Drive Volume Labels; What are they and Why change them

Drive volume labels are used by various programs to track the location of data.  Visionary uses the drive volume label to allow the use of optical disks and external hard drives.  Because of that, the labels need to be unique on the computer.

An easy reason to understand why drive volume labels are needed is the use of an optical drive (cd/dvd).  The drive letter will always be d:\ (or whatever on your computer); but the disk in the drive can be changing regularly.  Visionary needs to know what disk is available; for instance for video playback.  (Whenever a cd/dvd is "burned" an optional electronic label is included.)

(As an aside, all network shared drives already have a drive volume label.  In the case of these shares, the actual share name is the label.)

Adding a drive volume label to a drive will not affect anything on the computer.  If the drive is not already labeled, adding a label cannot affect anything.  If it already has a label, there is no need to change it.  The addition of a drive volume label does not change the drive letter, that remains the same.

To check to see if your drives are already labeled, use Windows Explorer, My Computer or File Explorer (your available choices are dependent on the version of Windows that is being used.)

When your favorite file tool is open, right-click on your c:\ drive and choose Rename.  If it currently says "Local Drive", it means there is no drive volume label assigned.  In that case, give it a name.  We suggest something like "CDrive".  The name doesn't really matter except that it should not be a duplicate.  For instance, naming all your external drives "Data" and connecting them all at once is going to cause problems.

How to clear the "frame greater than video end" message

This issue may also be seen when you try to publish "The frame values of some sync points are greater than the end frame values of video files."

These messages indicate that the Auto-Syncer thinks one of the video files is (for instance) five minutes long, but you have a timestamp of (for instance) six minutes.  One of the checks in the Auto-Syncer is looking for logical consistency.  We know that having a timestamp that exceeds the length of the video file is not possible, and we pass along these messages.

The most common cause of this issue is replacing a video file with a re-rendered one that is shorter, after the syncing has been done.  A second cause is the value in the End Frame field has become incorrect.

To solve the first issue, simply re-sync the last portion of the video file in question.

To solve the second issue, choose the "Edit video file properties" for the file in question.  In this window you will see the End frame: field.  It is most likely incorrect.  Click on the Reset button to set it correctly.  If the Reset button is unable to set the correct value, use the Browse button (the one with the three dots) to reassociate the video file.  That process will cause the Auto-Syncer to ask the Operating System for the video file length and should cause the correct value to be used in the End frame: field.

Once the appropriate process has been completed, you should no longer receive the "end frame" message.

If neither process works, please contact Visionary support via email or our web site.

chuck

How to Rename a Drive for Use with Visionary 8

Visionary 8 needs to have a unique label for any drives that are used for case materials.

Adding a drive label will not affect anything on your computer.  And if your drive is already labeled, you do not need to do anything.

This only applies to local drives on the computer.  Almost by definition, all networked drives are already labeled.  (Further information:  a network drive mapped to a computer drive letter is done as \\servername\sharename.  In this instance, the drive label is the "sharename".)

That said, to apply a unique label to a local drive, use Windows Explorer or My Computer to view all your drives.  Right-click on the specific drive (most likely c:) and choose Rename.  (If your drive is already named "Local Drive", that really means it does not have a drive label.)  You can enter any name you wish, as long as there are no spaces and Windows allows the letter/number combination.

Whatever you choose, ensure that it is unique on this computer.  Press the Enter key.

You may be asked to provide administrator permission to complete this process.

For the propeller heads out there.

Drive labeling is used for several purposes.  First, consider if your optical drive is labeled D:\.  Even when you switch disks in it, it is still named D:\ and the program has no idea if the correct disk is in the drive.

Secondly, drive labeling is also used by people who generate Image Load Files, as it allows for the use of drive-independent information.

For the network geeks out there.

As you can see from the definition of a mapped network drive and the need for unique drive labels on a computer; all network "sharenames" mapped for use by Visionary 8 must be unique.  This scenario can be caused by having two or more "servernames" with the same "sharename".  While completely valid by network theory (they are both unique and valid), this would cause an issue with Visionary.  In our own network environment we have multiple physically separate RAID drives.  Rather than using "\\NAS01\data" and "\\NAS02\data", we used "\\NAS01\RAID01" and "\NAS02\RAID02".