How to overcome "dropped frame" issues on my project

Hey reader,
I have a MacBook Pro 2.4GHz with 250GB hd (85GB free just now) running 10.4.11, FCE HD 3.5 (and QT 7.5.5) and using a Sony Handycam DCR-HC96 (which is works BEAUTIFULLY with iMovie 08 and 6 and is always used with Sony tapes) and I am not able to "capture" the tape content to my MacBook Pro because of the "dropped frame" issue.
The camera is connected to the external hard drive chain via Firewire cable to the MacBook Pro and I was trying to capture to the internal hard drive. I am in the UK and am still struggling to get my head around the different frame rates but initially I got the dreaded "dropped frames were encountered during the last capture attempt" and it just wouldn't work, so I unselected the report dropped frames tab and abort capture in User Preferences as was suggested on here.
Now I get "Capture encountered a problem reading data on your source tape. This could be due to a problem with the tape. Capture has been aborted and your clip has been saved" but the tape is fine (heads are also clean) as I had to (under time pressure, me) use iMovieHD 6 instead and it worked like a CHARM.
What can I do to use this software?
I KNOW I can import the iMovie footage but the disadvantage is the eternal rendering, I guess. I only ever used it once (because of its difficulties) and that was for pre-existing footage from iMovie and it was OK if not perfect. Just had to have a few hours extra for the constant rendering in preview...
Should I try to capture to one of the external hard drives? I read that the internal might be a problem as it is busy with the operating system jobs.
Please and thank you.

I got some dropped frames last night and posted this before noticing your post:
There can be a number of reasons for getting dropped frames during capture.
Yesterday I videoed a relative's wedding (in HDV) and on getting home late I captured the footage into FCP 6.0.3 only to find in a couple of places I got an abort on dropped frames.
This morning I decided to recapture and did so without a single dropped frame.
Why ? ......... there are several possibilities.
It could be that there was some physical problem with the tape or camera heads but I believe it was most likely caused by my camera's power supply.
Last night I used the battery whilst this morning I plugged in the power connector.
I feel that this provided a more constant supply of full power and helped prevent frames from being dropped. (The fact I was using FCP is immaterial as the dropped frames would almost certainly have also occurred in FCE).
From now on I will always use the power connector during transfer to and from the camera.

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I'm having a dropped frame issue in FCP with some P2 720-60p footage. I can't get it to play through a sequence without freezing and giving me a warning. We've narrowed it down to an apparent processor issue. There are two tracks of audio (a stereo pair), and two tracks of music (again, a stereo pair). When we turn off the music, the sequence plays fine. But when the music goes back on, the sequence chokes. The funny thing is, I just did an HD project shot in 24p/n with several tracks of audio and several tracks of video and, aside from needing to render certain things, it played fine.
Any ideas?
Here are the specs:
P2 footage originated in 720/60p
AUDIO/VIDEO SETTINGS:
Sequence Preset: DVCPro HD 720p60
Video Playback: None (there isn't an output card for this computer).
SEQUENCE SETINGS:
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Editing Timebase: 59.94
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Audio Rate: 48 kHz
Depth: 24
Config: Default
Any ideas here?
Thanks,
Tim Walton
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Then it's pointing at a throughput problem between the RAID and the server I'll guess. Trouble shooting that could be interesting. Can you move the media to a local drive?
I'd also be interested to see what AJA's read/write speeds are on that RAID from your station...
Post the gear between your mac and the server etc.. whose RAID is it, How is it formatted? Got a model number of each of the devices involved? Mac Server?
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You've selected the "Easy setup" for the format you're editing too, right?

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
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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

Official comment from Apple about the drop frame issue?

Is Apple going to firmware fix the skipping drop frame issue on the Apple tv?
Or is it hardware related?
Too many of us seem to have experienced this issue for it not to be addressed.
It shouldn't be difficult to fix.
My 1st gen atv was fine.
I should have kept it.

Hopefully it can be fixed. Seeing as Apple has not even acknowledged it I returned mine yesterday since I was coming up on my 30 day return deadline. At least this way I'm not stuck with a device that has a hardware issue.
As of yesterday I have seen this issue on 10 different New Apple TV units, all on different HD sets, different network setups etc. Half of the owners had never noticed it. Two of those were adamant they did not have the problem and one of those still insisted they didn't after I spotted it multiple times. So while the issue has been present on 100% of the units I have seen, its not necessarily noticeable to everyone. I have noticed its much easier to spot on larger displays and when the display quality itself is higher, for example easier to spot on a higher quality 61" 1080p set than a lower quality 720p 26".
If you have the option I would return the unit. Worse case is your don't have the unit, which is not functioning 1005 anyway, for a short period and then grab it again if the issues get addressed.

Dropped Frame Issues

I apologize if there are already a lot of topics on this subject. I'm in need of some urgent help and I have tried a lot of what some of the suggestions are.
Basically I am working on a very simple project. I'm just cutting to music, no transitions or anything like that. It is even already lower resolution than I usually work with (640X360). I get dropped frame warnings every two seconds. I can't watch my video to check my progress.
Unlimited RT is already off. My hard disc only has about 10 gigs left on a 160 gig drive, so I tried transferring to a drive that had more space, but I get the same dropped frames. The only thing I haven't tried is lowering the compression rate. I'm not sure how to do that, or what a good (lower) number is.
Any help would be very much appreciated. This is a strange problem I've never had in 6 years of working on Final Cut. I hope there is an easy fix.

well neither h264 or mp3 are editing codecs - ideally you should transcode both before dropping them into your timeline. (they are both very compressed, making final cut work way too hard). If you can get by just transcoding the mp3 to aif, great, go for it (use itunes to make the mp3 a 48k aiff), just be aware you're doing it the hard way. You can change the source clips with compressor.

Premiere Pro 1.5 - dropped frame issue

First let me say I know this program is out dated so let's not get into that. (or maybe we will) The company I work for is small and just can't afford to upgrade. So, as I am stuck with this program there have been reoccuring issues with dropped frames.
I use a PD-150 and/or DVX-100 to shoot. I used a mini-DV deck to capture to the system via firewire. I noticed that there were several random dropped frames throughout the show. (The show being a dance recital) The big hassle is that it is a two camera show and so everytime I think I have the cameras matched up, oh gee great, there's a nother dropped frame. I then recaptured the tapes from the camera that they were shot in. Same problem, only the dropped frames were in different areas. Does this mean that the tape is not damaged? That it did not occur during filming? Is it a problem with the capturing device? We have a Matrox system. I am also capturing to an external harddrive. Firewire. But this has happened when I've used the computer hard drives for project space. So, I'm not sure if that would make a diffrence.
Basically, wtf can I do to stop dropped frames?
Is it the video card? capturing system?
Do we really just need to upgrade our software to solve the issue?
If indeed there is a solution, would I have to recapture everything in order to get rid of the dropped frames?
Help please! Thanks!
Kip

Recapture to a internal drive is your best option imo.

29,97 to 24 fps and Drop Frames issues + 35mm

Hello,
I need to know what should i do in order not to make serious mistakes.
I shot a film in 35mm and have a DROP-FRAME telecine in MiniDV at 29,97. My sound is @ 24fps. My goal is to genereate a cut-list to the lab since my final format is 35mm.
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Rodrigo

Sorry; no underscores:
http://fattyproductions.com/Sample DV Clip.mov.zip
FYI, I seem to have solved my problem, though again, I'm some of you out there are going to cringe. Basically, I exported my sequence out of FCP using Quicktime Conversion: H.264. Highest possible quality. I dragged THIS file into iDVD, burned a disc, and I have to say, that mix of transcodings got rid of the DV Stream clarity that... well, I didn't want.
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The FCE, 10.4.9 dropped frames issue.

Hello All,
After spending a couple of hours this morning with the FCE (3.0.1) and 10.4.9 issue I finally exhausted all troubleshooting and came here.
The last thing I did was to bootup into my older cloned drive which is running 10.4.7 and have had no problems with the dropped frames. It was happening about 20 seconds into capturing when running 10.4.9.
The newest threads on this are from early April. Is there a solution to getting FCE 3.0 to work under 10.4.9 now? Fix, upgrade app, etc.? I'd hate to have to be stuck in an old OS just because of tape capture.

You can upgrade to 3.5 to fix the problem. If you search the forum you'll find a solution using Spotlight privacy.

Dropped Frames Issue

I have a brand new 12 core mac pro with 24 GB ram with an internal 2TB HD. It also has wo graphics cards. Why the heck can I not edit anyhting in FCP? I put two clips in the timeline...no effects and boom, dropped frames. It drops frames on everything. Am I missing something? Some setting?

well we're sure as h... missing something. There are many flavors of hd and without knowing the compressor or codec, frame rate, and pixel dimensions, there's no way we can begin to help. You're not even telling us what version of fcp you're using.
And do your sequence settings match your clip settings?
Also, I seem to remember that having 2 video cards can cause problems. Doubt that's causing this problem...

Dropped frame Errar on one project keep coming up

I do a play back in my sequence and I get right away
a dropped frame error that is anoying.
I have restarted the computer, have no other sequences open and this project is on a Lecie external firewire drive with lots of space.
3 gigs of ram too on my dual 2.0 turbo G5.
David
Dual 1.8 G5, 3.0 GB Ram Mac OS X (10.4.5)

This is playback thru the viewer on FCP.
Media is DV and has been placed on the video track in a sequence.
I push the space bar for play and it gives me this message.
file is on a Lacie drive connected by 800 fire wire.
Not much on the drive.
David

How to smooth dropped frames and remove duplicate frames?

What I'm trying to do is smooth out some footage of a game I recorded, which has slight framerate lag and stutters and what not. What is the best way to smooth the footage out? or at least make it look better. Frame blending isn't doing anything at all it seems, so that alone won't help

There is any number of adaptive flicker fixing third-party plug-ins like from RevisionFX, but the more random and arbitrary such issues are, the more difficult to repair or disguise them. Even the smartest effects can only take you so far...
Mylenium

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?
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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.
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Try a such test before thinking about formatting your external HD.
Michel Boissonneault

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Hi WC!
Thanks for posting on the forum.
It is very likely that the issue is with the cards you have tried and not the camera.
You mentioned that you were going to try a faster card.
Were you able to do so yet?
If so, how did the faster card perform?
Do you experience the same issue when recording to a high-speed CF card instead of an SD card?
If this is a time sensitive-matter, additional support options are available at Contact Us.
Did this answer your question? Please click the Accept as Solution button so that others may find the answer as well.

Audio clip dropping frames/skipping

I opened up a project in Premiere Pro CC, and the audio waveforms were gone although the track was enabled. When I opened the audio track in the source monitor, the entire audio clip was completely compressed from 3:04 to 1:33 and was skipping pretty badly when I played it. I tried converting it to mp3 and aiff but with no luck. How do I fix this?

The audio should be 48k, 16 bit, stereo (or mono). But the sample rate should be 48k.
32-bit floating point refers to video rendering, not audio.
What school is this, BTW? And tell us about the networking configuration, please, so we can try to figure out your dropped frames issue.

How to overcome "dropped frame" issues on my project

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