Dropped Frames in the Xsan environment

Hello Everyone, I have just setup a SAN network and have been experiencing dropped frames when capturing HD Pro Res 422 on my two client computer at the same time. I have been successful capturing on one computer at a time and playing the same capture scratch footage on both systems at once with 5 streams of video playing on both system with effects, opacity changes and have experience no problems with that.
Let me backup and give all the information I can about our setup.
We did a clean install on a G5 with the latest version of Leopard and 3Gb of Ram for our primary MDC. We have 2 client computers (1 acting as the backup MDC) These computers are both Brand new G5's with 6Gb of Ram and Dual 3Ghz processors. All CPU's are Running the latest version of Leopard.
We are using Xsan 2.1 for the admin, a 16-drive Vtrak Promise RAID system for storage, and qlogic 5600 Sanbox for the Fiber Switch.
For RAID'ing the storage together, we following the Apple spec's for setting up our arrays in conjunction with the Promise Drives. We have 2 drives in RAID1 for our metadata LUN with additional drive tasked as a spare to this LUN. We then RAIDed 6 drives together in RAID 5 (3 from each RAID Controller), we then repeated this process to create 2-6 Drive LUNS. Out last drive was tasked to be the backup for both of these LUNS.
We setup our volume with the RAID 5 Drives Arrays to be Our Data (Video Capture) and the RAID 1 drive to store our Metadata and Journal Information. If any more info is needed to help you answer my issue, please let me know and I'll answer you as best I can.
In my testing of the system, I setup our two client computers to capture as we would in a Real World 2-editor project. Everything was going fine until I tried to capture on both systems at the same time with the PRO Res 422 HQ codec. Am I pushing the system too hard? I wouldn't think so as two streams of that footage should be topping out at 50-60mb per sec, and with my AJA speed Test I am getting write speeds of 300mb per sec and read speeds of 400 mb per sec.
Also in my Vtrak Promise Logs, I see a "Entering Critical Mode" warning just as the dropped frames occur.
There is also no consistent point at which the dropped frames occur, sometimes it's 30 seconds in, sometimes 15 minutes in, and both systems drop the frames at the same point one system never keeps on going if the other drops frames.
In my Xsan Admin I have the folders that I am capturing to set to the "Video" affinity so I know that the footage should be headed to my Raid 5 drives.
Sorry about the long post, just wanted to give as much info as I could on the first go around, any help is greatly appreciated! I'll be working this problem all day tomorrow, Hope to have the system up and running next week, but I want to really test this out as much as I can in the meantime, thanks in advance!!
-Casey

Just wanted to report that the dropped frames issue has been solved for the time being.
I contacted Promise Support and in viewing the logs discovered we had a faulty drive, even though we had a backup drive tasked to the array where the bad drive wasm we had PDM enabled on each array so the Promise Tech guy said that would lead to performance issues.
So even though the SAN would work, if you put a lot of stress on it, it would fail. So here's what we did:
1. Initialized the fauly drive and tasked it as the spare to the new Metadata LUN
2. Disabled PDM on each array
3. Hook up fiber connectivity between previously empty ports on our Promise Box to our fiber switch.
I have been capturing 2 streams of HD Pro Res 422 HQ for the past 30 minutes on both systems with no issues,
I really want to put the system through the wringer and make sure our current setup can handle some demanding stresses. Is there a good test that anyone can recommend? We only have 2 clients on our SAN.

Similar Messages

Dropped frames on the timeline... why ??

Hi everybody,
This is my first post here... i'm French, so please excuse my english
I have a little but very annoying problem on Final Cut Pro 7.
I work with a Canon HV40, HDV 1080 25p.
The FCP project is set on HDV 1080 25p.
When i play the imported footage from the browser in the viewer : everything's fine.
But then, when i take a clip, put it on the timeline, and read it in the canvas, some frames seem to have disappeared. Like 1 or 2 times per second (i haven't really counted), one frame is missing. I have no error message for that, as if it was perfectly normal...
I read like half the internet to find out about this problem, but no answer seemed good enough for me.
Some clues to solve the puzzle :
1/ every other program was shut down.
2/ the very same frames are missing, every time i play the timeline. So i guess it doesn't seem to be random.
3/ When i use the left and right arrow keys to play the timeline "frame by frame", i can see that the frames are really missing. My conclusion is that it's not a problem of power, or ram or whatever. The frames really seem to have disappeared. When i export the project, the frames are missing in the created film too.
4/ Again, playing clips in the browser is absolutely fine. No dropped frames. The problems appear when the clip is on the timeline. Maybe the timeline has properties that i haven't coreectly configured ?
5/ This is the very first time i use FCP... this means the solution can be very simple (I used to work with Pinnacle Liquid Edition, on PC)
If anyone has an idea...
Thank you very much for your help.

Here are some new elements !
I decided to hunt every missing frame, and the answer is : one missing frame every 25 frames. Which means 24 frames are normal, 1 is erased, 24 normal, 1 missing, and so on.
This confirms :
- it's not a random bug
- it's related to the number of frames per second
- I am the one who did something wrong... Final Cut is probably innocent !
I zoomed on the time line. The timecode goes :
00:00:00:00
00:00:00:01
00:00:00:02
00:00:00:22
00:00:00:23
00:00:01:00
This would mean 24 frames per second ?!
I thought i had set everything i could on HDV 1080p25 or 25 fps everytime FCP asked... turns out i was wrong.
When I click "Sequence", "Settings", i can see Quick Time Compressor is set at "HDV 1080p25", but Timebase says 23,98.
I guess it could be the problem... do i have to change the Timebase ? How do i do that ?
Thanks again for your help.

Digital Cinema Desktop Preview - Dropping Frames Without the usual message

Hi,
I recently started having a problem with the Digital Cinema Desktop Preview. When my video plays full screen it drops frames and the "Drop Frame" message does not come up. Basically the image stops (or freezes temporarily) and the audio keeps going. Eventually the video starts playing again, but it always stops again and the Drop Frame message never appears. And yes, "Report Drop Frames During Playback" is checked on. I am an experienced user and I have never seen a problem like this. It started recently after the update to 7.0.1. The video plays fine in the canvas window. The problem only occurs when I go full screen (using the Digital Cinema Desktop Preview option), which I would like to use. It was working perfectly, until recently. Any ideas????
No - there is not a bunch of stuff on my computer.
No - it does not matter if the video is DVCPro HD, HDV, or standard DV (I am using all three and I have tried different project files. I have tried files on one of the internal drives and different projects on external hard drives, all have the same problem.)
No - new software or files have been added to my computer
Yes - I trashed the preference about a dozen times. It does not help.
My system is less than a year old
MAC PRO
Mac OS X 10.5.8
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6 GB 1066 Mhz DDR3
FCP 7.0.1
All thoughts are welcome!
Thanks,
j

So far so good.... Thanks Andy!
I did look through the previous posts, but must have missed that one. I just replaced the "DesktopVideoout.component" file. It seems to be working! The real test will be after a day of editing later this weekend. Thank You! And Happy Thanksgiving!
j

Dropped Frames and the spinning rainbow wheel

I am using FCP 6.06, I imported video from two different video camcorders: Canon GL-2 mini-dv and a Sony Digital 8 TRV340. Importing from both of these cameras went pretty well, i had some dropped frames while importing, nonetheless it went pretty well. However, when i drop any of the footage into the timeline and I press play, it will play for a few seconds, hang up (spinning wheel) and then gives me a window that says: RT extreme has determined that these were caused by slow disks, please try: Increasing the speed of your disks, Decreasing the number of RT layers, Limiting your RT bandwith. AS of now i currently use a 1 TB Western Digital "My Book" for my scratch disk. I have tried everything I can think of and I am working on a Wedding video. I really need to get things going, I would appreciate any kind of assistance. I have tried looking up similar threads but nothing seems to really help. Thanks

Hi -
First, verify sure your source material is ingested correctly from your two different cameras -
In your project browser, click on a clip that came from the TRV340 and, once selected, type Command + 9 to see the item properties. Either report those properties, or if easier, take a screen shot and post the screen shot of the Item Properties for that clip.
Now do the same for a source clip from the GL-2.
After that, click anywhere on the sequence timeline that you are working on and type Command + 0 (zero) to see the sequence settings. Report the sequence settings or again, if easier, just post a screen shot of the sequence settings window.
This information is needed to provide you with suggestions to a solution.
thanks
MtD

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*

If all the dropped frames fixes don't work

Hello all,
I am experiencing dropped frames on playback when I play my movie in the timeline. I am editing standard DV footage on a project (17 sequences) started in June. Last week while adding b roll, I started getting a lot of dropped frames. When they dropped I got the slow disk error message (the one with the scary red lettering.)
I have 4-500 GB Maxtor one touch drives daisy chained together with FW800 and connected to my MacBook Pro with FW400, and 1-1 TB & 1-1.5 TB Maxtor one touch daisy chained together and connected to the computer with FW800.
I've been working to resolve the issue. I've read the threads and the manual. I've tried: trashing prefs, repaired permissions, reduced the playback video quality and frame rate, changed from safe to unlimited RT, selected Play Base Layer Only, Decreased the # of RT layers & Limited RT bandwidth in User Prefs.
The next thing suggested at: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1165 is to check your hard drives. At this point and beyond in the suggestions pass my technical know how.
I have not had a problem with the project and have been editing on it for a few months. It is bigger all the time of course, is that the problem? I am thinking I have a problem with the disk speed/through put of my external drives but what is the resolution? Do I have to buy new drives and copy from the old ones, since the project is on so many drives how would I do that? How do I problem solve from this point?
As I started to have problems I "Saved As" the project to a different drive. It seems like since then the project (the original saved one) opens slowly & I get the spinning beach ball with every function. I used to get the dropped frames at the transitions but now I can't even play the A roll without the dropped frames. I turned off the warning box but when I play the seq. in the timeline it stutters and stops anyway.
Hope I explained it well enough but probably left off something important! Let me know.
Thanks for helping me folks, T

Hey Y'all,
I've been scouring the internet before I move any of my files. I ran across this bit of info at: http://www.bosfcpug.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=93&Itemid=58
"If playback is stalling, try disconnecting some, or all, of your Firewire drives. Although the Firewire spec allows up to 63 devices to be connected to your computer, *after about five or six drives, there's so much "talking" on the Firewire bus that performance really starts to degrade.* Where possible, limit the number of Firewire drives you are using. Worst case, buy *bigger drivers and copy data from smaller drives to bigger drives* so your total storage remains the same, but the number of devices decreases." +Larry Jordan+
Maybe this is not an issue for me. I only have 6 drives in two chains, all Maxtor 1 touch. The 4-500 GB are connected to the computer via FW400. The 1 & 1.5 TB drives are chained together and are connected to the computer via FW800 (but all through the same port anyway, eh?) If I needed to copy some of the smaller drives to a larger one I have another 1.5 TB available.
Would copying some of the 500 GB drives to the 1.5 TB drive be a way to take care of both the over-full drives and the number of drives in the chain problems?
This whole moving FCP files has me nervous.
I am wondering what is the best way to copy one drive to another & not use FCP media manager?
What will that do to my FCP files?
Would it be just a matter of reconnecting media when you open the project next time?
Since I know where the media is that would need reconnecting is that wouldn't be too h*ish, would it?
And since...
at this point I am unable to open my FCP project at all. which means using media manager to move files will be impossible...
next step, suggestions?
Thanks, T

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.)

Dropped frames during playback in FCP 7

I have searched high and low, asked every FCP expert I know, and noone can help me.
So I turn to this forum and you the users for help.
I just upgraded from an old DVCAM to a new Canon 60D, which shoots full HD. Usually I never have problems editing with or without text, but all of a sudden I got dropped frames when I put text on my project. No warning of dropped frames though. Just some skipping and pausing before the clip continued.
I was running FCP 6 but upgraded to FCP 7 in hopes of it removing the problem. It just got worse. Now I can't even playback video or text by itself (I am testing with 5-10 second bits). Whenever the screen should go blank I instead get the unpleasant warning of dropped frames. The same thing happens when I play text by itself or over the video. When I try exporting it (to see if it is just a playback error) QT and VLC Player both show the most hideous grey, green and pixellated versions of my (still very short) clip.
And if anyone suggests changing RT options - where do I find those options? The RT button on my timeline only shows the options: "play base layer only", "use playback settings" and "Full quality" - and the problems keep showing up in all three selections.
Could my settings be off? I am not sure I have found the right ones for the footy from a Canon 60D.
I hope someone is able to help me with this. It is the most frustrating experience I have ever had through my many years with FCP.

Switching from DV to HD can be a nightmare if you were 'getting away with things' using DV material that you really won't be able to in HD.
First - Where is the media? If it is on the system drive of the macbook pro... get it off of there!! It should be on an external drive - FW800 will get you going better than anything else...
Second - simple fix, but make sure... are any of your windows overlapping? is your canvas window set to FIT TO WINDOW? If there are scroll bars in your canvas or viewer that would be bad too.
Third -- let's figure out what and how you are converting the material off the 60D.
What is the workflow you are using? You should probably be editing in some form of Apple ProRes... I like the LT setting - minimal quality loss with max gain in bit rates.
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/rossshane/tapeless-workflowfcp-7/video-tutorial
Check out that video and see if it doesn't answer a few questions...
Good luck,
CaptM

Can Quicktime on a Macbook Pro play DVCpro HD without dropping frames?

I know this is a cardinal forum sin, but I think I posted this in the wrong place to start.
Hey All,
I'm trying to output a 40min DVC Pro Hd 60, 1280x720 video to a projector for a large group. I'm using Quicktime 7.2 at full screen playing back on the second "monitor", but it seems like the video is dropping frames. The playback is stuttering and kind of strobing. This is a new 2.4ghz Macbook Pro with 2gb of Ram. The video is DVC Pro Hd from start to finish.
Is this to much to ask from a Macbook Pro? Is there another codec with comparable quality that doesn't take overly long to encode that I could use?
Any suggestions would be appreciated,
Steve

Hi
You absolutely can ... as long as you have the DVC Pro HD codecs installed. I have used a lowly G4 Power Book with 2 GIG on many occasions to playback full screen 720p 24/30 fps from a FW400 drive. (60fps and 1080p might be too much..)
I just project the desktop through a projector and it looks awesome. It's the fewest compression cycles you can get assuming you shot in DVCPro HD.
However I too am experiencing choppy playback from QT 7.2 on MacPro's. In fact playback of any format is choppy under QT7.2!
My MacBook Pro however is fine with the same software...
Something bad is going on with QT....
Lee

Final Cut Pro 7 export drops frames

I exported a video from Final Cut Pro 7 to a Quicktime .mov file. The file plays fine on a mac, but when I try to play it on a pc it drops frames throughout the video. I have other .mov files on this pc also exported from fcp7 that play just fine. Please advise. Thanks.

If you are talking about the Canvas and Viewer windows... make sure that their size is set at FIT TO WINDOW Top left button in the viewer and canvas window.
If you are talking about something else, please give us some more details.
rh

Help needed with drop frames

Hello everyone,
A few weeks ago with the help of some of the participant on this panel I change my settings and move my scratch disk from my internal HD to the external one.
Since then it seems that I have a lot of drop frames on the video as well as on the audio: and it seems that the problem is worsening.
Any suggestion to try to remedy to this problem will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much.
Guy.

I guess I have a problem with my external drive (LaCie 250 GB). I was working this afternoon and I noticed that I had a lot of dropped frames in a clip in the viewer and when replaying the same clip the drop frames were not at the same place.
So my question is : what's a good external drive?
This one is about 2Yrs old . Is that an average life time for this kind of material ? or was I unlucky?
Any suggestion on what I should do or try would be gretly appreciated.

Non Drop frame capture causing out of sync clip?

Hi, All,
I've been having trouble with sync issues on an hour long tape capture.
The material was captured from a Canon consumer DV cam (z80) using firewire into my powerbook g4. (The material on the dv tape was originally recorded in Video 8mm and transfered to the Canon via firewire from a modern Sony Digital 8 camera.)
The sync on the DV tape looks fine when I play it back through the Canon camera. So I'm guessing that I might be losing sync because the camera is dropping frames that don't want to be dropped. I tried to change the video capture settings to non drop frame (in the device control tab of FCP5's audio video settings preference window,) but as soon as I start the capture from the canon, the settings on my log capture window automatically revert back to drop frame. (I don't know this for a fact, but I do notice that the ":" in the timecode box turns back to ";" every time I start the capture.
Does this sound like it is, in fact, a drop frame problem? And if so, is there any hope of getting a canon consumer camcorder to capture at non drop frame rates?

Well, after trying most of the suggestions here, I did find a reasonably hassle free workaround to capturing the hour and fifteen minute footage of 8 bit 32 kHz video to FCP with minimal sync slippage over the length of the footage.
I finally gave up on capturing the material in FCP and instead hooked the canon z80 up to an old version of Toast Platinum 6 I had on my computer. Toast creates a raw quicktime movie file with the extension .dv. Toast then allows you to edit that quicktime file, add chapters, button pictures, etc. thereby making a new file to replace the raw QT it first created. After some experimentation, I discovered that the original raw QT file Toast creates can simply be dragged intact to the FCP browser window, where it becomes a clip with minimal sync problems. I would caution against trying to use the second improved QT file that Toast creates after you've edited your file, as this second QT movie seems less stable than the raw one it first creates.
A final caveat for Toast users. Make sure you set the preferences so that they don't DELETE the original file it creates. There are settings that will tell Toast to do just that either After a Day, After a Week, When You Close the Program or Never. I'd set that to Never, since it can be highly unpleasant to discover that your program has deleted the very file you were planning to work with.
Hope this is of some help.
Thanks to all who pitched in and offered suggestions. Your help has been invaluable!
I now mark this issue Solved. Or at least as Solved as I plan to get it!

4K quicktime Movie dropped frames

I hope somebody can help i have a 32gb Ram Mac Pro Mid 2010 with NVida 32gb Video 1066 mhz. Blackmagic Decklink Studio 4K Card and connected to San storage via fibre channel.
I have a 4k quicktime movie file.
Every time i run in Premiere Pro CC, I keep getting dropped frames tried the blackmagic express software and frames did not drop
I have put the footage on SSD drive into the machine but still drops frames

Use recompress frames option when exporting. That'll do the trick!

Compressor 4 drops frames when converting 25fps image sequences

I am using Compressor 4 to batch convert 30fps and 25fps 1080 tiff image sequences to Uncompressed 10bit 422.
I have created custom presets for both 30fps and 25fps.
The 30fps conversions are fine.
But the 25fps conversions have missing or dropped frames and the resulting clip is too short. For example a 106 frame image sequence becomes 88 frames when converted to Uncompressed 10bit 422 QT. (which suspiciously similar to the 83.33% difference between 25 & 30 fps)
I have double checked my setting and can not find a problem (see grab)
Any suggestions much appreciated.

Update: I have found a work around for this problem, but it is not pretty!
By using the 30fps setting even for 25fps sequences, every frame gets included in the resulting QuickTime. But it plays at the wrong frame rate, so I then use Cinema Tools to change the frame rate to 25fps. Then everything is fine.
As Compressor 4 has been around for while, I can't believe this hasn't come up before!

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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