Probably Not A Hoster Issue
 

Dale, Jim or any other of the very knowledgeable people in the Hoster Forum. I have downloaded some funny videos and commercials that I use during shows. I just started downloading them as flv files and converting them to mpg. The problem I'm having is that they play fine if the singer display is on the laptop screen, but if I move it to the external display (via s-video to rca to a tube type TV) it comes out as a black screen. All of the videos that I have used in the past (mostly from other people or from Limewire) play fine. What am I doing wrong?

Dale and Admin. I now have a stable running Hoster on this Vista piece o' crap. Thank You Very much. Many new comers to my shows look at this setup and just say WOW.:w:g

Thank You, Jack Ward

Are the others that play ok MPG?
Could be the resolution of the secondary. What do you have it set at?

are you sure you are converting them to mpg ?

Yes, I am sure. I have this issue resolved. I convert them to WMV and all is great. I think it is a VISTA issue (it's not but I like to blame them) I bad a mistake during the show last night and blamed Vista, but the knew it was a KJ mistake.

Vista is the fall guy anyway, so they might as well take the blame.:g

It's always easier to blame Vista for problems instead of fixing them. I've noticed the people who use Compuhost don't have problems with Vista.

Do you use Compuhost in Vista?

Jim :g

I have a staff of 26 KJ's. Two of them use Compuhost.

What do the other 24 use? Are the two using compuhost using vista?

Jim :g

The two that use Compuhost are using Vista. All of the other KJ's use Hoster. It used to be a requirment for them to work for my company. I don't require Hoster anymore. The majority of my Hoster users have one problem or another with Hoster and don't feel comfortable anymore.

www.starsoundsproductions.com

Do your "KJ's" set up and supply their own computers or do you set them up?

Jim :g

We setup the computers ourselves before they go out and they are all owned by the company along with the P.A.s with the exception of 6 units. We make all the required changes. I've had to add on a tech department since 4xxx came out. They go out to the jobs every time there is a problem. All of our computers are Vista.

That's easy to say when you are not a programmer trying to deal with all the bugs and problems with Vista and trying to get it to behave like it is supposed to. Even Microsoft is abandoning Vista several years earlier than they have ever done in the past.
I am not sure how you can say for sure that people who use their program don't have any problems since you can't get into their forums unless you are a licensed user. I don't know about you but I don't pay that much for a program just based on their hype and that goes for anyone's programs.

I speak from experience. I have been in the entertainment business most of my life. I'm now 54 and own the largest entertainment company in Northern California since 1984.
A very large portion of my competition contact us concerning everything from Petting Zoo's to acts such as Earth Wind & Fire and everything in between.
We also compose music for Discovery Comunications for the documentries and hear the in's and out's in that field.
I don't need to be on everyones forums to hear what the folks are saying. I hear what the folks are saying in the industry as to the good and bad.
The only time we hear it's a Vista problem is from you. No other program we use has any problems with Vista nor does anybody else say they have a problem with Vista.
So as I said it's easy to blame Microsoft. The 3 series didn't have these kind of problems.

I have a customer who swears by Compuhost. I have been working with him for the last couple of months with the same Vista issues that Hoster is having. Sometimes, for no readily apparent reason, Vista just looses sync with the video. I pinned it down to the audio drivers for Vista. There is a memory leak, but only on one computer. The same card and driver on another computer doesen't have the same issue. We had to change brands to a different card. Actually it was an inferior card, but the drivers workd better in Vista on this particular machine. They even have the same kind of suggestions about resources on their sales pages that we have here. http://www.kjtools.com/chsystemoptimizing.html is just a taste of what I found in their forums. They have the same complaints, and usually the same fixes, that are posted here.

This alone should tell you that Hoster is not alone in problems with other programs and services especially when it comes to Vista. As long as a reasonably competent person is willing to make the changes, you should have a trouble free show machine. I have ran Hoster on a number of different computers with no serious problems at all. I tried to help you out a while back to tell you how to eliminate the resouce hogging issues with Vista. If you have a competent IT person, refer them here http://www.blackviper.com/ this will get your systems where they need to be to run a profesional show.