LIGHTSPEED TROUBLES

[Denise Christian]

Yikes. Midway during a 5-hour depo, my Lightspeed starts dropping strokes, sometimes several strokes in a row and sometimes just registering a few letters of the stroke, which makes for an interesting translation. Like writing with a pen that has air bubbles in the ink cartridge is the only way I can describe it. It finally gets back on track, and I'm happy to say I'm recovering nicely from the heart attack. Anyone having this problem? Thanks, Denise

[Brenda Rogers]

Denise, have you checked your SD card? All the strokes should be there, which will help with the transcript, but you won't have audio sync if you retran from it. Make sure you tell support about this. They need to know about it.

Glad to hear you're recovering well. :)

[Denise Christian]

Thanks, Brenda. I'll check. Appreciate the suggestion.

[Greta Duckett, CCR, RPR, CRR]

Are you using Bluetooth or the usb cable? And what software version are you on?

[Denise Christian]

Hi, Greta. I am using the usb cable (already bought a new one thinking that might be it), but I could use Bluetooth if that's better. Someone told me attorney cell phones (which should be off but aren't) might interfere with Bluetooth. I am on the latest version of Eclipse, 4.2.0.7., and I downloaded the Lightspeed update a few weeks ago when I started having this problem. Any suggestions? Thanks so much. d

[Greta Duckett, CCR, RPR, CRR]

Sounds like you're doing everything right! How much memory do you have? You need 2G.

[Denise Christian]

Hi, Greta. Thanks for checking again. :) My Toshiba laptop is 3 years old with a Celeron processor (not the best but I was a starving student), 512 KB of memory, and I added another 1 GB about a month ago. I have been wondering if the trouble could be my laptop. I'm a new reporter and don't want another expense (who does?) but maybe I'll have to bite the bullet. I need to be able to depend on my equipment, and that last depo with the dropped strokes scared me to death. Is 2G the Lightspeed requirement? And what do you think about Bluetooth v. usb cable? Thanks, Greta. I really appreciate your input. d

[Greta Duckett, CCR, RPR, CRR]

I think it is probably your RAM. Check these out. The Stenovations guys all have them. You could use this on your job, then edit on your old laptop, because the keyboards are tiny!

http://www.buy.com/retail/usersearchresults.asp?querytype=home&...

[Grace]

Yes, I had the same problem a couple of days ago. II'd love to hear what the Tech Support told you if you called them about this. As for me, I never did got back on track, and when I called the Stenovation tech support, the guy who answered the phone couldn't quite help me out. After many tries on my own, I figured out that I had too many entries in my global table (over 900 entries) and when I deleted the global entries, then it seems to ease the "dropping strokes" problem, but not quite. Another option is to choose to not have the SleepMode box checked. That seems to help.

Additionally, I don't know what software you're on, but I'm on CC4, and so far I've had frequent connection problems (Lightspeed software is on and works fine but cannot start a connection in cc4) and have had many stressful moments because of the connection problem. It's a hit-or-miss type of situation.

I'd like to hear how your transition has been from writing on a traditional machine to Lightspeed. Personally, after writing on it a couple of weeks I think I'm finally getting the hang of it, and would hate to give it up because of all these technical problems I'm encountering.

[Denise Christian]

Hi, Grace. I just saw your note. On the way out the door, but I do have some updates. I'll write soon. Thanks, Grace. d

[Grace]

Thank you! Any input on this will be greatly appreciated! As is, I'll have to retran the whole job (about 6 hours' worth) because of the constant missing strokes and the connection problem (yeah, the problem popped up again) which forced me to write a good 60 pgs or so on the LightSpeed writer alone. To boot, this particular job was videotaped, which means it requires timestamping.

And even though I was told by a salesperson that timestamping will be retained when a file that's written on the writer alone is later translated, I later found out that CC4 WILL NOT retain timestamping created by Lightspeed when translated from its steno file (CC4 cannot trans using the RFT files created by Lightspeed), even though that feature is available in DigitalCat. Anyway, I plan on calling Stenovation on Monday and see if I can e-mail my dicts and the RFT files to Stenovation so they can send back a translated file with timestamping intact.

Like I said previously, I love the writer, but these frequently-occurring technical problems have become so burdensome on me that I'm seriously considering returning the writer if the problems don't get resolved in the near future.

[Jen]

Has anyone figured out how to stop the dropped strokes? Clearly if this many people are having problems it is not the cord. I cannot find a USB cable with the same input that the light speed needs. I've been on the phone with tech support and they have no clue. It's different for everyone. Something different fixes it for everyone. I must be speial because none of the 10 suggestions have worked for me.

Please help before I have to send it back.

Jen

[Grace]

Hi, Jen,

Just curious why you need to find a different USB cable. Shouldn't the USB cable that came the writer suffice?

Now a little update. It seems Lightspeed works much better under XP than Vista. I say this because I took my main computer in for repair for what I perceive to be a fan problem, and so I've been using my backup laptop which has XP (and I use the USB cable that came with the writer). So far I haven't had any connection nor "dropped stroke" problem. Once I get back my Vista computer, it will be interesting to see if the same problems crop up again.