My dropped frames problem

I recently began to use FC 5.0 on my MAC BOOK PRO. During playback, I'm getting the dropped frames warning when I try to insert a transition or even music...everytime.
Is this potentially a ram issue? My HD is quite full. Although the external HD I'm using is not?
THANKS,
Jared

Try this question on the Final Cut pro forum. You might also give full specs on your system and an explanation of what you're doing.

Similar Messages

Sudden Dropped Frames Problem with 720p24 material

After sailing along for months with perfect operation from Final Cut Pro, editing 720p24 (I'm still running 5.0.4), I have encountered a mysterious hangup that I can't seem to solve. It probably began shortly after I was doing a test on a new project and mistakenly used a 44khz sound file rather than a 48khz. That project ran fine for a couple of days as I played with it, then abruptly began to drop frames at very particular points. I trashed the sound file and reimported it as a 48khz file and that seemed to fix things for a day or two. Then, to my utter horror, when I opened a very large ongoing project that I needed to tweak, I found that the dropped file problem has corrupted my entire FCP operation. I have tried changing various settings, such as unlimited RT, and trashed the preferences as well, but none of the straightforward cures seems to make a difference. I've also looked at all the suggestions in the Apple dropped frames article at [docs.info.apple.com]. I have never had a problem with dropped frames prior to this.
My scratch disk is a raided SATA drive with plenty of space to spare. This setup has worked flawlessly since July. I have jumped around over the past 10 days from work on old SD projects to 720p24 projects and have been changing settings here and there to accomodate this. Nothing else seems to have been changed that may account for the glitch.
I have not reinstalled the software.
Anything that comes to mind as a logical next step would be most appreciated!

Yes during panning or zooming I can see that frames are dropping in the stats panel.
I'm encoding at 500kbps video + 48 audio, outputting only one stream.
The content in the input monitor shows exactly what the cam is seeing, with the pan and/or zoom correctly displayed. On the output monitor side the action will freeze momentarily when frames are dropped. Then the display will skip to the point where no more frames are being dropped.
The native frame rate for the cam is 29.97, but as an output, averaging in the dropped frames the rate may drop as low as 27 or 28fps according to the stats panel. The difference being the number of dropped frames.
FMLE is installed on a Dell Studio 15 with 4 GB RAM, which I would think would be plenty adequete.
Thanks for your response.
Adninjastrator

Final Cut Pro 'dropping frames' problem

Hi. I have a macbook, version 10.6.8 - I am trying to use Final Cut Pro version 6.0.6 and am having problems with the 'dropping frames' issue. I know you can get rid of the message, but does anyone know how to solve the problem, as when it comes to exporting the film I won't be able to? Is my mac too small/old to use this version of FCP? If so, is there anything I can do to rectify that? (that doesn't involve buying a new mac!)
Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks.
Vicki

#12 Dropped frames on capture/playback
Shane's Stock Answer #12: Dropped frames on capture/playback
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58640
1) Do not capture to your main system drive. Since it is busy reading the operating system and application files, it will intermittently drop frames during capture. Capture to a separate internal drive, or external hard drive (firewire and eSATA for example).
2) Deactivate any anti-virus/filesaver software, including Norton and Virex. For some reason these programs think that the large files created when you capture media are in fact caused by some sort of virus, and they try to prevent this.
3) Check the format of the drive you are capturing to. It should be Mac OS Extended, journaling off. If it isn't, copy your files from it and re-initialize it. If it is any other format, you will encounter problems. If not at first, then eventually.
4) Trash the FCP preference files. Use PREFERENCE MANAGER to do that, available here:
http://www.digitalrebellion.com
5) Make sure that the hard drives you are capturing to are fast enough to handle the footage being captured to it. A regular firewire 400 drive cannot capture uncompressed HD, or even uncompressed standard definition. A RAID array of drives might be in order for these formats.

Drop Frame problem

I am working with FCP 5.1 on a MacBook Pro. I am bringing in footage from a Canon GL-1 via firewire. The footage on the tape is non-drop frame timecode, and I have created a new setup to capture it, but for when I went to capture, a dialog box popped up that warned me I was about to capture non-drop footage to drop-frame clips. I captured the clips, and in the bin the clips show up as 29.97 frames. I put the clips on the timeline and the audio is out of sync. What is going on??? Can anyone help me?
Charles

i think you have a couple of issues going on - i won't address the audio sync issue but you may want to do a search for canon & sync to deal with that.
in terms of your timecode issue, you are a bit confused about the meaning of the "drop/non-drop" designations. in NTSC video, all video is 29.97. the TC used to name it is base 30, but can be drop or non-drop (which only changes the way the frames are named, not the speed of the video). all clips should be 29.97.
if the footage on tape is drop or non-drop, FCP will recognize it as such when you log.
there are some decks that can "force" a kind of timecode (ie read one type from the tape and send another type to FCP) but i'd be surprised if that was the case with your canon.
hope that helps clarify.
R.

Dropped Frames Problem

I am helping a friend edit a project in FCP 7.0.1. He has a slightly older iMac with 3GB RAM and a 2.16GHz Core2Duo. The footage is HD and is on an external HDD and is conncted to the iMac via Firewire. The footage plays fine in the Sequence until one clip ends and a new one begins. Then FCP hiccups and generates a dropped frames error. Any idea what is causing this?

It turns out the compression used by the camera was H.264. This compression is not designed for editing and is processor intensive, that is why there was stuttering issues. You have to convert the footage to something easier on an NLE such as Apple's ProRes. Use Compressor to change the files (or edit the sequence with stutters, then render it out with ProRes) and you should be good to go.

Still having dropped frame problems in 720p

This situation will not go away. I can play 1080i all day but try to play a 720p sequence and frames drop
every few seconds. In the browser and in the timeline. Doesn't matter if the media is on an external SATA array or on the internals. The playback stalls. This has gotten extremely frustrating. Any help the the folks in the know?
Best,
Tom

I agree with Tallguy. It's either the higher frame rate, the type of compression or both.

Dropped Frames and Render/Playback problems in Final Cut Express HD

I use FCE HD and edit HD video off my Sony camcorder. Recently I've got rid of my old Imac G5 and have a newer 2GHz PowerPC G5 with more RAM (2GB) off a friend because my old mac wasn't fast enough and was incapable of playing back some of my edits.
At first when i got my new mac things looked faster and it was playing transitions without dropped frames etc. However now i've started editing again and imported new projects, i've got a big problem with dropped frames during playback and rendering. I get dropped frames during unedited clips let alone at transitions and for some reason, fce will no longer render video. Unedited clips from my latest project need rendering, which i've never had before, but when i try to render them the 'writing video...' pop up flashes, but nothing happens and the video is not rendered!
Now i can't watch and edit some of my projects without dropped frames stopping playback every other clip and i can't do anything with my new ones because the video need rendering but can't be rendered!
Can anyone help me out on either topic?

Hi Ross,
Well, most people, myself included, would say you should consider yourself lucky if doing video via USB ever worked at all for you. Overall, USB is not up to the demands of video, and that is most likely why you are getting your dropped frames problem.
The solutions would be either use your internal HD or get a good external FW drive. I know this is frustrating, as it has been for many people who look at the raw specs where USB 2.0 appears faster than FW400 but in real life, for video especially, it is not.

Odd problems exporting videos: dropped frames, end glitches

Having some strange things happening on the work computer (which is a pre-intel MacPro running Leopard and latest version of FCP). In the last couple of weeks we've been having a lot of files that we're trying to export (by either directly playing them or "Print to Video" via Firewire to a Sony DV/Cam deck, which in turn passes it through to a Beta machine). The videos have been freezing up or giving "Dropped Frame" error messages. To combat the problem I've exported the videos (usually 10 minutes in length) to Quicktime Movie file, and then ran that file (thus making it one big file instead of 40 or so cuts/insertions, etc).
Dropped Frames ceased to be a problem, and it plays smoothly...but now when we get to the end, we get a weird white glitch. Figured it might want a fade out to smooth out the end of the file (even though it already had a fade out) but now the file is freezing up right before it gets to the fade out.
The really odd thing is, it looks and acts fine when I play from 5 seconds or so before the end of the clip. It's only playing it in its entirety that the end acts up.
I'm at my wit's end figuring out options. I've rebuilt permissions, restarted the computer, done a disc utility diagnostic/repair disc. I've deleted the preferences for FCP.
Open to any suggestions!
Thanks

No, I'm not using assembly mode.
The really odd and frustrating thing is that haven't done anything different that I haven't done with hundreds of similar projects. But all of a sudden things are happening (mentioned the dropped frames problem in case it is linked. Increasingly I've been having projects stop printing/playing due to dropped frames with no consistent possible reason, in terms of materials used, transitions, hard drive, etc.). No change of equipment or software (other than updates).
My boss complained about the white 'glitch' happening a couple months or so ago, and thought it was due to forgetting to do a fade-out at the end, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Optimizing work flow in FCP on new iMac? (dropped frames)

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.
In my first attempts at editing the footage, I find that I am getting dropped frames on playback at every edit point - any time I cut between shots, add titles, etc.
(I also tried editing some much smaller, compressed files (QT 854x480, H.264, AAC audio) in the timeline and had the frame drop problem.)
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:
1920 x 1080
Aspect: HDTV 1080i (16:9)
Pixel Aspect: Square
Field Dominance: Upper (Odd)
Editing Timebase: 29.97
In this instance I am editing footage that is stored on the local HD, but I have also tried editing footage from a USB 2.0 external drive, and got the same dropped frame problem.
...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.
thanks in advance.

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.
You don't say if you have FCS or just FCP, but if you do have FCS then you can use Compressor to do the conversion.
Hope this helps.

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!

Dropped Frames on Capture/ Adding extra USB buses to a G5

Hello,
I am having trouble with dropped frames on capture. It is a problem I have dealt with many times. I always try to capture my media to some sort of external drive; It always seems to work fine until the drive fills up(to about 20 GB left), and then I start to get dropped frames problems. I've tried freeing up space on the drive, but once it starts it seems that even freeing up space doesn't fix the problem. I was told that adding a USB bus can fix this problem -OR- You can add an extra internal storage drive to the G5. Once upon a time I did the latter and it worked, but now I can not even capture onto my extra internal drive?
My capture attempts seem to get about 5 minutes before I get dropped frames.
Do you think that installing an extra Bus could fix this problem? If so what kind of Bus should I look for for a PowerMac G5?
I am running FCP 4.5, Mac OSX 3.9, Quicktime 7(In the past this has not been an issue), I am using a Power Mac G5- two 160GB internal drives.
Much Thanks in Advance, the Help is always fantastic around here,
Justin

A USB bus or a FW bus?
Because USB drives are not fast enough to sustain capture.
Adding a PCI Firewire card from a place like Sonnettech may work.
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegroexpressfw400.html

FCP Dropped Frames

I know this has been posted many times, but I can't seem to fix the problem. I have my video that I shot with my Canon T2i, which was transcoded to Apple ProRes 422 (LT). I've used Final Cut many times using those settings and the T2i... I first thought my 2nd internal hard drive was failing (where the media is stored), but then I plugged my G-Drive which connects through FireWire 800 (and which I've used before) and launched a project I finished and I still had the dropped frames problem... I trashed FCP preferences... I seem to get the dropped frames less if I restart the mac, but after 10 minutes the problem starts to reoccur... If anyone knows what else I can try?
Thanks,
Zevie

Make sure you have a minimum of 10% free space on all drives and considerably more on your startup drive.
Here are a list of troubleshooting tips that may help
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2591
In particular, I'd run diskutility: repair disk on all drives and get and run diskwarrior on all drives.
Try disconnecting all peripherals besides keyboard and mouse and one media drive and also turn off airport and disconnect ethernet.
Also, try creating a new user in system preferences: accounts.

Dropped frames while capturing

Out of the blue I'm having problems with dropped frames during capture, and no video whatsoever is being digitized to my scratch disk after I "abort" the capture with the escape key (after an endlessly spinning pinwheel indicates the failure, but the tape in my Canon GL2 keeps running anyway). I have a 2nd Internal Drive with 120GB of storage (45GB available). I have already successfully captured three complete DV tapes with no problems, and suddenly Tape #4 started dropping frames. So does Tape #5. Could a Quicktime update be causing this problem? What's up? Final Cut Express 2.0.3.

has anyone really solved this yet? the apple advisory mentions upgrading to fce 5, but i don't see that that exists yet.
i have a sony dcr-hc96, fce 2.0.3 (willing to upgrade), os 10.4.9 and having the 5-minute "dropped frames on capture" freeze problem. i've bought defrag software and a spanking new lacie 500Gb drive for my project. no luck. i've "hid the capture scratch folder from spotlight". no luck.
i was having the issue, then, before reading the forum, unfortunately updated QuickTime to 7.3. but I was having the exact same problem in 7.2 or whatever I upgraded from anyway. I haven't tried to go back to 7.2 yet because it sounds complicated.
does anyone know the answer to this: will the QT 7.3/dropped frame problem be solved with an upgrade to FCE 4 (the newest one for sale at the Mac store)? Or, will the QT 7.3 problem be fixed with an upgrade to OS 10.4.10? [unfortunately, i can't do the latter without saying goodbye to my Pro Tools 6.9.2 and having to potentially upgrade that software, too.)
thanks.

Jerky playback with dropping frames after iPod/iPhone Conversion

Hi!
I have a problem converting quicktime hd material to iPod/iPhone H.264. I know that there are iPhone Trailers available on the Apple Movie Trailer Page, but lets take a trailer as an example video source, because they are free to use and are leading to the "dropping frames" problem.
Source video data:
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
23.976 fps
5755 Kbps (VBR)
1280x720 (16:9) / Progressive
Converted video data:
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
23.976 fps
1472 Kbps (VBR)
640x360 (16:9) / Progressive
While the source video playback is smooth in quicktime, the converted video drops frames and the playback is very jerky.
The problem occurs with every single trailer i tried (e.g. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button).
I also tried to convert the material with visualhub (ffmpeg/vlc) - same result.
Has anyone ideas how to solve this problem? Thanks in advance!
Message was edited by: florian.kloppe

The issue could very easily be insufficient hard drives. You really should have a minimum of three internal drives for editing. A single 5400 RPM drive is bound to cause lags.

Dropping Frames/ Uninstall Quicktime?

OK, I'm having the dropping frames problem when trying to capture. I turned off the "abort capture" box and got it to capture, but now the clips won't play correctly. I'm running FCP HD on 10.4.9 with QT 7.1.5. Is quicktime likely the problem? If so, how do I downgrade? I can't find an earlier version for download that says it's for 10.4.9. Help!

Hi:
Try * T H I S *.
Hope that helps !
Alberto

My dropped frames problem

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