Dropping frames when capturing with imovie

Hi
I have a i7 imac with 8gb ram. it is running snow leopard 10.6.3.
I am trying to capture video with a Sony PD150 camcorder. The camera is daisy chained to a lacie little disk HD, that is plugged to the firewire 800 in the imac. There are 370 gb free in the HD.
I have also I connected the camera directly to the imac with a firewire 800 to 400 adaptor and it is still dropping frames
I keep getting dropped frames all the time. the dropped frames are not always happening in the same part of the tape.
I tried to capture to the external lacie sam hetch HD and to the computer internal disk too.
Is the imac any good for video capture?
Thanks
tikastefano
imac i7 Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Since your camcorder is being recognized, it's obviously not an issue of iMovie not recognizing it, so there is something else going on. I'm not familiar with your model, but a cursory search showed that it could be both digital and tape based? Have you tried to simply hook it up directly (which it should be anyway) and copying the contents of your footage to your desktop and then importing it into iMovie (instead of a direct import into iMovie)? Although this cannot really be used for comparison, I had a problem with my Canon's SDHC cards; after I just used a card reader and it showed on my desktop, all was well and my iMac is much older with a slower processor.
Edit: just found this article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA22830
Message was edited by: Barbara Daniels1

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Can't figure out why I'm dropping frames during capture

I'm dropping frames when capturing 1-hour Mini DV tapes and I can't figure out why.
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Thanks for the prompt reply, Studio X. Yes, I'm using FireWire Basic and no other FireWire devices. I've switched FireWire cables, although I doubt that's the issue as the cable I was using was brand new and fit snuggly. Unfortunately, I don't have an alternate playback device right now. Would switching to Non-controllable device capture settings be worth a try?

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FCE HD is dropping frames during capture when I'm taking video from my Canon Video camera and the three DVD players I've been using. Any suggestions or ideas?
Here's my info:
- Didn't work for either of these setups:
- Canon to my iBook G4 via firewire
- DVD player to DVD converter via RCA cables to ibook via firewire
- My external Harddrive (LaCie 230 GB) is hooked up to my laptop via USB Drive.
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Hi Lisa,
Well, for starters you probably have less free space on your internal HD than you did a year ago - rule of thumb is keep at least 15%-20% free space on your drives, especially your system drive; more free space is better. Couple that with the fact that USB really can't keep up with the demands of video and it's easy to get dropped frames.
There's also the question of what else you've put on your machine since last year, whether or not you updated OSX or QT since then, if you have anything else running when you capture ... there could be lots of factors.
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Is my comp. screwed up? Use to work, now drops frames on capture.

is my comp. screwed up? Use to work, now drops frames on capture.
OK.
My G5
mac osx 10.4.9
processor 1.8 GHZ
Memory 1.75 GD DDR SDRAM
started to be unable to digitize footage.
It says there are dropped frame or problems with the source tape. The same tape, using the same deck, same firewire (400-800port) work FINE on my husbands G5
So I think it has to be my computer. I was working on FCP 4, and thought maybe when I installed FCP 6 it would magically get better.
So I got fcp 6 and I still have the same problem....
any help would be much appreciated.

99 times out of 100 it's that your scratch disk can't keep up with the captures... what are you capturing to? Should be a disk other than your internal startup disk. Is this DV material?
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Hello again Michael,
Thanks for your comments but I was simply passing on my own experience and what I've personally been told by G-Tech here in the UK.
Are you suggesting it's OK for users to move, allow to overheat, or switch the power off while using external HDs?
I don't think so . . .
As I said in another post, G-Tech were courteous and efficient with me and I have no grudge against them.
I understand your discontent and we all get cross if we feel we've been let down, but I wonder if it's wise to use other people's posts to vent your feelings about one manufacturer when so many others clearly speak very highly of them.
As far as your "I made enough noise to attract the attention of the ceo" (of G-Tech) is concerned, as I recall, you completely crashed my topic:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=2840390#2840390
and poured out your vendetta against G-Tech until you attracted Jerry Hoffman's attention and he suggested Creative Cow might be a more appropriate place to do it as the G-Tech ceo posts there.
(Or did I misunderstand what was going on)?
I can't help feeling that a polite post of your own on this forum - about your frustrations with G-Tech, might have attracted Jerry's attention more quickly and you could have posted on CC much without wrecking someone else's topic.
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You can't educate pork . . ..

Dropping frame during capture

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No, "Safe RT" plays everything at the highest quality therefore if your computer is not fast enough you drop frames.
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Wolfgang Matzl wrote:
canopus works fine, as well as all other devices.
i have tons of tapes and tried a few, none worked.
i tried to capture on both my new imac and my mbpro, no way.
but now i'm sure there is something wrong with the sony handycam, i tried to import with my old final cut studio, and it's not possible, also. fc pro says: waiting for timecode.
so i'm confused now. does the sony dcr-trv not send a timecode? maybe, and this will explain the troubles. but on the other hand i imported successfully some footage with exact this device.
maybe i used the canopus then to correct the timebase, i can't remember how i did it. but this would mean i have to accept loss of quality, since i have to connect the sony with s-vhs with the canopus and convert it.
right now i'm importing a tape with imovie and will have a look how the result is, but as far as i remember, the audio has to be re-rendered when importing in fcpx…
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Is timecode enabled in the camera?
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Message was edited by: jfss

Dropping frames when capturing with imovie

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