FCP Dropped Frames on HD Capture - No Warnings

Hi,
I've been having a devil of a time capturing HD video on my Mac Pro (specs below).
I'm capturing about 45 minutes of video from a MiniDV HD camcorder (Sony HDR-HC5). Not sure what camera shot the footage. It seems that every time I capture, FCP creates more than one file, and in every case there is a gap of missing frames between the files. The shot is continuous (no tape stopping) for that entire length of time, which is why I expect to see only one file. There is no file size limit on the capture, and the time limit for capture is 64 minutes - well exceeding the footage duration.
Each time I try the capture the breaks happen at different times in the footage. Sometimes near the start (within a few minutes) and in other cases after 27 or more minutes. The breaks later in the capture seem to be short bursts of 1 minute or less then the capture settles down and goes continuous.
I'm thinking a process or bus thing that happens at some interval, but I've shut down all applications except FCP after a fresh boot. I also unmounted and disconnected all external drives on the Firewire ports. The USB drives are unmounted but not disconnected. I've also disabled Time Machine.
My capture drive is an internal SATA drive formatted as Mac OS Extended (no journaling) and was freshly wiped, formatted and restored - so all space should be contiguous.
Any ideas welcome. I can recapture over the gaps and piece the footage together - but I shouldn't have to. This should work.
Specs and tech details:
Machine: Mac Pro (2x2.8 GHz Quad Core Xeon), 10GB RAM, 360GB AND 100GB internal SATA
Mac OS X 10.5.7
Capture volume: Internal secondary SATA freshly formatted
Capture Setting/Easy Setup: Apple Intermediate Codec, 1080i60 (failed also with the 1080i60 HDV setup)
I've tried the capture with iMovie '09 with the same split file result. I've had one tape capture in tack, but have not been able to duplicate that experience.
Any ideas are welcome.
Thanks,
Sean

I'm finding that although random, I think the issue is the camera or tapes, though I'm not sure why.
Watching the video on capture, I see the video on the camera monitor pause though I hear the tape continue and then it seems to catch up. At that stage FCP create a new file. I've inspected the tape at these places and it seems fine. It also seems to play fine again once I reinsert the tape. It may or may not pause again later in the playback. I've seen this pause with and without capture happening.
Now I'm looking for ideas on how these tapes might exhibit this issue. Is this my camera (which is very new) or a tape issue (but 3/4 tapes seems a high percentage). Anyone with experience with this or anything I can check to provide more data to debug?
Thanks,
Sean

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Hello!
Set up: iMac 20" (early 2006) with 512RAM, Acomdata 250GB External FW HD, Canon GL1 as FW Deck.
When I capture video the process always seems to work, no error messages and yes the dropped frame error boxes are checked in User Preferences, and I always receive the "successful" message when the capture is done. But when I play the video there are numerous dropped frames.
The source tape is fine.
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As a normal workflow you may have to capture to the
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I am half a country's distance away from my physical tapes so cannot re-capture the footage. I have isolated the dropped frames within FCP using the 'analyze long frames' tool but would really rather not have to go through the icky process of re-aligning the audio with the video between these points.
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My current thinking is I will have to make the journey to perform a re-capture, but to make sure the journey is not in vain should I amend my user preferences?
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I have searched for this specific problem here without any results. I'm simply capturing regular SD DV and am getting dropped frames. Even though the dropped frames is an issue that I shouldn't be encountering, that's not the reason for this post. The bigger problem is that FCP 6 is not saving the file prior to the abort.
The manual specifically states on page 308 Part IV " Abort capture on dropped frames: When this option is selected, capture stops immediately when a dropped frame is detected. All media captured before the dropped frame has frame-accurate timecode and is preserved. The resulting media file is saved and a clip for that media file is placed in the Browser."
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I am up to date on all software.

Hi Michael, thanks for the feedback.
I have a MacPro 2.66 GHz dual-Core Intel Xeon with 5 GB of ram. Internal 250 GB system drive with an additional internal Seagate Barracuda 750 GB drive 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s drive Model number ST3750640AS which I have captured my previous project, and now am capturing only my 2nd project to.
Note: I have only captured 2 projects to date on this new Mac. The first project consisted of around 5 tapes which I captured each one using the CAPTURE NOW feature without any problems (with the exception of the reset timecode which FCP handled as advertised and stated below). So far I've captured 10 tapes from my 2nd project. So I still have well over 500 GB free on that drive.
I am capturing via firewire from a Sony DSR-11. I only use one brand of tape, the Panasonic AY-DVM63AMQ. My cameras are 2 Sony VX2000 and one VX2100. I know for a fact that I need to replace the internal battery in my oldest VX2000 because every time I turn it on, I get a warning that I need to set the clock, and everything else has reset itself to default settings. However, this is not the camera that I have been experiencing timecode reset with. It's my other (not as old) VX2000. I don't use my cams to capture to the computer, that's why I purchased the DSR-11. With this camera, it will reset timecode frequently with the camera still powered on, but stopped (not pause mode). The tape is not being previewed or anything causing it to play past the preexisting recorded media which wold in fact cause a timecode reset as you stated in your last message. So I don't know what is wrong with this camera, I'm fairly certain the internal battery is good because it keeps time on it's own. I'm hoping it just needs a good cleaning, but I'm afraid it may be something worse. I'm getting ready to send it off for a checkup this week.
In any case, about 80% of the time, FCP has been able to properly detect timecode reset when it is encountered, and it does in fact pause recording, save the first file, and reposition itself to the new timecode and start recording a new file as advertised. The other 20% of the time it has simply paused the DSR playback, saved the file, and informed me that the tape has reached the end of the recorded media, which it hasn't but In these cases it's not detecting a timecode reset. I then have to press the stop button in my capture window to actually move the deck from pause to stop mode.
Now, the dropped frame issue on capture is a separate issue. According the the FCP manual (as I stated in my first post) it is suppose to abort capture, but still salvage what has been captured thus far, and it is not doing this. Thus far over the course of these first 2 projects on my Mac, I have only encountered dropped frames on capture twice, and both times while capturing from this 2nd project. The first time this happen, I was doing a lot of stuff in the background, i.e. checking email, browsing some web site, but nothing that consisted of playing video or audio, and I was doing some iChat (simple chat, not screen sharing or video/audio conferencing or anything like that. So I attributed my drop frame to the fact I was doing too much in the background. I then decided that I would NOT be playing around in the background any more while capturing. So I was quite surprised when I received yet another dropped frame notification at around 50 minutes. It did about capture as advertised, but it did not salvage the media it had already captured.
So... that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Thanks for your time, I appreciate the help.

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Hello-
I've recently purchased a new iMac, first in about 6 years. I'm looking for some advice about optimizing my work flow in FCP. I am largely self-taught, using FCP for hobbyist/amateur video.
Until this new computer, I have been using FCP on other people's Macs (schools, arts institutions, etc), only resorting to my old Powerbook when absolutely necessary. So I have not had to worry about performance issues until now.
I am shooting on a Kodak Zi8 pocket cam in 1080p HD .MOV files, 1920x1080 H.264, AAC audio.
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Also, when I add titles, they do not preview render - I have to render them completely to be able to playback.
When I allow FCP to change the sequence settings to match the clip, I get the following:
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...its a little frustrating to get these performance issues on this new computer, so I hope that someone here can help me resolve some of my problems. Hopefully this is a work flow issue, but if its a lack of hardware, well, shame on me for not looking into it enough.
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Hi -
H.264 is a recording and delivery format, but as you have discovered, it is very difficult to edit. Its qualities of recording a high quality image in a small file size, which make it attractive for use in Flash based camcorders, makes it very difficult for FCP to work with. Attempting to work in H.264 makes FCP drop frames, require constant rendering, etc.
The best solution is to convert your footage to an edit friendly file format, such a ProRes LT or AIC. There will be minimal impact on the quality of the image. This conversion will result in files that are much larger than your original files, but will work easily in FCP.
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