Avoiding dropped frames?

So I'm trying to switch from iMovie back to FCP. In trying to capture an entire tape (hitting the play button and Capture Now button) I notice that there were five clips where there were dropped frames. In reviewing the tape I notice (with the naked eye and ear) no digital drop-out. So, in my deduction the dropped frames is occuring in either the computer and/or program. How can I eliminate dropped frames and have one clip to work with?

Are you capturing to your system drive? Do you have any antivirus software installed and active?
Search is your friend, and will bring up just about every solution you could imagine for getting your system to the point where it won't drop frames. There's also a full troubleshooting section in the manual devoted to it (at least in the Final Cut 5 manual).
Post what you've tried to fix it, that'll help narrow down the responses you'll get.
Edit:
Shane's Stock answer #12
Shane Ross, "Stock Answers" #40, 07:59pm Mar 8, 2005 CDT
Dropped frames on capture/export
Shane's Stock Answer #12:
1) Do not capture to your main system drive. Since it is busy reading the operating system and application files, it will intermittently drop frames during capture.
2) Do not under any circumstances run any anti-virus/filesaver software. Including Norton and Virex. Sure, Apple doles out Virex for free, but FCP doesn't cooperate with it very well.
If you absolutely feel you must keep Virex installed on your system then use Kevin's script to shut it off before you use FCP:
Kevin Mamajek, "Capture Now and Virex 7.5.x", 08:02am Mar 5, 2005 CDT
3) Check the format of the drive you are capturing to. It should be Mas OS Extended, jornalling off. If it isn't, copy your files from it and re-initialize it. If it is any other format, you will encounter problems. If not at first, then eventually.
4) Trash the FCP preference file:
Home/library/preferences/FCP user data/Final cut Pro Preferences
For all the stock answers, click on this link:
Shane Ross, "Stock Answers", 02:58pm Jan 13, 2005 CDT

Similar Messages

Avoiding dropped frames with Matrox and HD Video

What is the best hard drive configuration to avoid dropped frames when using a Matrox MXo2 mini for HDMI outpjt to a high res monitor/tv? I am experiencing slow performance with the four drives in my Macpro 3,1 3Ghz 30GB Ram Nividia Cuda card. I am after about 200-250 MBytes/sec transfer speeds. Can I do this with two identical disks in my Macpro and configuring them for Raid 0. Or do I need to do it externally? I have increased speed to about 120 MBytes/sec by using a Esata card and connecting into to a Lacie 2TB Big disk,configured for Raid 0 . I need to go a bit faster than this....especially if I want to use premier

Those are nice looking enclosures and in general I like OWC. I've been using their stuff since before the turn of the century.
But in this case, I don't think you'll get the speed you're looking for because they are using eSATA and muxing the data over a single cable. It's a flexible solution, but not a very fast one. To re-iterate, the two flaws I see are:
1. SATA II disk speed, and
2. a single eSATA cable
This could theoretically provide 300MB/sec, (they have a benchmark that is around 250) but don't look for it day-in, day-out. As the drives fill up and reality settle in I doubt you'll see the numbers you want. BUT... maybe it'll provide enough.
Instead, take a look here:
SATA Enclosures - PC PitStop
Not quite as sassy looking, but I've had the first enclosure shown running with four spindles and a SFF-8470 multilane cable since 2006. And it still benches over 250MB/sec mostly loaded on the original drives.
Any of the enclosures on that page will support SATA III drives and they offer a variety of controllers.This isn't a big shop but they know what's up. Call them. I know I can build a RAID with their stuff that will cost about the same as the OWC box and be seriously faster.
Hope this helps

Avoiding Dropped Frames While Printing to Tape

Hi everyone. Quick question. I'm trying to avoid dropped frames during playback while printing to Mini DV, and I just read the article everyone links to about ways to do it.
Some solutions are to reduce playback quality, lower framerate, change RT to unlimited, turn on Play Base Layer Only, etc. I was just wondering if any or all of these solutions will affect the quality of my sequence on Mini DV. I see that the lower framerate does, but the others, I can't really tell on my small camera screen.
Thanks.

... reduce playback quality, lower framerate, change RT to unlimited, turn on Play Base Layer Only, etc...
Most of these settings are for playback only and are ignored for printing to video/edit to tape.
Did you read this thread?:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1403093&tstart=0
Jerry's tip to export a Selfcontained movie first is a very good workaround.
Andy's tips are very important too.
And finally, if your footage is on an external firewire drive, I want to tell you the importance of having an extra firewire card to make sure that your camera is on another firewire bus than your disk(s). (On your G5 all firewire ports are on the same bus and the camera slows down the bitrate of the whole chain. And so can cause dropframe problems)
Rienk

HD erasure to prevent dropped frames.

I know I am not alone on this dropped frames thing. I have received a lot of great info and areas to consider. Here is my little situation.
I had a HD replaced on my PB G4. I have 2 GB of memmory... I reinstalled all my apps... but my new project is still dropping frames when I try to play it in the timeline. I am backing everything up to a different external Maxtor HD. I am now going to completey erase my LaCie HD which is 2 years old (and thus probably too defragmented thus adding to the dropped frame issue.) I have never used a 3rd party app like Diskwarrior because Mac tech support doesn't provide assistance on it.
Once I complete the erase... does it seem as if it is reasonable to expect this problem to go away seeing as how I have a brand new HD allocated for video projects and use a PCMIA card for the camera? And all the software is up to date and permissions checked???
Thanks for the continued help.
D

Hi(Bonjour) Daryn,
It's always a good idea- in video editing world- to devote one drive (preferably the external one) to media (video, music, still etc) storage.
Your applications must be installed on the same drive that hold your Mac OS system.
Hard disk fragmentation is a major concern when we talk about dropped frame, but HD speed, buffer cache size and connection with the computer are important factors too.
I know that formating a drive (at low level) and reinstall your backed up files and programs is a good way to defrag your drive. But a dedicated piece of software (I use techtool Pro) is a simpler way to go from day to day usage.
One another way to avoid dropped frame is to set FCE to playback file with a lower quality and frame rate settings (realtime capability relies on your mac's own performance and spec).
Try a such test before thinking about formatting your external HD.
Michel Boissonneault

Dropped Frames & Firewire Busses - A Discussion

A side discussion broke out on this recent thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=231733&tstart=0
and because this discussion is OT to the thread, I thought it might be helpful to start a new on-topic thread.
A number of FCP users have experienced dropped frames when capturing or outputting to tape while using a DV VCR/camcorder and a firewire drive for media on the same FW bus. There are many causes for dropped frames, but this discussion centers on the relationship between FW drives, DV devices, and using a single firewire bus.
Some say that having the DV device and the firewire media drive on the same bus can be a cause of dropped frames with some systems. Others disagree. I'm in the first camp, so I'll leave it to others to explain the other side.
I'm starting this thread to pick up where the side discussion on the thread linked above left off.
In response to Hughes Video:
If I'm reading your post correctly, my opinion is that your testing doesn't adequately address the real world situation. In practice, the FW port on the DV device is receiving data at 3.6MB/sec and buffering. Then it sends a data stream to the FW bus at about 12MB/sec, where is again buffered before being sent to the destination drive.
The benchmark test results you noted don't predict what happens in the real world when capturing a DV stream from a VCR/camcorder to a FW drive. To do that, you need to be able to report in a time graph what the throughput is for every 1/30 of a second while capturing.
I'm not sure that's what Adam Wilt has done, but he's told me that he's done thorough testing that proves the points he's made. I don't know what testing that entails.
I do know, as I posted in the other thread, that when those who are having dropped frames separate the DV device from the FW drive on separate busses, their problems resolve. I don't know the technical reason for that, but I theorize that it has to do with the data moving and buffering in both directions on the same bus simulteneously. If the bus speed is decreased when both devices are on the same bus (whether daisy-chained or on separate ports), I don't know. But I know the problem resolves when you separate them.

this begs the question though: how do users of an
imac or a mini get around the limitations of one
internal harddrive and one firewire bus?
zeb
They can't. iMac's are a consumer (and terribly sexy) computer. Make no mistake, if you are doing this for a living you need a PowerMac. Want less headaches with dropped frames and FW? Then take a closer look at better drives. G-Raid, Weibetech, and Granite Digital make the best out there, and invest in another FW 800 card for 'em. End of story.
Want to avoid dropped frames forever and ever with any video format? Forsake FW drives for fibre. SCSI is dying a slow but steady death IMHO.
Yeah, it all costs more, but you GET more (speed). Faster drives don't drop frames. Nothin' new there...
There is a tendancy with new users of NLE's to cut corners. Don't do that, because it results in unhappy NLEing.
Do I use FW drives? Of course I do, and use exclusively the above brands, I've clients who want to keep all media ever captured. (also a good idea) but I include in my invoices the cost of buying more FW drives to do the job. It works, I don't drop frames, have happy clients, and drop frame free system. I'm using the G-Raids for uncompressed storage and FW 800 Weibetech and Granite digital rigs for DV res storage. It works beautifully.
Jerry

What is the best setup to encode h264 (1080p) and to avoid stuttering, dropped frames?

Hello,
What is the best setup with AME to encode h264 (1080p) and to avoid stuttering, dropped frames using a classic video player .I am looking to have the smoothest experience (in fast horizontal motion for ex!).It also can be another format (intra codec’s etc...)it doesn’t matter as long as readable by most players. Anyone’s to tell his favorites presets for that?
thanks

I should have included the following:
1.) Why can't I make a silent project in GarageBand? I have to instead find a project with a long enough song, make an "iLife preview" of it (see (2) below), copy it from the iMovie Music and Sound Effects browser to the end of the movie, and then open the audio panel and turn the volume to zero. And all this so that video websites don't get confused by a soundtrack that starts in mid-movie.
2.) Why do I have to "render" them by the following process: Double-click a song in the iMovie Music and Sound Effects browser. You get a dialog box saying "The project "The Great Race" cannot be used because it was not prepared with an iLife preview. Would you like to open "The Great Race" in GB so you can save it with an iLife preview?" What I don't understand is why this new thing was introduced and why I have to do it via iMovie.

Dropped frames issue on a G5 2.7DP w/DV footage

Let me first tell you my setup:
G5 2.7 DP
8 GB RAM
WiebeTech TrayDock eSATA 4-bay drive enclosure w/Sonnet 4+4 eSATA PCI Card
(2) 400 GB Seagate Barracudas in the enclosure RAIDed in a striped config using Apple's Disk Utility
10.4
FCP 5
At seemingly random times, playback from the timeline will stutter and stop, thus throwing up the dropped frames dialog box. If I re-play from the same point, it will normally play. This has happened on several current projects in which I'm working in DV. I've also worked on a project in 8bit uncompressed using my Kona LS card with the same drives, and had the same error.
I've had this issue ever since I setup this system--from the first install of FCP5 to the most recent update of 5.0.3, as well as from 10.4.2 to 10.4.3. I've tried turning off the internal Airport card in the G5, and quitting all other programs.
There is a little utility that came with the Kona card to test data rate of your drives. I'm getting well over 100 MB/s Read, and slightly less write rates, so it seems like drive speed isn't an issue.
What is the weak link here? WiebeTech was nice enough to send me a replacement eSATA PCI card, and the issue hasn't gone away, so it wasn't a bad card, although I guess there could be some flaw inherent in all of the cards.
What other steps should I take to try and isolate/solve this problem? This is kind of embarrasing that I can't play DV footage on the timeline without the possibility of dropping frames--even when working with only one layer of video.
I'm capturing video to the eSATA RAID, and my project files/graphics reside on an internal SATA drive in G5 (not the boot drive--I added another seagate 250 gb). Seems like there should be enough throughput in this thing to handle basic edits, but I'm beginning to have my doubts....
Your ideas?????

Clay,
Regarding your statement "My thinking initially about my workflow was to not keep them on the same drive as the footage because my feeling is that the RAID isn't as "safe" as the single 250 GB drive I have inside the G5".
I store all of my media, GFX and project files on whatever FW drive I happen to be using for a project. I NEVER have media for a specific project on two or more drives. For safety's sake, I ALWAYS have my Autosave Vault set to my internal drive, with a relatively high save rate (every 10 min). That way if the FW drive ever failed completely, I'd at least have a recent copy of the project file to work with (even if I have to redigitize the footage or redo the GFX). All I can say is keep all of your media (per project) on one drive - it's been kind of the Bible in this industry for years, and as far as I know it hasn't changed.
As far as RAID's go, I'm no expert. But if I remember correctly, back in my old Avid days we also used to avoid having the media on different striped partitions - something else you may want to try if you're media is spread across a few stripes.
It seems like I've run across more than a few posts here regarding the same problem happening on Dual 2.7's. You may want to do a more thorough search here to see what you come up with. All I can say is I'm running FCP 5.0.3 on a G5 Dual 2.0 with only 2.5 meg of RAM and have had no dropped frame issues.
Try Matt's suggestion of playing some footage off of your boot drive (NOT recommended for everyday use!). If it works then it's got to be a problem with your RAID and not FCP.
Good Luck!
jeff

What's the deal with Drop-Frame / Non-Drop-Frame Timecode?

I'm having trouble with 30fps Drop-Frame and 30fps Non-Drop-Frame timecode formats! I thought 29.97fps means 30fps Drop-Frame, but now I'm all confused.
I'm working with DSLR footage filmed with a frame rate of 29.97. For example, this one clip is listed as (in Project panel)
Media Start: 11:16:11:23
Media End: 11:22:42:22
Duration: 00:06:31:00
Frame Rate: 29.97fps
If I open this clip directly in Source Monitor, the timecode display (yellow, on lower left corner) says 11:16:11:23 at the beginning and 11:22:42:23 at the end. OK. But if I right-click on the timecode display, the pop-up indicates "Non-Drop-Frame"(!!). If I manually change that to "Drop-Frame", the start and end timecode would become 11:16:52:11 and 11:23:23:23, and the duration display (white, on lower right corner) becomes 6:31:12.
Now I create a new sequence of 1080p30, which has a 29.97fps time base. I right-click the yellow timecode display on the upper left corner of the Timeline, it says "30fps Drop-Frame". I drag the said clip onto the sequence. It occupies a length of 6:31:12. If I double-click the clip to open it in Source Monitor, now the Source Monitor timecode display indicates "Drop-Frame", and the start/end timecodes are 11:16:52:11 and 11:23:23:23. Huh??
Now I apply the "Timecode" effect on the clip. The timecode burn-in says 11:16:51:11 at the first frame and 11:23:23:22 at the last frame. I then go to the Effect Controls tab and look at the Timecode effect. It says
Format: SMPTE
Timecode Source: Media
Time Display: 30 Drop Frame
Just playing around, I switch "Timecode Source" to "Clip" - now the timecode burn-in goes from 00:00:00:00 to 00:06:31:11 - and then I switch it back to "Media". Now the Effect Controls tab says:
Format: SMPTE
Timecode Source: Media
Time Display: 30 Non-Drop Frame
And the timecode burn-in says 11:16:11:23 at the first frame and 11:22:42:22 at the last frame!
HUH??
Just for kickers, I switch "Timecode Source" to "Clip" again... Now "Time Display" stays on "30 Non-Drop Frame", and the timecode burn-in goes from 00:00:00:00 to 00:06:30:29.
What's the REAL length of this clip? Is it drop-frame or non-drop-frame? What are the REAL timecodes for it?
Also in a general sense, since I can change the "Time Display" field in the Timecode effect at any time, and change the Timecode display format of the Timeline at any time... How do I avoid creating mismatching timecodes??
Thanks in advance for any clarification!!

So obviously, only one of them could be "correct" in terms of reflecting what actually happened. The other one is slightly sped-up or slowed-down. You might say "oh that's a tiny difference, it doesn't matter".
Zooropa75, just for matter of clarification I want to make sure you understand that no matter which you use, it won't actually speed up or slow down your video. TC, wether it is non-drop or drop, is only a counting system. For that reason, it doesn't even matter which you use to reference edits, so long as everyone editing uses the same TC basis.
If you want actual time accurate TC, as was already mentioned, use drop-frame.
I'm going to kill two birds here. The "drag clip to new sequence button" action I was referring to in my earlier post is dragging your clip to the icon seen below. It should create a timeline using your videos format.
Also, remember I recommended looking in the manuel for "actual" time used? You can see below a snapshot I took from your cameras manuel. You're not shooting in whole numbers for anything unless you're using the 50hz system and shooting at 50p. That is the ONLY exception. ...and this is good for everyone to remember. Very few US digital cameras shoot frames per second in whole numbers. If it says you're shooting in 24p, 30p, 60p, etc. ad nauseum, you can bet your biscuits it's actually the multi-decimal NTCS counterparts like you see below And that should be your final answer. *chuckle*

Dropping frames in QT export from CS3

I just got CS3 for my PC and I was all excited about the new
feature that lets you export dynamic/actionscripted/MovieClip
content. I do animation targetted at TV, so everything needs to be
rendered to AVI or Quicktime, so I figured that this new feature
would let me use a dynamic camera symbol as I've always wanted to.
I've run into a problem, though: the export process seems to
drop frames! As far as I can tell, Flash is rendering and recording
the frames of the animation in real time (or perhaps just close to
real time). If the computer has any hiccups because of another
process demanding some processor time then the resulting quicktime
will have frozen bits where the renderer couldn't keep up.
You can see what I'm talking about by looking at the
quicktime and an AVI of the same scene here:
http://www.pinkandaint.com/flasherror/bad.mov
http://www.pinkandaint.com/flasherror/good.avi
To test this theory, I tried witching applications a bunch
during a render. Sure enough, there were long sections in the
resulting quicktime where the renderer missed frames. The quicktime
is the right length and number of frames -- it just repeated the
same frame over and over where it couldn't keep up.
That's not the only problem, though. When I look at the
exported quicktime file in either Quicktime Player or Premiere pro
(version 1.5) it reports a framerate significantly lower than in
the original FLA. In the file I'm looking at right now, the FLA's
framerate is listed as 29.97 but the MOV file reports a rate of
19.29 (which is, incidentally, different than the framerate I got
any other time I exported the same scene). In premiere, when I tell
it to interpret the footage as having 29.97 fps the clip gets
significantly shorter than it should be -- in this case 161 frames
rather than the 208 frames that it is in the FLA.
I'm pretty sure this is the same way that the various
SWF-to-video programs do things. I thought it was an interesting
kludge to use those external programs but I was sure Adobe would be
able to do something more elegant and sure-footed with this new
export feature. Couldn't they have somehow guaranteed that each
frame would get captured? It seems like they could have just
modified the Flash player to play with artificial time, where the
time to render each frame was always reported as 1/framerate.
Oh, and there's one more problem. The Quicktime renderer
seems to do something different about the order of execution of
actionscript or something. In the rendered quicktime movie the
first frame displays my camera symbol even though I explicitly made
it invisible with actionscript on the first frame of its timeline.
When displaying in the Flash player the first frame does _not_
display the camera symbol....
Has anyone else encountered these problems? If so, have you
figured out a workaround? I tried setting the framerate really low
(I was at 29.97, so I set it down to 10) but it still seemed to
miss frames.
-David

I can understand your frustration with this feature as it
tries to capture in real time what's being
compiled in the player - but your last line is a bit unfair:
"...it
> exemplifies the Flash team's disregard for animators in
favor of web developers."
Copy Motion and Copy Motion as AS3 are useful new additions
for animators. I will add however that I
myself have a list of animation oriented features I would
love to see added in flash but for now
have you checked out www.flashants.com and their SWF2Video
tool? It exports an SWF to AVI with
flawless results. Worth looking into if you have the need to
output any kind of flash content to video.
Chris Georgenes
Animator
http://www.mudbubble.com
http://www.keyframer.com
Adobe Community Expert
*\^^/*
(OO)
<---->
animator_geek wrote:
>
quote:
Originally posted by:
Newsgroup User
> [...]
> Turn off other applications. When recording, Flash uses
all of your system's
> available resources as much as possible, so any
interference of the system
> performance affects the result of the recording. We
recommend you exit other
> applications while exporting to a video.
>
>
> So you're telling me that Flash makes my computer
completely unusable while
> it's rendering? Sorry, I thought we left that kind of
limitation behind with
> DOS. Particularly for something like this, where the
rendering process should
> be
completely independent of real-time. The renderer should go
exactly
> as fast as it needs to in order to capture every frame.
Whether I set the
> frame rate to 1 or 1000 should make no difference in how
many frames are
> dropped in the rendering process.
No frames should ever be dropped I
> mean, what's going on here? You guys have access to the
actual source code of
> the renderer. Can't you adapt it so that it when it's
rendering non-real-time
> the SWF thinks that it's executing at exactly the frame
rate it desires? You
> could just set the renderer's "clock" to whenever the
render was started, then
> increment it 1/fps seconds every frame. The program
would never be the wiser.
> You could even let the timer run (or simulate it
somehow) for 1/fps seconds
> between rendering each frame, thereby handling any timer
events that need to be
> sent while the SWF is running.
>
> Clearly I'm not privy to the inner workings of the Flash
player but as a user
> there's a certain standard I expect, particularly when a
company touts this
> great new feature. It's supposed to work as advertised.
This feature clearly
> does not.
>
> Now I've been a software engineer in the past and I know
that sometimes
> workarounds have to be made but this is just too much.
To me as a user, it
> exemplifies the Flash team's disregard for animators in
favor of web developers.
>
> -David
>
>
quote:
Turn off audio. The audio in a Flash movie may also slow the
performance
> possibly causing dropped frames. Turn off the audio, if
you have many
> dropped frames in the first attempt. Other video editing
tools can be used
> to add the audio to the video after export.
>
> Reduce frame rate. If the movie dimension is a full size
NTSC video, 740 x
> 480, and frame rate is 30 fps, you are more likely to
have dropped frames.
> Reduce the fps of Flash movie increase the chance of
grabbing all the
> frames. Other video editing tools can be used to adjust
the frame rate of
> the video after export.
>
> Optimize your animation. Try to avoid a lot of screen
motion. The greater
> the area of change on the screen, the more likely
slowdown will occur. Also,
> if possible, restrict your use of transparency and alpha
channels as they
> too can cause poor performance.
>
> Use ActionScript 3. Animation created by ActionScript 2
and ActionScript 3
> are different in play back performance. Convert the
ActionScript in your
> animation to ActionScript 3 for optimized performance.
>
> Dimension settings in 2 places. The dimension settings
in Export Settings
> dialog sets the dimension of the SWF movie to be
captured. The Size settings
> in QuickTime Settings dialog sets the dimension of the
exported MOV files.
> If the SWF size is smaller than the exported MOV size,
the picture quality
> will be degraded; if it is larger than the exported MOV
file, you may have
> better picture quality. For best quality (and often
performance) these
> settings should match.
>
>
>
> "animator_geek" <[email protected]>
wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> >I just got CS3 for my PC and I was all excited about
the new feature that
> >lets
> > you export dynamic/actionscripted/MovieClip
content. I do animation
> > targetted
> > at TV, so everything needs to be rendered to AVI or
Quicktime, so I
> > figured
> > that this new feature would let me use a dynamic
camera symbol as I've
> > always
> > wanted to.
> >
> > I've run into a problem, though: the export process
seems to drop frames!
> > As
> > far as I can tell, Flash is rendering and recording
the frames of the
> > animation
> > in real time (or perhaps just close to real time).
If the computer has
> > any
> > hiccups because of another process demanding some
processor time then the
> > resulting quicktime will have frozen bits where the
renderer couldn't keep
> > up.
> >
> > You can see what I'm talking about by looking at
the quicktime and an AVI
> > of
> > the same scene here:
> >
http://www.pinkandaint.com/flasherror/bad.mov
> >
http://www.pinkandaint.com/flasherror/good.avi
> >
> > To test this theory, I tried witching applications
a bunch during a
> > render.
> > Sure enough, there were long sections in the
resulting quicktime where the
> > renderer missed frames. The quicktime is the right
length and number of
> > frames
> > -- it just repeated the same frame over and over
where it couldn't keep
> > up.
> >
> > That's not the only problem, though. When I look at
the exported
> > quicktime
> > file in either Quicktime Player or Premiere pro
(version 1.5) it reports a
> > framerate significantly lower than in the original
FLA. In the file I'm
> > looking at right now, the FLA's framerate is listed
as 29.97 but the MOV
> > file
> > reports a rate of 19.29 (which is, incidentally,
different than the
> > framerate I
> > got any other time I exported the same scene). In
premiere, when I tell
> > it to
> > interpret the footage as having 29.97 fps the clip
gets significantly
> > shorter
> > than it should be -- in this case 161 frames rather
than the 208 frames
> > that it
> > is in the FLA.
> >
> > I'm pretty sure this is the same way that the
various SWF-to-video
> > programs do
> > things. I thought it was an interesting kludge to
use those external
> > programs
> > but I was sure Adobe would be able to do something
more elegant and
> > sure-footed
> > with this new export feature. Couldn't they have
somehow guaranteed that
> > each
> > frame would get captured? It seems like they could
have just modified the
> > Flash player to play with artificial time, where
the time to render each
> > frame
> > was always reported as 1/framerate.
> >
> > Oh, and there's one more problem. The Quicktime
renderer seems to do
> > something different about the order of execution of
actionscript or
> > something.
> > In the rendered quicktime movie the first frame
displays my camera symbol
> > even
> > though I explicitly made it invisible with
actionscript on the first frame
> > of
> > its timeline. When displaying in the Flash player
the first frame does
> > _not_
> > display the camera symbol....
> >
> > Has anyone else encountered these problems? If so,
have you figured out a
> > workaround? I tried setting the framerate really
low (I was at 29.97, so
> > I set
> > it down to 10) but it still seemed to miss frames.
> >
> > -David
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Dropped frames on Xserve RAID upgraded w/750GB drives.

I'm capturing in 10-bit uncompressed standard definition 720x480. I just upgraded one side of my Apple XRAID, (connected directly via fibre channel) with seven, 750GB hard drives from Apple, drives designed for the XRAID, (came with there own sleds.)
Current Xserve RAID firmware version is at version 1.5.1/1.51c
Before the upgraded drives, no issues with dropped frames, (drives 1-7) the other side of the same RAID has no problems, (currently running 250GB drives, drives 8-14.) All sleds are populated with drives of the same capacity, (respective to each side.)
The drives were formated using the Xserve RAID Admin software and mounted using Apples Disk Utilities, Journaling turned off. The final formated capacity of the RAID on drives 1-7 is 4.1TB.
When I capture to the drives on the upgrade side, I get dropped frames. When capturing to the other side, no issues, works great. I checked the settings for performance and they are the same for both sides, as follows:
Use Controller Write Cashe - ON
Allow Host Cashe Flushing - OFF
Use Drive Write Cashe - ON
Use Steady Streaming Mode - OFF
Read Prefetch: 128 stripes (8 MB/disk)
My capture box is an AJA I/o and has never given me dropped frames till now, but only on the side of the RAID that has the new 750GB drives. I also have another RAID that uses 500GB drives on both sides and it work just fine as well, (no dropped frames) using the same performance settings in XRAID utilities.
Any suggestion on why these new Apple drives modules are dropping frame would be very much appreciate. Again 7 new 750GB drives from Apple w/sleds having dropped frame issues.

I'm capturing in 10-bit to avoid loss of quality from analog sources like BetaCam SP as well as line 21 must be part of the captured file, because it contains line 21 for captioning. Eight bit has a banding issue that I can't have in the final product and 10-bit doesn't have this issue.
Source quality is maintained completely when working in 10-bit uncompressed, as well as the captioning data that I need, which is stripped out of the captured video latter. Captioning software can read line 21 of the raster area, of the captured file.
Source video is from BetaCam SP, DVC Pro and DVCam.
The RAID is an Apple Xserve RAID, connected via Fibre channel directly, (no xsan.)
I also create high quality QuickTime Streaming files from these source files, the higher the quality of the source video the the better the streaming files look when created.
I have never had any problem capturing till I installed these new drives from Apple.
The RAID is as stated above, is an Apple Xserve RAID, connect via a fibre channel card in a Mac Pro 3.0GHz tower, (no xsan is used, due to connecting directly to the XRAID.)

Similar to Drop Frames? Is it? Anyone else with this issue?

I am using a G4 with FCP HD. Lately when I try to export to my DV Deck, 20 minutes in the frame freezes and the audio keeps going. It doesn't give me a dropped frame error, but it seems like a dropped frame. What get's me is that I exported the file to a self contained quick time movie to avoid the drop frame issue yet it's getting choked up anyway. Any suggestions, comments? A fix would be great!

Potentially a corrupt render? You might try exporting a self contained quicktime and sending that to tape. Having all the media in a single stream can make for better reliability.
Also, is there a chance that some of the renders were made to the system drive? Are you within 10% of filling the external drive? Could it be some kind of conflict on the FW bus?
Patrick

HELP converting non-drop to drop frame

Hi all,
I accidentally edited footage on a non-drop frame sequence. I know the sequence settings can not be changed at this point, but even if I create a new drop frame sequence and copy and paste my edited footage there are gaps/inconsistencies, etc. Is there any way to avoid this? Or to make the sequence drop-frame? I'm trying to avoid having to match back each individual clip and rebuild the edit. Thanks!

Shane Ross wrote:
Uh...that's a PAL sequence. PAL is a European format. Is the footage PAL too? Is the footage 25fps? If so, you're talking about a whole lot more than going from NDF to DF. That's a standards conversion.
To which I would add, try searching here form "standards conversion." Since you're going from 25fps to 30fpas, you must figure out a way to add 4.97 frames each second of screen time. Many ways to do this depending on your skills and your needs for visual integrity.
bogiesan

FCP 4.5 & FCE 3.0 may drop frames with Mac OS X 10.4.9

Hi:
I thought it could be a good idea to post this information for thos users of FCP 4.5 that still haven't upgraded their systems.
This information comes from this Apple doc:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305284
====================================
Issue
If Mac OS X 10.4.9 is installed, Final Cut Pro 4.5 and Final Cut Express 3.0 may drop frames when attempting to capture video to some FireWire-based storage devices. Final Cut Pro 5 and Final Cut Express 3.5 are not affected by this issue.
Affected Products:
Mac OS X 10.4.9
Final Cut Pro 4.5
Final Cut Express 3.0
Solution
Capture media to an internal ATA drive.
If FireWire storage is a requirement for your workflow, update to Final Cut Pro 5 or Final Cut Express 3.5. If necessary, you can archive and install Mac OS X to revert your operating system to Mac OS 10.4.8.
This document will be updated as more information becomes available.
====================================
Hope it help someone to avoid some headaches !
Good luck
Alberto

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=929465&tstart=0
Alberto

OK, Dropped frames due to firewire+external hard drive+camcorder?

I have an iMac 2.4GHz , 1G Memory (I know this is less than ideal). I have a Firelite Smartdisk 120G plugged into iMac firewire. I am daisychaining my CanonZR500 into the external drive. When I capture video I have lots of dropped frames.
Anyone tell me why? Do I need a better external drive?
Thanks

Not all Canon cameras have connection issues, but hanging around this site I've come to recognize their ability to connect in FCP is the most problematic of all the camera brands. If you have a Canon camcorder, and can not get it to connect up with FCP, the following is a way to sort through the issues and get it to work. Some are elegant - some are ugly.
Before we go any farther -
• You should be using 'Firewire Basic' as the control protocol. If you aren't, go change it and try again.
• Also, verify that you have a solid installation of Quicktime. You may want to reinstall it using the 'delete receipts' method. Do a quick search here on the site - it is mentioned daily if not hourly.
With some confidence that the software installation and camera settings are correct ... the most direct solution is to purchase another, non-Canon device to use as your capturing machine. The Sony DSR-11 is highly recommended for DV work. A deck will save wear and tear on the camera's lightweight drive mechanism and will allow you to permanently connect a NTSC/PAL monitor for proper viewing. If you are working with HDV, you may have other issues ...
Beyond that, the path you take depends on the model of computer you own.
1. If you have a G5 tower or a MacPro, capture to a second internal drive with only the camera attached. If you need to move material to firewire drive, disconnect the camera. A second internal drive is quite inexpensive these days if you do not already have one.
2. If you have a G5 tower (PCI) MacPro (PCIe), G4 powerbook (PCMCIA) or MacBookPro (Expresscard 34) with an available slot, purchase the appropriate firewire card for the slot. Connect your camera to the card and you should be good to go. The new card creates a unique bus and will avoid collisions with the external drives.
3. If you do not have a slot or a second internal drive and you are stuck with the camera, welcome to the camera/drive shuffle.
• shut down and remove the external hard drive(s) from the system
• connect the camera directly to the firewire port of the computer
• start the camera then the computer
• capture to your internal (system) hard drive
• shut down the camera and computer
• disconnect the camera and reconnect the external hard drive(s)
• start hard drive(s) and computer
• move captured files to external hard drive(s)
• edit
If you output back to tape or wish to view your work on an external Video (NTSC or PAL) monitor, you need to set up the camera to use the firewire out as the A/DV converter or VTR - which means reversing the steps:
• copy the file back to the internal drive
• shut everything down
• disconnect the external drive(s)
• connect the camera to the firewire port (and the TV to the camera if needed)
• start the camera then the computer
• play the file.
One caveat here - You may have difficulty getting the file back to tape without dropping frames. Playing files off of the system drive is very demanding and they may have a hard time keeping up.
All in all, if you do not have the option for second bus (i.e. iMacs, eMacs, iBooks, MacBooks) you may want to think about a computer with expandable options next time.
There is the option of capturing using iMovie, but that brings on it's own set of problems and is not recommended.
Good luck.
x

Juddering, or dropped frames? Remedy?

I apologize in advance for the length of this post! I also apologize if this isn't the right place for this (I'm not really sure if this is a problem with Flash Player, or just something I'm doing wrong at a base level).
I feel I should note that I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to movies and filmmaking in general. That being said I've done quite a bit of research over this past month trying to get to the bottom of this problem I'm having.
Here's the rundown: I'm making a video not from actual footage but from a 3D animation I've made. The animation was rendered out in a JPEG sequence (so plenty of control there). It's then taken to post and rendered out as an mp4 (Youtube's preferred format and settings). The video plays smoohtly on the computer, great. Once uploaded to YouTube though? Extreme juddering..or dropped frames? Uh oh.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bWEmjfOjYA
First thought? Well this is somehow Youtube's fault. Let the video buffer completely, tried different settings in the player. No dice. Try Vimeo. Still there. Maybe these sites are doing something to the video when they compress it down? Download the mp4 off of YouTube. Plays fine on PC(offline/out of flash player). Well then...
Secound thought: This is Flash Player's fault. Plenty of evidence to back up this thought too. If I use YouTube's HTML5 feature it plays fine. If I play it in flash player on my PC it judders. I've seen some other videos on YouTube (mostly one's similar to mine) judder in the same way. But...then why do some video's on YouTube play absolutely fine?
HTML5 video: A week ago adding "&html5=True" to the end of a video link (that wasn't ad enabled) worked, now it seems not to. You'll have to goto youtube.com/html5 and enable html5 viewing then revisit the video above.
Third thought: Okay okay..This is somehow my fault. And it very well may be. At the end of my metaphorical rope, while doing a final bit of research, I learned that -any- movie at 24fps panning like my video does will judder; and that filmmakers use various techniques (or just avoid it) to compensate. Well that's fair. I had no idea this was an actual thing. But..My video runs at 30fps, and runs smoothly on the computer (and much smoother in html5 than it does in flash). So..That sort of unravels that theory also.
I've exhausted all the theories, settings, and fixes I can think of. Logic has long since left the building! And my boss is none too pleased that I haven't "just fix this thing already" yet.
Any help, even just a point to a direction where I can possibly find some help, is greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

I think I would agree to some extent that AppleTVs do not give as smooth playback of video as say DVD players or BluRay. I'm quite sensitive to this kind of thing and don't see it as frequently as you point out, but I can certainly appreciate that the silky smooth motion I get from DVD and Blu Ray is sometimes lacking.
Encoding quality can have a major part to play, as I guess can decoding algorithms which can change (AppleTV1's did causing major blocky artefacts with some Handbrake settings).
Maybe the problem is that AppleTV probably does most decoding and rendering in software not hardware unlike other dedicated machines, but we don't know for certain.
My main bugbear is poor colour depth causing banding in dark/light areas with iTunes store encoding that I rarely see with my own video.
The problem unfortunately is potentially multifactorial, and when you add in artefact from motion processing circuitry/scalers in TVs it can be difficult to pin down.
As I said I'm pretty sensitive to video artefacts, maybe you more so, but I don't think it should be as bad as you suggest.
I bet your friends were really happy when you pointed out the issue - it's a bit like seeing rainbow effect with DLP projectors - ignorance is bliss, but once you know you look for it....
AC

Avoiding dropped frames?

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