables.

Do active cables have a/c adapters? The cables I have say they're are active:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002VG39BI

The folks who built my computer suggested putting a powered usb 2 hub at the start and end of the cable. I'll try that tonight and see if it works.

Michael

That's a different brand from what I use but it looks like the same type of cable. Basically it's a USB cable with a box on the end that stores and extends power. There is no separate power source for it.

You might want to try a different brand of cable just to be sure.

Alternatively, you might want to check that the USB ports are outputting sufficient power. If it's too low, that may be an issue. For example, my first laptop couldn't run an external laptop drive without an AC adapter because the USB port didn't output enough power, but the same drive run fine on newer laptops without the adapter. IMO, this probably is not the case with your computer but I thought it was worth mentioning.

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

I think the problem with using a laptop is that the usb 2 has only 5 volts and 500ma at best, or 2.5 watts. From a desk top that should not be a problem, but a laptop might have all 2.5 watts available.

The other thing is if you start adding up power requirements of the PS3 cameras and the active cables their might not be enough power to go around. So getting the computer close to one camera and limiting the use of active cables if possible should help.

I'm guessing that's what is happening. After much fiddling around, I determined the following configuration works:

1) 2 usb3 cards + motherboard usb 3

2) No more than one port per controller with a 20m (10m+10m active cables) cable
3) the other port has at most one 10m active cable

It's forcing me to have the computer in the studio room which I didn't want, but I can make it work.

My first test shoot is tomorrow, so I'll post the results,

Michael

If that's the case leave the computer in the room cameras. then run to inactive cables to your mouse and keyboard and extender cable for the monitor. The keyboard and mouse will any negligible power or bandwith on usb2

If that's the case leave the computer in the room cameras. then run to inactive cables to your mouse and keyboard and extender cable for the monitor. The keyboard and mouse will any negligible power or bandwith on usb2