Drop frame or slow drive notification

I have a MacPro with cuda etc and am finding clips (advanced layered clips) on my timeline yellow but still will not play correctly.
I am assuming this is my array i/o speed which is the issue.
Is there any way to be informed by prem wether it is dropping frames on playback due to drive speed or card etc?

So if I have a yellow indicator on my timeline, should I always render before outputing through my BM card because we can't tell if it's actually played out all frames?

Similar Messages

  • Slow drive and dropped frames

    Hi help!
    I've just finished an edit using fcp 6 .. 1.5hrs long / using 3 camera multiclip .. no problems.
    I've cleared that out, and this time have a 2.5hr project / similar 3 camera multiclip, and I'm getting error messages every 10 secs, about slow drive and dropped frames!
    Nothing except for the source material (which I reloaded)has changed, so has anyone any idea of what could be happening?
    Thanks,
    P

    Pete
    I'm pretty sure the USB is the cause of the droped frames, not enough band width and USB don't manage continous flow of data like FW, it sends/receives chunks of info. They are not suitable for video editing and it will be worst with multiple streams of video at the same time.
    You must try at least a FW400 drive.
    Hope that helps !
      Alberto

  • Multiclip Dropped Frames/Data Rates from from FW 800, 7200rpm Drive

    I am using an external Lacie 7200 rpm "Little Big Disk" .. Editing DV Multiclips in Final Cut (3.6 MB/sec data rate per clip... 7 clips/streams) But it won't play back all at once, anything over 15 MB/sec data transfer rate (as I watch Activity Monitor) it starts choking and dropping frames til it just freezes. Lacie claims that this drive handles a steady 80MB/sec transfer rate... All I need to do all these streams is 26 MB/sec (That's the speed it does at work from an XSAN and no problem playing back 7 streams of DV) Is the bog down in my system the FW800, my RAM, processor, or the Cache of the drive? (16MB)

    Do you have any other FireWire devices (incl. cameras) plugged into other ports on the computer or on the drive itself? There's only one FireWire bus on a G5, and it's shared between the FW800 port and the FW400 port on the back in addition to the FW400 port on the front.
    If you have other devices plugged in, they can cause the entire bus to slow down to the speed of the slowest connected device.

  • Dropped frames caused from slow disks (Disk Speed)

    I just bought a hard drive enclosure that holds double hard drives. http://www.ewiz.com/photogallary.php?name=CA-400MXS2&show=g Inside the enclosure I put two 400G Seagate SATA drives and made them both scratch drives for my FCE 4 projects. Now when I'm inside Final Cut and doing motion tricks for my footage a warning keeps popping up saying "RT EXTREME HAS DETERMINED THESE DROPPED FRAMES WERE CAUSED BY SLOW DISK. PLEASE TRY:
    -INCREASE THE SPEED OF YOUR DISK
    -DECREASE THE NUMBER OF RT LAYERS
    -LIMITING YOUR RT BANDWIDTH IN USER PREFERENCES
    I don't know how to do any of those things above. Now I checked the user preferences and I couldn't find the "RT bandwidth" option to change. How do you change the disk speed or decrease the RT layers??
    Sorry if this is common knowledge. I'm still new with this software.

    kdjc95 wrote:
    recommendations on firewire enclosures??<<</div>
    Sounds like what I just went through,
    wound up at OWC (as usual) 2 drive 800 FW case was $119
    Mercury Elite Pro
    just remember that if you raid, the drives should be as close to identical as possible.
    i believe this is correct:
    usb 2 = 480 mbps
    fw 400 = 400 mbps
    fw 800 = 800 mbps
    that just means usb 2 & fw 4 are about the same, but fw 8 is faster / better for video.
    Yeah I was looking at that one right after I posted. That's my #1 pick so far. You have an imac?

  • Dropped frames/slow disk warnings

    I'm running a 27in iMac with OSX v10.6.8, 2.8GHz Intel Core i5, 4GB Memory. I have all my media stored on a 4-bay Drobo (auto RAID array, 3-1.5 TB internal SATA drives @ 7200rpm) connected to my iMac via firewire 800. Vidoe files are all quicktime, Apple ProRes422,
    I can't figure out why I'm getting the "One or more frames were dropped due to slow disks" warning.
    Any thoughts on this?
    And I really apologize if this question has already been answered. Thank you so much!

    Good editing drives:  G-Technology, CalDigit, MaxxDigital, OtherWorldComputing Elite series, Glyph. 
    >I know this tends to cause the same error, having you media and your project file on the same disc. Right?
    No...media on your SYSTEM DRIVE is always a no no. Because the system is busy using that drive. I have the project file and media on the same drive a lot.  I back up the file internally, but often use it on the external.
    >I have a 500GB firewire 400 drive I could transfer it to as plan C, but I currently have it daisy-chained to my mac via the Drobo,
    Disconnect it.  Don't daisy-chain anything to the Drobo.  Have only the drobo connected via firewire and see what happens.

  • "Dropped Frames" error when capturing to Drobo external drive

    Hi, I am looking to buy another external hard drive for video editing with Final Cut (as my scratch disk). I had purchased a Drobo because of the data redundancy and ease of use, but it's definitely NOT an editing drive - way too slow, I can't even capture video to it without getting "dropped frames" errors (even w/Firewire 800). And after searching these forums, I've read that others have experienced the same problems and that in the end it turns out that the Drobo is not an editing drive. Jeez, that was an expensive learning experience.
    Soooooo I'm not very knowledgeable on hard drives, RAID, etc... but I would like to buy something that has redundancy (would that be RAID??) but is absolutely HAS to be something I can capture video and edit on. I know some people have bought 2 drives, one for editing and one for backup, but I know I'd forget to back it up every time and it seems like a bit of a hassle. Just thinking there's got to be an easier way that's hopefully not too expensive.
    Are there any editors here who can point me to specific hard drive models or tell me exactly what I need to look for in a drive? I believe OWC (http://eshop.macsales.com/) probably has what I need, I just don't know what it is I need to get since I'm hard drive ********. Any advise would be appreciated!

    Thank you Shane. Wow, didn't realize how expensive that would be. Not an option for me at the moment then.
    That said, is there another hard drive (non-RAID) that is good for editing? For instance, could I use a Western Digital MyBook (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000VZCEU8/ref=ordcartshr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance) to do my editing and then have another one for backup? Sorry for all the questions, I just want to make sure I understand and get this right!
    Thanks

  • Dropped frames during playback due to "slow disk"

    I work off an external Rocstor 160gb firewire drive; suddenly as I started to edit a project I get constant dropped frames during playback. It says it's due to "slow disks" and I wondered if my hard drive was dying. But I opened other projects on the drive and they play just fine. Why just this one? It's shot on the same format, captured the same -- nothing's different from my older projects. Maybe the captured media files got corrupted? I've never seen this. I've tried using the Rocstor on three different machines (first a 17" PB, then two different G5 towers) and it happens on all of them. I have FC5 on the PB, but FC6 on the G5s -- doesn't matter. I'm stumped here.

    How full's the drive? The fuller it gets, the slower it becomes. If it wasn't a superfast FW drive to begin with (especially a 400 device) You're gonna have problems as it gets fuller... starts slowing down big time around 70% capacity. It's always something... if the drive's not in a fast enclosure, and is also a fastish drive has a least 8mb disk cache, it will behave like this with DV footage.
    One thing I've seen and learned from reading a few posts on this is that the better/faster stuff suited for FCP use is worth the investment. G-Raid, Grainite Digital, OWC all sell really nice FW800 setups... they are up to twice as fast as older/slower FW 400 drives. and NEVER buy any more than you need now for storage. It's half the price and twice the speed next time you need more it seems.
    eSATA should be considered by any pro. laptop or not.
    Jerry

  • When i am logging/ Capturing my mac is telling me that i am getting dropped frames. would i need to get a LaCie Hard Drive?

    When i am logging/ Capturing my mac is telling me that i am getting dropped frames. would i need to get a LaCie Hard Drive?

    To be honest, I've had 2 Lacie drives crash out of 2 bought.  That's not a good track record for me.
    Your best bet  (I'm a computer professional, for what it's worth):
    Get a hard drive case or enclosure that supports firewire 800 and put your own PC hard drive (SATA for example) 7200rpm or higher hard drive into it.
    Let me explain a bit more.  External hard drive manufacturers often put no-name hard drives into fancy cases to cut costs and that's how they make a profit.  I've have had nothing but problems with with these types of drives. (Like Lacie) You are much better off getting some type of decent drive enclosure and getting your own GOOD hard drive.  I would highly recommend Seagate, I have NEVER had a problem with a Seagate drive in 20 years of owning PCs and Macs.  Western Digital is also a good brand (though I had 1 crash). These are the types of drives you would put in your Mac Pro.  You want to get an SATA hard drive.
    I have owned several external cases where the case electronics fried, but the hard drives were still in good shape. Take the hard drive out, put it into a new case you're good to go!
    For video you want to make sure that your hard drive case supports Firewire 800!  This is mandatory.
    My personal favorite, (and I own 5 of these) is Vantec's NexStar hard drive enclosure.  They accept any SATA 3.5" drive (I bought mine from a company called ComputerStop).  I have yet to have a single problem with any of them.  They are solid aluminum casing, you can literally throw them into your backback, drop them on the floor and your hard drive is fairly well protected from impact damage (at least you won't break the case with anything short of a sledgehammer).  I am currently looking at getting a second one of these:
    http://www.vantecusa.com/gl/product/view_detail/173
    (My bad, this is an IDE case up to 750GB)
    This the one you want:
    http://www.vantecusa.com/gl/product/view_detail/354
    As far as the hard drive, you can get a Seagate Baracuda drive 1TB at 7200rpm drive for about $60.  The case and hard drive together, maybe a few over $100 for the whole thing.  With shipping, and tax figure about $150.
    Don't let the price fool you.  It will rock.
    Story: I got an iOmega "raid" case with two Seagate drives in it and the iOemga case fried, but the hard drives were still good. Fortunately, they were in two removable trays.  I put them into two "rocketfish" hard drive cases almost 3 years ago and I am still using them every day today. 
    Moral of this story:  It's the quality of the hard drive that matters, not what case it's in.
    Is it hard to set up?
    Not at all.  You put the hard drive into a tray, (with Vantec case), screw it in.  It only goes in 1 way.  Plug in a power cable to the drive.  Slide the tray into the case (carefully, don't munch the power cable!) and screw it in place. You can literally do it in 10 minutes or less.  There are, of course instructions, but if you are reasonably clever, you can literally see what plugs into what just by looking at it.
    Sorry for the long reply, but I have a lot of experience with external drives and I hope this helps others.
    Finally, when you make it to the big time you can spend $400, get yourself a firewire RAID enclosure and you can upgrade to 4 external hard drives in 1 enclosure.  Figure $800 for that set up, but you can go up to 12 TB of drive space with that, or up to 3TB if you are running redundant discs.  But that's a whole other ballgame...
    Peace.

  • 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.)

  • 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

  • Network connection slow when capturing video to SAN, dropping frames

    I'm currently connected to a storage area network via Windows Server 2003 64bit (with ExtremeZ-IP for AFP connections) with 1000baseTX Gigabit Ethernet speeds. When transferring files through the finder I'm getting about 50-70MB transfer upload/download. When I am capturing HD video I noticed the upload speed is roughly 3MB/sec with many peaks and valleys in the transfer. Quite often I get dropped frames.
    Does anyone know why this would happen? It seems to me the issue is somewhere in the network. I don't know for sure but I would think 3MB/sec is to slow to capture 1080p HD video. My CPU and memory have plenty of inactivity so I don't think the issue is there.

    HDV video runs at 3.6MB/s. If that's what you are capturing, that data rate makes some sense.
    Capturing from tape is not the same as transfering files as FCP wants the next packet of data to arrive RIGHT NOW and if it doesn't, it will interpret the delay, not as a lost packet to be re-sent, but as a dropped frame.
    FCP is not designed to work this way. It really is set up to work as a stand alone workstation with connectivity. People have gotten it to work as you wish, but there are lots of tricky issues.
    x

  • Dropping frames capturing to external hard drive

    When I attempt to capture video from my Powerbook G4 using my Lacie External drive as my Scratch Disk, I get the 'dropped frames' error message. However, when I capture through my IMac Desktop G5 onto the very same Lacie External drive I have no problems. Both the Powerbook G4 and the IMac Desktop G5 have about 20G of free space on each of their 80G Hard Drives. Any suggestions? Many Thanks!

    There is a good chance that your problem is caused by
    using the HD in USB 2 mode.
    Most people consider USB 2 is unsuitable for video
    editing.
    DV needs a drive capable of a consistent high speed
    that can only be provided by FW.
    Although the claimed speeds of USB 2 appear to be as
    high, they are not because they are the MAXIMUM
    speeds achieved and are not sustained. In the real
    world USB 2 is barely half the speed of FW.
    When using your PowerBook you could try
    daisy-chaining your camera to the HD to the computer
    - by FW of course.
    Ian.
    Thanks! Great Advice!

  • External Drive = Dropped Frames in Playback

    Hi there Al--
    Here's the gear I have...and the problem I'm NOW having.
    Gear:
    PowerBook G4 with OS X 10.3.9 and 45GB disk space
    768 RAM
    LaCie D2 160GB Harddrive
    Panasonic MiniDV cam and Sony PD 150
    Final Cut Express HD
    Problem: I can capture to my internal HD fine, and playback sequences on projects located on my internal HD fine. BUT I cannot capture to my external Lacie drive using either the Panasonic MiniDV cam or Sony PD 150 cam. That's not such a big deal, as I can capture to the internal hard drive and transfer the captured footage to the lacie external drive--however Final Cut won't let me do anything from the external HD. Whenever I try to view footage on a project from the external drive I get a "dropped frame" message from Final Cut (I can't even just play an individual quicktime file from the external drive). I'm a bit baffled...as the lacie drive i'm told is the "pro" drive for editing with final cut.
    Thoughts?

    That's great news !
    Regarding the format - I'll admit that I stand by Will Rodgers' advice (If it ain't broke, don't fix it) ... if things are working fine now you probably don't have to worry about the format ... but you might want to check it just to know what it is (I suspect it's Mac OS Extended, anyway)
    cheers !

  • External Drive Dropping Frames

    Hey,
    I am in a Post Production class at GSU and I am having some tech problems here. I am running Final Cut Pro 5 on a Mac G5. We are required to have External HDD, but everytime I play a sequence I keep dropping frames. My HDD is a 160 GB, 7200 RPM, Western Digital in an Adaptec enclosure connecting via FireWire. Any ideas?

    Search here for dropped frames.
    There are dozens of possible explanations. the most likely is user error and that can be caused by dozens of simple things. You start with the simple things and try to eliminate one at a time. Cable, card, system prefs, FCP setup, FCP prefs, FW pathway. It's all in the manual, what you can and should not do.
    Your post production class instructor should be able to help you much more rapidly than we possibly can.
    bogiesan

  • Computer moving very, very slow - Drop frame RT Extreme warning:

    I am working on FC pro 5 and continually get a drop frame warning. I am getting RT EXTREME in red lettering. My sequence RT settings are at med to low. My RT layers on my time timeline are 2 to 3 at most. For the five months I've been on this project, I've had no problems like this. It suddenly came on the last work session, but today the system literally came to standstill.

    This is all about the preview and playback experience whilst editing and does not limit the quality of anything on a final render.
    Final Cut takes rendered video segments and applies certain things dynamically and does stuff like overlaying audio tracks (and adjusting all of their volumes) on the fly whilst you are previewing.
    Give Final Cut more work to do and you will eventually hit some resource constraint on your system. You can either ignore this message or set some limitations on the quality that you expect during preview of this kind so that you get a smooth experience or you can turn off the warning and get noticable performance degradation.
    You need to decide if you can afford stutter etc. whilst performing an edit session or if you can sacrifice some video or audio quality (that will return on export) or if you need beefier hardware. Its just a matter of choice but I agree the warning looks nasty.
    -Andy

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