Problems 'playing' a project: dropped frames/stutters

For some strange reason, during the last few weeks we've been having a lot of problems exporting projects by playing them via canvas or through 'print to video.' The projects range in size from 8 minutes to 30 minutes. They will play fine on one pass, but then another one will have a stutter. The stutter doesn't occur in the same place each time.
Doubt that the problem lies in the connections outside of the computer (it's going via firewire to a Sony DVCam Digital Videocassette recorder DSR-45, then to a mixing board and to DVD recorder or Beta deck), since the stutter appears on the computer screen (it sometimes is a few frames of black or gray or even a red 'not rendered/media not connected' type screen).
The drive being used is internal (one of two 400GB hard drives, each of which has about 100GB free).
The material is all shot on the same Sony DVCAMs. It's listed as DV/DVCPRO-NTSC 29.97FPS. Only difference I see in sequence as compared to master clips in terms of browser settings is in audio format (master listed as 16-integer as aud format versus 32-bit floating point in sequence)
I've Disc Warriored and Disc Utilitied the computer.
It's a Dual 2.6 GHz PowerPC G5 with 4.5 GB of RAM running 10.4.11 and the latest upgrades of Final Cut Studio.
Can't think of anything that has changed recently (only thing is updating the FCS2 files...which did happen right around the time when the problems started, come to think about it)
Any suggestions would be appreciated

Few more things to add:
I just exported one of the problem projects to DVD using compressor and it worked flawlessly. Also, the glitches occurred regardless of whether or not the project is in the 'working' stage (with layers, overlays, etc that have been rendered) or has been exported as a self-contained Quicktime file w/o any compression, using same settings as project.

Similar Messages

HD play back returns dropped frames on a 10 second playback w/transition

when playing back a clip in the timeline and I have a transition I get a pop up about dropped frames. I am playing back in HD and I have striped my drives for speed, but still the same thing. I have searched the logs and find no matches. I hope you can view the screen capture. I do know that HD plays a factor but tried the options, any ideas
/Users/lrehklau/Desktop/Screen Capture.tiff

Andy
The original footage is 1080i, cannon xh a1, but having it down convert to 720p-60. The 300x2 raid is 500+ free space, I just started the video.
After sleeping on it, I had a thought, I have a BlackMagic intensity pro capture card. I have it playing back on a 27" screen to see the true quality of HD, Its nice, so I thought that maybe on play back its outputting to the canvas and to through the BM card to the TV. I turned off the the video playback in the video properties and I am now able to play a sequence of clips with transitions without any problem.
Thanks for your response, it helped make me think, now off to tackle the BM card

Problems working with non drop and drop frame DVCPRO HD material in project

I am having playback problems with my non drop frame HDV material. It stutters.
All of our projects up to this point have been shot in drop frame. During our last shoot however the Bcam was recorded in non drop. I loaded both the non drop bcam tapes as non drop and the drop frame Acam tapes as drop. All of the drop frame Acam material plays back fine in the source viewer and the timeline. The non drop Bcam material seems to randomly stutter in the source viewer, or causes the system to serve a "dropped frames warning" in the timeline.
Is there a bug with fcp 5.1.2 about mixing non drop and drop frame material in a project. Or is this not possible? They are the same frame rate.
I have exported the non drop clips in a drop frame timeline and re-imported them as drop frame clips - thus correcting the problem. Is this the best solution?
All of the material was loaded thru a kona card as 1080i60 DVCPROHD 29.97
I had no problems capturing the material as long as I used the corrrect firewire setting (ndf vs df).
Anyone have a problem like this? I would greatly appreciate a response.
Thanks,
Mark

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/DisplayModel?m=10014&p=2&sp=141&id =78439
The camera can record 60i, and 30F:
"HDV 1080, 50i/60i/30F/25F Recording and Playback capable"
Look at the clips...look at their frame rates. What do they say? Is one 59.94? Is the other 29.97?
You would never need to render if you mixed NDF and DF footage. The footage runs at the same speed, on the TC numbers are different. But, you would need to render if your footage had different frame rates. LOOK AT THE CLIPS.
Shane

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.

Export Quicktime = stalling / frame rate / dropped frames

Firstly this issue isn't news. It appears it has existed since 2002 at least on these forums and Apple has done nothing.
Exporting to Quicktime:
1) Keynote makes up what seem to be consistent random frame rates on export
- Codec doesn't matter. Photo JPG, Intermediate, 8bit 422, H264
- You can set the frame rate in export / custom / settings it doesn't matter
- Having no video on a slide or having video on a slide doesn't change the problem...
- The last two items do have more information to complete their story
- If you do have a video on slide at say 25fps and export (at same rate) the random will stabilise
but it will stabilise to something bizarre, such as 23.69.
- So Keynote can wreck your frame rate it will drop frames, or even add frames while dropping
others. It is deeply sophisticated in how it destroys stuff on export.
Result
- is a stuttering output if embed video on a slide with a wrecked frame rate
- and a random frame rate if you don't have a video embed
2) The video stalls between slides
- Keynote seems to play a trick by making a single frame span multiple frames
- At the start of the first slide this seems to vary. The first frame can be between 7 and 33
frames depending on some strange internal logic only known to Keynote
- Between slides it will hold the last frame of the exiting slide usually for 7 frames and hold
the first frame of the entering slide for usually the same amount.
- No amount of change to settings such as transition delay, adding a transition, self play etc
will effect this stalling from what I can tell.
- You can analyse the reality of the issue by dropping the resulting file into Quicktime 7 and
changing the video window "time code" display to frames by clicking on it and single framing
through the video. I have Quicktime Pro for the record.
Notes:
- I have every update installed and am running 10.6.2
- I have tried it on two machines, one a clean build, server or client
- Playing the presentation direct in Keynote does not present any of the noted issues
- I have spent the better part of two weeks on the issue trying all sorts of combinations
- Video of different frames rates, sizes, codecs. All useless, don't bother.
Outcome:
- Keynote is completely useless unless you just want to play a presentation in it
- Dropped frames, stuttering video, stalling, mangled frame rates, fake frames
Solutions that aren't:
- One suggestion for video embeds is to enter a strange custom frame rate. For example a
24fps original turns into a 23.69 export, if you up the frame rate to 24.3 the resulting export
is 24fps.
This is a truly hit and miss affair and will require a lot of testing to nail it. Unfortunately I
tested the resulting video frame count in Quicktime against the original video and...
The amount of frames is not the same. Part of my assumption is that the stalled pad frames
are being considered by Keynote and it drops some frames to fake the same length, that at
least -seems- to be part of the result, but it doesn't account for all the lost frames.
- I have also tried just having one slide and exporting that. The same things happen regardless
How Al Gore managed to make "inconvenient truth" using Keynote is a complete mystery. Maybe on Tiger with some old version it used to work, yet from the forums it would appear it has never worked. This piece of software is a clear case of "it just doesn't work"
I hope you find this and stop hurting yourself trying to make this. I might hurt on a bit longer yet.

I can't answer in detail (I started with version 6, which I haven't used in years, so don't know what v5 did) but... a general comment
Software that old is very likely going to struggle trying to edit a VOB/MPG file copies from a DVD
If you are digitizing by playing the DVD through a conversion device you should end up with DV AVI which should edit well
Just what kind of files are you trying to edit?

Choppy and Dropping Frames with AVCHD on FCPX

Hi,
I'm having a nightmare problem with AVCHD on my Mac Pro and FCPX.
So I'm editing with 1080 60p from FS700, NX70, GoPro Hero3 and XR-550V.
Imported without transcoding first, so just a rewrap into QT.
Tried to play a single clip in the events or timeline in this conditons:
- "Use original or optimized media" > High Quality
- "Use original or optimized media" > Better Perfomance
- "Use proxy media" (and did a transcode only for 4 clips to test)
With all those possibilities it ALWAYS plays choppy and dropping frames.
Playing in the QT (PRIVATE and choosing the clip) plays normal.
Playing in the QT proxy transcoded from FCPX plays normal.
Using Premiere CC is also normal.
Tried to ensure that the timeline is 29.97p, same thing (dropped frames choppy).
What could it be?
Specs:
FCPX 10.0.9
Mac Pro Early 2009
Original Material in a RAID0 ~220MB/s R/W
Processor 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory 7 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB
Software OS X 10.8.5 (12F45)

Well, it's possible for FCP to find something about either your hardware (or a third party software) problematic and for Pr to be OK with. Premiere has long been more agnostic about formats and codecs than FCP.
Unsure what to suggest. It shouldn't require the latest-greatest ;for example, we have a four year old MBP, running Lion that can play 1080 AVCHD smoothly… although we set Preferences to better performance.
Russ

Final cut drop frame at xraid ( raid 5) with cinewave

Hi All , I Have G5 with Mac os 10.4 with cinewave A/D pro Ver 4.7 .. the problem is i get drop frame when capture to Xraid 7 X500GB ( Raid 5 )..i try to capture to another xraid 7X500GB ( Raid 0 ) without any drop frame..
i ask if cinewave 4.7 can work with Macosx 10.4.6 or not
any one can help me to use raid 5 with cinewave 4.7 without drop frame ????
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

We gave up on our cinewave card a couple of years ago. You might like to try this forum - they may be able to help.
http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/read_forums.asp?WebboardID=14&SectionID=19&lng=1
Good Luck

Dropped frames frustration

Hi:
I've read hours of posts trying to find something that resembles my problem. Of late, when my G4 is warming up I got 10 dropped frames in a 32 second clip. I notice that the longer I leave the computer on the better it gets. It took 38 minutes of playback for me to get a dropped frame.
I tried coping the clip to a new sequence and that seemes to work.
I have also noticed that when I edit a clip and send it to the timeline, it needs to be rendered. The frequency of these coppupt clips seems to me to often.
I've ascertained that it's not the camera or the Mini DV tape that 's at fault.
Specs are: G4, 867Mhz., OSX 10.4.6, 2mb. L3 cache, 1.5 G Sdram.
The external drive is a recent LaCie 250 G @7200 rpm Fire wire 400.
Are these two problems related? The dropped frame problem was stressing me considerably, and it still needs to be solved. I know that with your help we can do it!
Thanks,
Fred
G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6) Final Cut Pro 4 HD

This sounds like several different problems.
As far as the "drops frames before warming up" one goes, that suggests two different things to look at. Most hardware components, of course, are digital and have negligible warm-up characteristics. The disk drive itself has some analog functions in the motor and controller which might be a suspect.
You mention the drive (250gb) but don't say how full it is. It's possible that a nearly full disk is more likely to have files in sub-optimal locations on the physical disk, resulting in playback problems. The only reason this would get better, however, would be if temporary files, renders, etc. got written in a less fragmented way.
The need to render almost always results from a discrepancy in the way the clip was captured versus the timeline. For example, if you are going back and forth with 24P material or timelines and inadvertently opened a new sequence as 24P but you're working with 29.97, etc.

Dropped Frames msg stops playback and after render and export has gaps

I extracted video from a DVD that a client wants to use for an online video teaser. The video was extracted as an AVI and then converted to QT. I imported the QT to Final Cut Pro ver3 edited the segments. There are only 4 clips; 2 graphics and 2 quick video clips. At the beginning of each clip Final Cut puts up a dropped frames message. Everything in the sequence is rendered but it will not play through the dropped frames message. I exported the sequence to QT and when played back showed a green screen were each dissolve is . I have tried adjusting the preferences based on the Final Cut message but this does not have any affect on the outcome. Any suggestions of how to resolve the issue are welcome. I am in the process of extracting the video again to see if I can get it without dropped frames if that is where it happened. Help/advice is welcome.

When you are extracting the video from the DVD, what compression are you using? Quicktime is just a codec but the compression is important. If you are using standard def video, I like to use DVCPro50 as a compression since it is light but gives excellent quality. Also, make sure that your sequence settings match the video settings. Say that you are using 4:3, lower field, DVCPro50 compression at 29.97fps; then you will want your sequence settings to match that exactly. Since you are using FCP 3 then you will have to change these manually.

Dropped frames when playing section in the timeline w/audio, Viewer plays fine. Plays for 1 sec, no sound, nothing on audio meters. Problem out the blue, made no conscious changes. FCP 7.0.3. iMac, 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5. OS10.8.4. Thanx.

New to FCP. Dropped frames when playing section in the timeline w/audio, Viewer plays fine tho. Plays for bout 1 sec with no sound, nothing showing coming through the audio meters. Problem came out the blue, made no conscious changes to settings. FCP 7.0.3. iMac, 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5. OS10.8.4. If any other info needed please let me know, will be happy to provide it. Thanx.

Thank you for the help. Below is my Source footage and sequence settings.
The other footage I have on the timeline is an mp3 file made in Garage Band and some footage I sent to Motion to edit. I do have some offline media on there since I switched computers but FCP had been working fine for a few months with it on there. I have not tried trashing my FCP Preferences. If I did would I have to back up my project?

Problem getting HD video to play properly on standard DVD - dropping frames

Maybe someone can tell me the proper workflow I should be using here, but for the life of me can not get my beautiful HD video to play properly on standard DVD's. Footage looks choppy, ie dropping frames.
1.) I've tried editing in iMovie 08', exporting to a 720P Quicktime file (original is 1080p), then loading into iDVD as well as Toast 8. Both play in my standard DVD player like crap (almost like a strobe light is being applied).
2.) I have also loaded the source footage into Toast 8 directly and it also looks choppy.
My source are .mov files loaded from my Panasonic HDC-SD5 into iMovie 08 for editing.
If anyone can tell me what kind of a workflow I need to do in order to get my video onto a standard dvd and play properly, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks
Paul

Hello ipaw,
I think the problem here is a format mixup (I'm no codec pro though)
+1.) I've tried editing in iMovie 08', exporting to a 720P Quicktime file (original is 1080p), then loading into iDVD as well as Toast 8. Both play in my standard DVD player like crap (almost like a strobe light is being applied).+
From what I know AVCHD (the recording format of the HDC-SD5) can be either 1080i or 720p, so my guess is that you shot and edited in 1080i then exported to 720p. The p stands for progressive and, IMHO, that is where the strobe effect comes from.
To go from an interlaced format to progressive (p) you'll need to de-interlace, and that needs some smart software (and skill to find the right settings). On top of that, your source is a highly compressed flavor of MPEG-4, which you're converting to progressive HD.
Why not edit in AVCHD and send the project directly to iDVD?
hope this helps
mish

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

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.

"Dropped Frames on Playback" - when playing back FCP's Bars+tone

We've been having a problems with one of our edit suites dropping frames when playing back to tape (Edit to tape).
In checking it out, I created a new project and added DCP's PAL Bars and tone to the default sequence. FCP is stopping playback with the "Dropped Frames on Playback" error after 13"-15". I've tried all the usual stuff - trashing FCP prefs, zapping PRAM, repairing preferences etc.
Has anyone any further suggestions??
RT is set to Safe, with dynamic frame rate and video quality.
The Mac is a Dual 2.66GHz Dual Core Xeon, 4Gb RAM, with an AJA kona lhe card, connected to an XServe Raid via fibre. The tape deck is a DigiBeta M2000.
I've read all the posts I could find, and checked Shane's stock answer #12.
Cheers
Steve

Try creating a new user, log into that and test FCP.
In my case, a new user worked, for awhile.
Through a lot of trial and error and a reinstallation that was ineffectual - properly surmised by a very learned friend of mine, Mr. Sheffield - I found a project to be corrupt. So thoroughly corrupt that it would corrupt FCP and any projects opened downstream which is why my new user worked for awhile. Took me some time to figure out the proper order to open things after a system restart. Looks like I'll be doing a rebuild of the project through xml which shouldn't take to long.
In your case, if a new user doesn't help and you go the reinstallation route, uninstall FC Studio with this jewel of a utility. Many thanks to Jon for writing and distributing. http://www.digitalrebellion.com/blog/posts/fcsremover_1.0.6released.html
Zeb

Problems 'playing' a project: dropped frames/stutters

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