FCP, dropped frames and timecode errors......

[spinner]

Now that I am back on here, I already have some issues that I would love to get opinions from the troops

I've been talking to knightly about a dropped frame problem I have been having with my FCP and he has been quite helpful but the problem still exists, so on the off chance that someone else has seen this or experienced this:

When I attempt to capture my footage I get a dropped frame alert and the capture is stopped. In order to fix this problem, I have:

1. Changed User Settings from 'make a clip' to 'warn on capture'
2. Cleanded the cameras heads
3. Re-installed FCP 4
4. Done a 'repair' on my Mac G4
5. Moved all footage off of my laptop hard drive onto my external hard drive

Actually, now the error I get is a timecode problem. ...sigh...

Since I am not a complete idiot, I have considered that it might be the tapes. But the problem is on every tape I use, recently taped (last week) and previously taped (some months ago.)

Has anyone ever experienced this sort of thing before? What did you do to fix it?

...damn! this is so un-cool! I have at least 3 things I need to pull together and I can't capture anything!

Any help would be appreciated......

-- spinner

 

[knightly]

The OSX 10.4.10 update is the one I e-mailed you about a couple of days ago...it also addresses a dropped frame on import issue. Located under the "Apple Menu" then "Software Update...".

 

[spinner]

Thanks, you guys!

Well, firstly I don't remember what the hard drive is anymore, I knew when I was buying this thing, but now I'm not so sure anymore. I am really glad that I will have the extra time to become more familiar with all of this. If you can let me know where to look for this, I looked in the 'about' on the Apple icon, but didn't see what you are speaking of.

and secondly, I don't download music anymore. Not since Napster became illegal and then legal and whatever. Anyway, no iTunes on my computer or any other music downloads. Yeah, I know they would slow everything down.

knightly;
I did get the upgrade and I will be looking it over tomorrow. I also think I will get the iDefrag as well. This has been going on for almost a month and as much time as this is taking, I am starting to worry about getting my work done. I am beginning to believe it is a defrag problem especially since initially I had to save my footage onto my hard drive....

...see, once we all become rich and famous, we won't have to worry about not having the necessary equipment anymore...

-- spinner

 

[Thunderclap]

Well, firstly I don't remember what the hard drive is anymore, I knew when I was buying this thing, but now I'm not so sure anymore. I am really glad that I will have the extra time to become more familiar with all of this. If you can let me know where to look for this, I looked in the 'about' on the Apple icon, but didn't see what you are speaking of.

You can find the hard drive information under System Profiler which is located in the Utilities folder. I don't know what type of drives are in the system you have (IDE, ATA, SATA, etc.) but whatever it is you can click on whatever type you have and it will have you the manufacturer, model number and more.

 

[knightly]

She's got an IDE drive 5400 RPM unless she specifically ordered faster (which I don't think you did spinner). Laptops tend to have slower drives to decrease heat and potential failure due to movement.

I talked her through moving footage off of her main drive onto an external drive (from ~/Documents/Final\ Cut\ Pro\ Documents/Capture\ Scratch) about the time she is reporting these problems starting.

The inital problem was that she couldn't capture new footage. My inital thoughts were that the drive was full (which it was). We went through and moved the footage to an external drive along with other pertinant project files (specifically, the .fcp files for each of the pieces she was backing up). We then moved the main footage to the trash (without emptying) and opened the .fcp files from the external and reconnected the media to verify they worked off of the external. I told her then to empty her trash, which she did.

The next call was for the dropped frames (which I've always seen, so I didn't understand how they were an unusual thing). I talked her through the work-arounds I've used on my system (warn after capture, continue capture, etc...).

She had never cleaned the heads of her DVX until this problem...they're cleaned now.

Her laptop has one FW400 and one FW800 port. She can't capture to the external via FW due to this, she's looking into getting a FW PCMCIA card to give another FW port (and bus). USB2.0 has a higher listed transfer rate (480 vs. 400), but that doesn't hold in sustained transfers as well as FW.

Reinstalled FCP from DVD. I'd like her to find someone else with a camera to see if it's specific to her camera as well. Defrag was mentioned (hadn't known of any affordable software for it, I just downloaded iDefrag, thanks for the link)...as well as not using the main drive for footage.

 

[Thunderclap]

Her laptop has one FW400 and one FW800 port. She can't capture to the external via FW due to this, she's looking into getting a FW PCMCIA card to give another FW port (and bus). USB2.0 has a higher listed transfer rate (480 vs. 400), but that doesn't hold in sustained transfers as well as FW.

Everything you've instructed her to do is good advice though I doubt you need me to tell you that. Even though she has one FW port she should be able to hook the camera up through the external firewire drive since most have an extra port or two. Granted, you generally don't want to have the camera being accessed through the external drive especially if you're capturing to it, but she could try that before buying an extra PCMCIA care. Just a thought.

I'm not sure what else to try if defragmenting, repairing permissions, and everything else you and everyone has recommended doesn't work.

 

[spinner]

Hey, guys!

Sorry I fell off the radar yesterday, but I brought a doctor's note: anybody ever have a scratched cornea? I was pretty much in a certain amount of discomfort and couldn't get back, but I will be around for a little while today and should be fine tomorrow.

...and thanks for all your help...

-- spinner

 

[spinner]

She's got an IDE drive 5400 RPM unless she specifically ordered faster (which I don't think you did spinner). Laptops tend to have slower drives to decrease heat and potential failure due to movement.

..it is an ATA drive....I have to go look for the RPM....

I talked her through moving footage off of her main drive onto an external drive (from ~/Documents/Final\ Cut\ Pro\ Documents/Capture\ Scratch) about the time she is reporting these problems starting.

The inital problem was that she couldn't capture new footage. My inital thoughts were that the drive was full (which it was). We went through and moved the footage to an external drive along with other pertinant project files (specifically, the .fcp files for each of the pieces she was backing up). We then moved the main footage to the trash (without emptying) and opened the .fcp files from the external and reconnected the media to verify they worked off of the external. I told her then to empty her trash, which she did.

...thank you, sensei...

The next call was for the dropped frames (which I've always seen, so I didn't understand how they were an unusual thing). I talked her through the work-arounds I've used on my system (warn after capture, continue capture, etc...).

She had never cleaned the heads of her DVX until this problem...they're cleaned now.

I meant my playback camera! I have two, my DVX and my little playback Panasonic, that's the one that hadn't been cleaned.I may have misunderstood...however, I do think that I should probably clean them more often, any suggestions about that would be welcome, too.

Her laptop has one FW400 and one FW800 port. She can't capture to the external via FW due to this, she's looking into getting a FW PCMCIA card to give another FW port (and bus). USB2.0 has a higher listed transfer rate (480 vs. 400), but that doesn't hold in sustained transfers as well as FW.

Reinstalled FCP from DVD. I'd like her to find someone else with a camera to see if it's specific to her camera as well. Defrag was mentioned (hadn't known of any affordable software for it, I just downloaded iDefrag, thanks for the link)...as well as not using the main drive for footage.

...as soon as I can drive I am going to go pick up that pcmcia card you were talking about. Now that I have an external to use, I would like to save my footage to that as opposed to having to move it from my laptop.

As for the iDefrag, it costs: L 17.50, so I am not quite sure what that is in dollars, I think I saw about $30. Pardon me for being alittle confused, this is alot of info at one time, but I am beginning to slowly retain it. I am glad I can ask you all about this stuff....

-- grasshopper

 

[spinner]

Okay, new question:

I am planning on purchasing the pcmcia card, as per knightly. I was getting alot of info when this was discussed but I think I understand that this card will give me another firewire port.

So, if I get this card, I think I can bypass my laptop hard drive and save my footage directly to my external. If that is so, would/should I still get iDefrag or will the bypassing of my laptop be enough. Should I purchase them both? (iDefrag is about $30-$35 dollars, relatively inexpensive).

Am I right in this thinking?

-- spinner

 

[knightly]

wouldn't hurt to get both, but I think being able to captre directly to your external storage would be more important at this point.

 

[spinner]

wouldn't hurt to get both, but I think being able to captre directly to your external storage would be more important at this point.

Thanks!

I think I might get this taken care of in a day or so. I don't like not being able to do what I need to do. So long as I can get on with capturing my footage, I will be okay and I'll take on the defrag later...I'll be in touch....

-- spinner

 

[spinner]

Okay, here is the result of all of this:

Here's what I did...bear with me, those who already know, this is for us newbies...

...as knightly suggested, I purchased a pcmcia card. My PowerBook has a slot on the left side that I never had any idea of what to use it for. That is where the card goes. The card gives you 2 extra FireWire ports.

Connect the external to the computer itself. Open Final Cut and go to system settings.

System Settings already has its settings for the laptop, so I had to add one.

On the scratch disks tab, you will find video capture, audio capture (which is grey), video render and audio render.

There are 4 slots to add a hard drive, don't change the one you already have, it tells you its the Macintosh hard drive. Go to the second slot and click set. Choose folder for your external hard drive. When you click the folder, it will show you that you have added another hard drive and its connected to your scratch disks.

Then click (check) the box on your slot (to the left) that says: video capture. You don't have to click the video or audio render because your computer can handle that part. Click okay.

When you go to capture, connect your playback to the card.

When I attempted to capture, I clicked on log and capture and then capture NOW, the capture window did come up, but I got an allocating files alert and the rainbow pinwheel. After the 'pinwheel' went away, I started the tape and everything captured with no hits, dropped frames or timecode breaks!

Again, I say: Woohoo!

Thanks for everyone assistance, I appreciate it very much! Never even crossed my mind to check the FireWire cable, Spatula, and even though that wasn't the problem I intend to try to remember that from now on. You never know when that might be the problem...

I did change my setup to NTSC-DV FireWire Basic, thanks, LOC, and I may purchase iDefrag, just not right now, Thunderclap, credit card is filling up again....

The best way to learn something is to tell someone how to do it

I'm sure if I left anything out, you all will let me know...

-- spinner

 

[spinner]

New development:

when I attempt to capture the footage, in capture now, FCP gives me a 'allocating disk space' alert. This happens once I click 'now' in the capture window. The capture window comes up but it is black and in the grey area below the window it says 'allocating disk space'. This takes quite a bit of time, sometimes long enough for my capture camera to shut off. Again making it almost impossible to capture (I got one clip captured in an hour)

Anyone see this before? I looked through my manual but I can't seem to find this anywhere.

Any suggestions At this rate, its going to take me a year to get this footage from one tape...(sigh)

-- spinner

 

[spinner]

Here's an update...

in the space of 45 minutes, I have only been able to save 4 clips, all no longer than 3 minutes apiece. The 'allocating disk space' alert sits no less than 4 minutes, the longest being about 8 or 9 minutes to just get the capture function to operate...

I did run another repair on the Mac, just to be sure...

I sure would like to know of this computer (or me, blame the operator) is having a nervous breakdown or what

...the issue is that I have never had these problems on this computer before, when something new occurs, I am not really good at finding the problem, in that it is the first time I am seeing it.

Has anyone else had any issues with Mac & FCP? I would love some insight because I seem to be doing what I should...I really am a good little girl....

-- spinner

 

[spinner]

Okay, the problem I've been having is that when I attempt to capture I get a:

"allocating disk space" alert.

This is how you fix this:

ANYTHING you want to keep, backup. (I moved stuff to my Mac desktop)

Go To Applications; open UTILITIES; open DISK UTILITIES;

Click on your external icon (mine was WD Combo); At the top you will see a row of buttons (not the row of icons);

Click on 'ERASE';

VOLUME FORMAT is a drop down menu, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Under VOLUME FORMAT is NAME. You can name it whatever you will remember, but I just called it what it is on my hard drive, which is WD COMBO.

Then click ERASE. It should only take a second.

When it is done erasing, put everything that you needed (your backed up stuff) back onto your external.

I hope to get my footage into my computer by tomorrow night! Thanks again, knightly!

-- spinner

 

[knightly]

problem was that the external HD came formatted in a PC way (fat32 or ntfs - unsure which)...the mac was fine with this, but final cut didn't like it. We reformatted as HFS+ Extended/Journalled.

 

[spinner]

New Project, new capturing problem.

I have been using my MacJanitor, I have cleared alot of space out of my laptop hard drive, I have emptied the capture scratch files, and cleaned the heads on my camera.

Now when I attempt to capture my footage, it stops in mid capture as though it is hitting a control break, which it is not. The only thing I am getting is the pinwheel. No alerts or anything to give me an idea of why it won't finish a capture. I have also done re-boots.

...any thoughts?


-- spinner

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

Have you considered deleting all of your FCP preferences and redoing your FCP configuration? That's usually the first thing I do when FCP gets flaky, and I haven't seen where anyone has suggested that.

 

[spinner]

Oak;

do you mean delete everything and then reinstall? I don't think I know how to do that...


-- spinner

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

no, no, no ... FCP makes preference files that store all of your settings and customizations. By removing them, you reset everything to default values, so you'll have to reassign scratch disks, etc. I know FCP users who delete their FCP preferences before they start each project. Apparently, they can become corrupted, and strange things happen in Final Cut.
You'll find the preferences files in your Library/Preferences folder. Files include:

com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist
everything in the folder "Final Cut Pro User Data" except your Plugins, if you have any in there. They are in the "Plugins" folder under "Final Cut Pro User Data".

Here are some links with more info:
brief instructions
the official word from Apple

The LAFCPUG has a great, step by step tutorial, but I can't link it here, because they have a forum and the owner of this forum is afraid you'll discover another forum and never return.

 

[spinner]

I already have some footage imported into my new project. Is deleting preferences going to mess up that footage or "confuse" my capture scratch files? I hesitate to put everything back to the defaults because of other changes I have made in order to head off other issues.


-- spinner