Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22
Appendix A | Appendix B | Appendix C | Glossary | Index | Legal Stuff | License


Appendix C - Getting Help

Troubleshooting | Common Problems and Solutions | User Support | Information We Need | Contacting Terran

Troubleshooting


General Configuration Issues:


1. Make sure that you are using QuickTime 2.0 or later. We strongly recommend you use QuickTime 2.5 or later. Version 2.5 is included on the Media Cleaner Pro 2.0 CD-ROM for your convenience.

2. Make sure that you have the QuickTime PowerPlug installed if you are using a PowerMac, and that it is the same version as your version of QuickTime. Remove the PowerPlug if you have a 68K Macintosh.

3. Make sure that you don't have multiple versions of QuickTime in your Extensions folder.

4. Make sure that you have Sound Manager 3.2 or later installed. This is automatically installed with System 7.5.3 or later, and QuickTime 2.5.

5. If you are working with RealMedia or VDO, make sure you have properly installed the appropriate extensions, players, etc. from the "Multimedia Technologies" folder. See each company's README for more directions on installing and troubleshooting their software.

6. Don't use System 7.6 ­ use 7.6.1 instead.

Our WWW site has the latest troubleshooting suggestions, and is updated weekly. To go there, choose "Tech Support" from the "Internet" menu,

or point your browser at: http://www.terran-int.com/support/Support.html

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Memory

Turn off Virtual Memory - VM may cause movies to play erratically or "stutter." System 7.6 automatically turns on VM by default when it is installed, so be sure to check this.

You should always keep at least 1 Mb of memory free for QuickTime. To double check this, launch Media Cleaner Pro and then switch to the Finder. Select "About This Macintosh..." from the Apple menu and make sure that in the "Largest Unused Block" there is at least 1 Mb available.

If there isn't at least 1 Mb free, try quitting other open applications and/or lowering the "Preferred Size" and "Minimum Size" of Media Cleaner. To set these, quit Media Cleaner, go to the Finder, highlight the Media Cleaner icon, and select "Get Info" from the File menu. Type values into the memory settings that will leave 1 Mb free when Media Cleaner is launched, but not lower than 8 Mb for 320x240 videos, and 12 Mb for 640x480 videos.

Sometimes it is helpful to restart your computer to make sure all the memory that should be available is being released properly.

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Common Problems and Solutions



If you can't drop files onto Media Cleaner's icon in the Finder
You may need to rebuild your desktop - do this by restarting while holding down the Option and Command keys until your computer asks you if you want to rebuild the desktop.



If Media Cleaner dials your modem
The News & Updates feature checks a special server to download the latest industry information. If you have a modem, Media Cleaner may periodically connect to your service provider as it normally does to get to the Internet ­ your modem does not call Terran directly. If you don't want this to occur, you can disable News & Updates with the Preferences dialog in the Edit menu.



If Media Cleaner hangs or crashes when you start compressing and you are using a hardware codec (such as Video Vision, Targa, etc.)
Make sure that you do not have multiple movies open at one time. Hardware codecs use the capture card in order to display video. If more than one movie is open at a time, the card must support both movies simultaneously and may crash. Make sure that you don't have a movie open in the background with another application such as Premiere or MoviePlayer.



If compression fails for lack of memory
Compressing movies with large frames (640x480 or larger) may require more than the normal 8 Mb that Media Cleaner uses. Quit Media Cleaner, select its icon in the Finder, get information on it and increase its memory allocation as necessary. 12 Mb is usually plenty for 640x480. Just remember to always leave at least 1 Mb free for QuickTime ­ if all of your memory is taken up by the system and your programs, QuickTime can run into problems.



Movie image quality issues
If your movie periodically gets blurry then sharp again, or vice versa, you may have your temporal and/or spatial quality set too high or low.

A common issue behind periodic image problems is that often the temporal and/or spatial quality sliders are set incorrectly. Because digital video is a series of trade-offs, you must balance your keyframe quality with your delta frame quality. If there is a wide difference between them, your keyframe will be sharp and the following frames will be blurry, or vice versa. The video will seem to "pulse" or "flash" in and out of focus.

1. Try using the Media Cleaner Wizard to help you configure your compression parameters to see if this corrects the problem, or use one of the preexisting settings that came with Media Cleaner.

2. If the Keyframe quality slider is available, use this to balance your keyframe and delta frame quality. This slider is only present with certain codec and data rate control modes. Otherwise, try changing the "Spatial" slider in the Compress tab of the Settings window to a lower setting if the keyframes are sharp and the delta frames are blurry, or a higher setting if the opposite is true. With Cinepak movies, 50% usually works well.





If some or all of the sample movies are not visible in the Media Cleaner Wizard window
1. If you choose a minimum install, the movies are stored on the Media Cleaner Pro 2.0 CD-ROM. Make sure the CD-ROM is in your drive while you are running Media Cleaner.

2. If you choose a medium install, movies with higher data rates are not installed on your hard drive. Make sure the CD-ROM is in your drive if you wish to view these movies.

3. If you don't see any movies, and did choose a medium or full install, make sure the "Media Cleaner Data" folder is inside the Media Cleaner folder. If this folder has been moved or renamed, Media Cleaner will not be able to find the sample movies.



If some or all of the sample movies do not play smoothly in the Media Cleaner Wizard window
1. Some of the sample movies have a low frame rate, and will appear "jerky" even though they are playing correctly.

2. Because Media Cleaner plays up to three movies at a time, slower machines may have a hard time keeping up. You can have the Wizard play only one movie at a time with the Preferences dialog in the Edit menu. The movie that was last under your cursor will play while the other movies remain paused.



If your movies play fine on a Mac, but stutter, crash, or have other problems on a Windows machine.
1. Make sure you flattened the movies (select "Flatten and Make Cross-Platform" in the Output tab in the Settings window).

2. Make sure you do not have unsupported QuickTime tracks in your movies such as text or sprites.

3. Some low data rate trade-offs such as nonstandard audio sample rates and audio compression may give some older Windows machines a hard time. There is no good solution to this problem.



If your movies look fine on a PowerMac or Pentium, but not on older machines
Some codecs and architectures do not support non-PowerMacs and non-Pentium machines. Usually movies will simply not play on unsupported machines, but sometimes movies will be displayed with very strange and erratic results.



If your movies are not included in your WWW page even though you included the EMBED tags in the document and uploaded the movies and new HTML document to your server
1. Try reloading the page with your browser.

2. View the HTML source with a text editor (such as SimpleText) to make sure the EMBED tag is actually included. Older WYSIWYG HTML editors (such as Adobe Pagemill 1.0) may not recognize the QuickTime tags and may delete them.

3. Make sure the names of your movies are compatible with your server, and end with the proper suffix (see below). For most servers, this means avoiding spaces and using only alpha-numeric characters.

4. Double check to make sure the movie name in your HTML is exactly the same as the movie name on the server. Sometimes you may change the name of a movie and forget to change the reference to it in your HTML document. Make sure the capitalization is the same.



Movies work fine when viewed locally, but don't work when put on your server.
1. The most common cause for movies not playing properly once they are on your server is problems with their names. For best results, use only numbers and letters, no spaces, followed by the following suffixes (the extension must be in lower case). Make sure the suffix is matched to the file type of the movie. For example, calling a RealMedia file a ".mov" won't work.

The correct suffixes are as follows:
QuickTime .mov
RealMedia .rm
RealMedia metafile .rma
RealAudio .ra
RealAudio metafile .ram
VDOLive .avi
LiteVDO (Mac) .mov
LiteVDO (Windows) .avs

2. Make sure your browser is configured to play that file type properly. Check that only one "helper" application or plug-in is selected in your browser's preferences for each file type. Make sure that the QuickTime Plug-in is selected for QuickTime, not any of the other QuickTime compatible plug-ins, such as MacZilla or MovieView.

3. Make sure your HTTP server has its MIME types set properly. Adding the following line to its mime types file may help:

video/quicktime qt mov
video/vdo vdo
audio/x-pn-realaudio ra rm ram rpm
audio/aiff aiff aif

For more details on MIME types, please see the Tips & Info section on our web site.

4. If you are using a RealMedia or VDOLive server, make sure your server is properly configured. Please see the server company's documentation for more details.

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User Support

Technical support is free to registered owners of the latest version of Media Cleaner Pro. You must be registered in order to receive support. If you haven't registered yet and need support immediately, please register by selecting the "Register" option in the "Internet" menu, or visit our web site and click the "Register Products" button.


--- IMPORTANT ---

Before you call, please do the following five things:

1. Read the Manual
Please read the Troubleshooting section to see if it addresses your problem. Please make sure you have also referred to the appropriate section of the manual as well.

2. Visit our Internet Technical Support
If you don't find the answer you need in this manual, please visit our web site for an up-to-date list of all our technical support questions and answers. It's faster and cheaper than calling us. Just select the "Tech Support" option in Media Cleaner's Internet menu, or visit: http://www.terran-int.com/support/Support.html

3. Make sure your system is working properly
About 75% of all problems we troubleshoot are configuration issues ­ please make sure your system is working properly in general before contacting us.

Try launching some of the compressed movies from the "Sample Movies" folder on the Media Cleaner Pro 2.0 CD-ROM to determine if your system is working properly with verified movies.

If your system is not displaying some or all of these movies properly, you should double check that your system is configured properly to display that movie type. See the README files in the various third party folders for information on installing and configuring your system.

If you are working with online video, please visit our MovieHelp page for help configuring your system at: http://www.terran-int.com/moviehelp/moviehelp.html

4. Make sure the problem is not with Third Party Software
Terran does not provide free technical support for the third party software on this disc.

If you are having trouble with any of the third party software on the Media Cleaner Pro 2.0 CD-ROM, please contact those companies directly for support. In each folder is a README containing technical support numbers for the third party software.

5. Save a System Configuration Log
There is a "Save system configuration log" option in the "Help Menu" (the little question mark near the far right of the menu bar). This option creates a text file of your system including your serial number, CPU, memory, System version, QuickTime version, and details of the currently open settings group and movie. If you are having problems with a specific movie, please have it open when you create the configuration log.

When you select this option, it will create a text file named "System Config Info" on your desktop. This file may be opened with SimpleText by double-clicking on it.

Please create a System log prior to contacting us. The information it contains will be very helpful, and must be included with any emailed or faxed technical support requests. Our technical support personnel will ask you for this information when you call us.

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The Information We Need

In order to provide quick, accurate technical support, there are several key pieces of information our support staff needs from you.

1. We need your System Configuration Log
Please make a System log by choosing the "Save system configuration log" option in the "Help Menu". This contains your serial number and important system information that may help us track down your problem.

2. What is the problem or question?
In order to provide you with useful assistance, our support staff needs a clear description of your problem or question regarding Media Cleaner. If you are getting an error message, what exactly does it say?

As mentioned above, we don't offer free technical support for third party products. If you are having difficulty with a third party product, please contact them directly.

3. How can we contact you?
Please provide us with at least two reliable ways to contact you. We would prefer an email address, phone number, and fax number.

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Contacting Us

Before you contact us, please check our online Technical Support to see if your question is answered. This is much faster and cheaper than contacting us directly. To get to our online technical support, choose the "Tech Support" option in the Internet menu. Please also have a System configuration log available ­ see the previous section for more details on how to create one.

You can contact us through the following methods:

1. Email us
You can Email your technical support questions to:support@terran-int.com

Please make sure to include your System configuration log and your email address in the body of your message.

2. Fax us
Fax your question to us at (408) 278-9063. Please be sure to include a phone and fax number so that we may contact you, as well as the System configuration log.

3. Call us
Call us at (408) 278-9065, Monday through Friday from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM, California time. Make sure to have your System configuration log handy.

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