Frequently Asked Questions and Troubleshooting

General
- I have some troubles with the Sentinel driver.
- The camera/frame grabber is not in the Hardware List.
- The camera/frame grabber won't start.
- How can I process multiple sequences?
- The camera/frame grabber is not working anymore.
- Corrupt sequence (computer crashed when recording).
- StreamPix freezes when launched.
- On the sequence bar, I can go past the last image (ex : 51/50).

Performance
- How can make sure I have sufficient bandwidth performance to stream my data ?
- Beside all my effort to get optimum performance, StreamPix still can't follow the camera frame
- Could disk fragmentation be an issue ?

Display
- When "Fit image to window" is selected or when using the zooming feature, StreamPix toolbars aren't repainted or you are dropping frames or the playback speed is slow or the image is ugly.
- The sequence toolbar says it is running at X frame rate but StreamPix doesn't seem to display at X frames/seconds.

Exporting
- My exported AVI file seems to skip frames during playback.
- My exported AVI framerate is incorrect.
- My AVI playback is a little bit slower than the actual recording
- I have exported to an AVI, but the resulting file size is 0.

Notes:
1. Before using StreamPix/TroublePix, make sure the camera/frame grabber works with its own driver.
2. If you have 2 of our products installed on the same computer, make sure their versions are compatible. Each product comes with a history file called changes.txt. If the release dates are the same, it means the products are compatible.

If you have a question that isn't listed above, contact Norpix technical support at support@norpix.com

General

Q. I have some troubles with the Sentinel driver.
A. Follow these steps:
1. Uninstall the sentinel driver.
2. Make sure the key is not plugged in.
3. When reinstalling, select Custom mode instead of Complete.
4. In the list, install only the first feature, "Sentinel system drivers". The next 2 features (Sentinel Protection server and Sentinel Keys server) shouldn't be installed.
5. Plug in the key.
If the computer supports advanced power management, make sure that the USB port where the key is connected is never powered off while the computer is running.
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Q. My camera/frame grabber is not in the Hardware List.
A. Cause 1 : The driver for your camera/frame grabber is not installed on the computer or is not a version compatible with StreamPix/TroublePix. Click here for the driver compatibility list.

Cause 2 : StreamPix/TroublePix was installed before the camera/frame grabber driver and libraries were installed on the computer. Because of DLL dependencies, the driver must be there before StreamPix/TroublePix is installed. Simply re-install StreamPix/TroublePix and that should fix the issue. Starting with Streampix 3.33/4.7 and TroublePix 1.3 the registration is much easier using the Register Manager (NpxRegMan.exe) that comes with the setup.

Cause 3 (only Prosilica Firewire): There is a problem with one of the SDK dependencies for the Prosilica firewire. On some computers, it freezes the installation when trying to register it. So, for the moment, our Prosilica firewire is not registered by default. Please use the Register Manager (NpxRegMan.exe) to register it after the installation.
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Q. The camera/frame grabber won't start.
A. Cause 1 : The camera/frame grabber is not correctly configured. Test the camera/frame grabber with its own software before trying in StreamPix/TroublePix. If it doesn't work with its software, it won't work with our product either.

Cause 2 : The version of the camera/frame grabber driver is not compatible with your current version of StreamPix/TroublePix. Check the changes.txt file that comes with the setup to see which version of the driver you need to install. Also you can see here the driver compatibility list for the latest releases.
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Q. How can I process multiple sequences?
A. There is a stand alone application called Batch Processor that comes with StreamPix/TroublePix setup. This allows multiple sequences processing like exporting to different formats or applying some of the StreamPix 3 plugins.
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Q. My camera/frame grabber is not working anymore.
A. You can reset StreamPix/TroublePix to factory defaults. To do that first select the virtual grabber from the hardware menu and then open the StreamPix/TroublePix settings window. For StreamPix 3: Select the Buffer, etc tab and click the RESET button. For StreamPix 4/TroublePix press "Reset all grabbers settings...". Then, quit and restart StreamPix/TroublePix. It's better to unplug the camera too, to reset it to its default settings.
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Q. Corrupt sequence (computer crashed when recording).
A. The sequence header wasn't saved properly. In this case you can open this sequence with the Sequence Header Editor that comes with Streampix. Fill the parameters in the Target Sequence Header sections and press Save Target. Use another similar sequence as a reference for the header values.
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Q. StreamPix freezes when launched.
A. This might happen with frame grabbers if the current configuration file doesn't work with the current camera. To fix this, activate the "Scroll Lock" function of your keyboard. Start StreamPix. StreamPix won't connect to the camera while Scroll Lock is on. Open "File | Hardware Settings" and go to the configuration file tab. Replace the current file by the one made for your camera. Click "OK". Disable "Scroll Lock" and click the "Live" button to connect the camera using the new file.
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Q. On the sequence bar, I can go past the last image (ex : 51/50).
A. You can always advance one image past the end. The current frame number tells what will be the ID of the next image to be captured. So when you create a new sequence, you are at position 1/0 meaning that the sequence currently contains no images and that the next image to be captured will be labeled "1". Pressing record or snap will always capture at the current image position. So if you want to append more images to an existing sequence (containing 123 frames), you would place the cursor at image 124/123 (so you aren't overwriting existing images).
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Performance

Q. How can make sure I have sufficient bandwidth performance to stream my data ?
A. Run the disk benchmarking tool from the Streampix help menu. This will evaluate the maximum theoretical bandwidth you should obtain.
Two tests should be done:
- Run the bench utility while receiving live images from the camera
- Run the bench utility while not receiving live images from the camera
Monitor the CPU usage (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC, and select performance tab) for both cases. CPU usage higher than 85 % may result in frame drop while streaming.
Using the bench number, it is possible to evaluate the kind of performance that will be obtained while streaming for real.
Note that disk performance degrade significantly with disk capacity usage. When more than 50% of the disk is used, performance degrade about 25%. At 80% capacity, performance degrade 50%.
Finally, if the data is recorded on the operating system disk, performance will degrade significantly more. By adding more disks and strip them together using Windows XP streaming capabilities, you should regain some bandwidth.
If you still get some frame drop, you can also temporarly disable image display while recording. Hence, you'll be sure no computer resources will be allocated to the image display. To disable the display, uncheck the "Enabled" entry in the display menu.
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Q. Beside all my effort to get optimum performance, StreamPix still can't follow the camera frame rate.
A. Try to reduce the area of interest and/or image bitdepth if possible. Significant gain can be obtained if you reduce the image size to be streamed. To reduce the image size, open the hardware settings property page, and reduce the image size in x and y. You can also change the origin (top left corner) of the grab area, hence defining a smaller window within the total CCD image area. Also, make sure you have disabled any "on the fly" exports.
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Q. Could disk fragmentation be an issue?
A. Yes, disk fragmentation is a significant issue. Ideally, we recommend that you use a dedicated hard disk to stream the data. That disk should be different from the disk where the operating system has been installed. Consider clearing or reformating (quick format is enough) the stream disk on a regular basis.
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Display

Q. When "Fit image to window" is selected or when using the zooming feature, StreamPix toolbars aren't repainted or you are dropping frames or the playback speed is slow or the image is ugly.
A. When those options are used, the image is scalled to fit the window. The algorithm used by windows to do this is slow and gives mixed result. It is strongly recommended to use the "Fit window to image" mode and "Reset Zoom Level" when doing capture or playback.
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Q. The sequence toolbar says it is running at X frames/seconds but StreamPix doesn't seem to display at X frames/seconds.
A. StreamPix updates the image display on "idle". That means that the image gets updated when StreamPix has nothing else to do. StreamPix does this in order to give priority to the streaming on disk. If the sequence toolbar shows that you are capturing at 29 frames/second, that means that StreamPix is currently able to grab and save 29 frames/second. So even if the display is updated only 5 to 10 times per second (or not at all), you are still saving frames at the rate indicated in the toolbar.
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Exporting

Q. My exported AVI file seems to skip frames during playback.
A. If you exported the AVI from an existing sequence, then the AVI has all the information contained in the sequence. The problem is often file fragmentation which will cause jerky playback. To reduce file fragmentation, try to make a copy of the file or run "Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disk Defragmenter". If your AVI was created using the "On-the-fly AVI" option, you may have dropped some frames if your system could not handle the data output from StreamPix.
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Q. My exported AVI framerate is incorrect.
A. The framerate used in the AVI is the one shown in StreamPix Sequence toolbar at the exact moment you press "Record". If you didn't wait long enough for StreamPix to accuratly bench the framerate, you will have an incorrect value. Now, if the framerate shown by Strempix drops during the on-the-fly export, then your hardware isn't fast enough to process all StreamPix data output.
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Q. My AVI playback is a little bit slower than the actual recording
A. AVI file format does not support non-integral frame rates. That means that even if your sequence was captured a 25.67 frames/seconds, the AVI will only playback at 25 frames/seconds.
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Q. I have exported to an AVI, but the resulting file size is 0.
A. Most common cause : the desired AVI encoding format doesn't support the current image resolution. Each codec has its own requirements, for exemple, most codecs will refuse to encode with odd length image resolution. (ex: 639x479 is refused, but 640x480 works.) Thus, if you need to work with a non-standard image size, you will need to do some trial-and-error to find the codec which best suits your needs. At least, the "uncompressed AVI" codec will work with anything. The available codecs aren't made nor supported by Norpix.
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