Those darned dropped frames...

So what's the deal with the dropped frames?
-G5 dual 2.3 ghz
-2 GB ddr sdram
-L2 cache (per cpu) 512 KB
-I have no other apps running
-Final cut 5.0.4
-all software updated
-all settings kosher
-capturing to external lacie drive (3 weeks old)
-enough disc space (more than 100 gigs)
I mean what else can I possibly do here?

Oh, and you wouldn't be using a Canon camera as the playback device would you?
If you are ... you'll need to create a second firewire bus to separate the camera from the hard drive.
Get a PCI firewire card. Connect the camera to it and it should solve your problem.
x

Similar Messages

Playback dropped frames - worst when re-starting computer

I'm editing a short 3 minute project - DV-NTSC sequence - and am getting those **** occasional dropped frames during playback (not in the same place) and cannot figure it out for the life of me.
I'm new to editing and am using FCE HD 3.5
New mbp 15" 2.16, 2 Gig Ram, 160 hard drive
10.4.9
Seagate 400gb ext. drive (325gb free, FW800, Mac OS Extended, journaling off) built by OWC (Mercury Elite Pro al) w/ media, waveforms, thumbnails, etc
Settings: Safe RT, Dynamic video quality, Full frame rate, Real-time Audio Mixing to 4 tracks - low quality playback.
Canvas/viewer etc are not overlapping. Am viewing at "fit to window" size
Easy setup - DV NTSC - and all my media is DV/DVCPro - NTSC, with 48khz, 16-bit audio. Some files are anamorphic and I've changed distort and motion to make them fit 4:3.
Activity monitor shows FCE using 20-36% of CPU during playback.
Energy Saver set to Never sleep computer, Never sleep display, don't sleep hard disks, no screensaver - and am running Spindownfix. Universal Access is off. Firevault not enabled. No other programs are running
I am new to editing so please let me know if doing this could be the culprit: in some places have 3 tracks of video overlapping - not because i need to but out of laziness; in others have 3 overlapping video with a lot of keyframes adjusting opacity. ALSO: Am setting Au dynamics processor for lots of the audio - and also changing the level db in the stereo track for the same audio - should I be making these changes in the au dynamics filter instead?
Also, problem seems to be worse when I first re-start the computer - and tends to get better as I go along....?? (I assume its okay to restart my mbp without unmounting my external drive? - that it does that automatically?)
I am rendering everything (although isn't it supposed to play without dropping frames without doing so?) At one point, my project wouldn't let me render portions of audio (they were marked red, but nothing would happen when I tried render all audio or mix down etc). I trashed my preferences and that seemed to fix that problem.
I feel like I've tried everything. I'd really appreciate any advice. (Since the problem isn't all that frequent, should I consider just taking off the "report dropped frames" warning until I'm closer to a final cut?) This is a new machine, so if its a hardware problem i definitely want to get it fixed sooner than later. Thanks!

The first thing I'd try is to mixdown audio (alt-cmd-R), and see what happens.
In addition I wouldn't leave overlapping clips unused in the tracks, even though I'm not sure it makes much difference.
Piero

"Capturing drop-frame media into a non-drop frame clip" error message

I've logged tapes from what will partly be a 3-camera multi-clip project, and have begun to batch capture.
Logged all but one tape some weeks ago, and captured one tape at the time.
Went to batch capture the balance, today. First tape capture went fine. On trying to capture the next tape in the batch I'm getting this message as FCP begins the process:
WARNING: You are about to capture drop-frame media to a non drop-frame clip. If you proceed, you may experience changes in logged in and out points, problems relinking media, or removal of master clip relationships.
In analyzing the situation, the only reason I can think of for the error message is that some of the reels were logged on a DSR-11 that had been set to NON drop-frame, and for which I didn't have the remote control to change the setting.
I haven't run into this while capturing other clips, but those may have been captured via a different deck that does only drop-frame.
So, I'm looking at next steps:
1: Capture anyway and possibly regret that I did that.
(One person on another list reported the same problem, that he had ignored it without any obvious complications.)
2: Relog all the problem clips using my current deck, speeding up the process by using the "go to" window to drive the tape to the existing in and out points and then marking i/o's...
Or...
Suggestions?
Thanks,
Ted.

We've been seeing this stupid error message since v3 and it's never mattered in the slightest. It is always incorrect, anyway. The clips are always drop and the sequences are always drop. It's an FCP programming glitch/bug/screwup. Someday they may or may not fix the mechanism that triggers the warning.
bogiesan

Can't Get Rid of Dropped Frames in FCP 7

Hello all,
I am editing in FCP and have only gotten as far as laying down a music track (MP3), and some b-role. I have given myself some space at the beginning of the track, and as soon as the video kicks in I get the dropped frames message. There are no fancy edits or effects, just the video. It happens with both .MOV files taken with my Canon 7D, and with footage I had converted from .MTS.
The RT drop-down menu in the timeline only offers the following options:
Play Base Layer Only
Use Playback Settings
Full Quality
I have gone into Playback Control under System Settings and adjusted the options to the following:
RT: Safe
Video Quality: Low
Frame Rate: Quarter
I am still receiving the dropped frame message. My footage is stored on a 500 GB external Rugged LaCie drive, and is connected using 8-pin FireWire. The footage is being edited in 1080. Everything is up to date.
Much appreciation for your help.

Thank you both for replying.
I converted the audio file (but still getting the error message) to AIFF/16bit/48kHz using iTunes. I had converted the .MTS fils to .MOV with iSkysoft Converter to the following settings:
Resolution: 1920x1080
Frame Rate: 23.97
Bit Rate: High Quality
Channel: 2 Channels stereo
Sample Rate: 44100
Bit Rate: Medium
I did not convert any of the Canon files to Pro Res. What do I need to do with those files? and is there something I can do during capture to help save a step in post?
Thanks again to you both!
Warmest regards,
~Shawn
Message was edited by: ShawnSpitler

Dropped frames during playback in FCP 7

I have searched high and low, asked every FCP expert I know, and noone can help me.
So I turn to this forum and you the users for help.
I just upgraded from an old DVCAM to a new Canon 60D, which shoots full HD. Usually I never have problems editing with or without text, but all of a sudden I got dropped frames when I put text on my project. No warning of dropped frames though. Just some skipping and pausing before the clip continued.
I was running FCP 6 but upgraded to FCP 7 in hopes of it removing the problem. It just got worse. Now I can't even playback video or text by itself (I am testing with 5-10 second bits). Whenever the screen should go blank I instead get the unpleasant warning of dropped frames. The same thing happens when I play text by itself or over the video. When I try exporting it (to see if it is just a playback error) QT and VLC Player both show the most hideous grey, green and pixellated versions of my (still very short) clip.
And if anyone suggests changing RT options - where do I find those options? The RT button on my timeline only shows the options: "play base layer only", "use playback settings" and "Full quality" - and the problems keep showing up in all three selections.
Could my settings be off? I am not sure I have found the right ones for the footy from a Canon 60D.
I hope someone is able to help me with this. It is the most frustrating experience I have ever had through my many years with FCP.

Switching from DV to HD can be a nightmare if you were 'getting away with things' using DV material that you really won't be able to in HD.
First - Where is the media? If it is on the system drive of the macbook pro... get it off of there!! It should be on an external drive - FW800 will get you going better than anything else...
Second - simple fix, but make sure... are any of your windows overlapping? is your canvas window set to FIT TO WINDOW? If there are scroll bars in your canvas or viewer that would be bad too.
Third -- let's figure out what and how you are converting the material off the 60D.
What is the workflow you are using? You should probably be editing in some form of Apple ProRes... I like the LT setting - minimal quality loss with max gain in bit rates.
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/rossshane/tapeless-workflowfcp-7/video-tutorial
Check out that video and see if it doesn't answer a few questions...
Good luck,
CaptM

Dropped Frames During Playback, How Much Hardware Should I have

I have a Mac Pro Dual Xeon 2.66 with 1 gig of ram and the Nvidia 256 meg card, I added a second hard drive which is a Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s and that is my scratch disk. I was trying to play a sequence that is from the tutorial disk in the Final Cut Pro 5 book by Diana Weynard. For those who know the book it is the "adding text" sequence from lesson 15.
I can play most of the sequences on the book's dvd in real time fine except for this one. With this one as soon as I get to the clips that have a lot of audio channels as well as a lower third text effect I get the dropped frames message. I can render the whole sequence and watch the whole thing fine. Really my question is this: I thought having spent what I did on a mac pro that would be enough hardware power to play back almost anything in real time, but do I need something else like more memory or the faster ati video card to play back this "heavier" sequences?
I've tried various solutions like deleting my pref file, reducing the number of real time audio mixing tracks to just 2. I even deleted the audio tracks in teh sequence so there were only 2 video tracks that had to play - a person speaking with just one outline video effect on the track above, and still it drops frames.
Thanks.

I can play most of the sequences on the book's dvd in real time fine except for this one. With this one as soon as I get to the clips that have a lot of audio channels as well as a lower third text effect I get the dropped frames message. I can render the whole sequence and watch the whole thing fine. Really my question is this: I thought having spent what I did on a mac pro that would be enough hardware power to play back almost anything in real time, but do I need something else like more memory or the faster ati video card to play back this "heavier" sequences?
Some of those sequences are HD. A single 7200 rpm drive will only deliver one or two HD streams without choking. My 7200 rpm internals will only deliver 4 streams of DV before skipping. If I move some clips to another drive and segregate my render files to another drive I can get up to 6 DV streams but it's not reliable.
Processing the audio requires significant overhead as does recovering the audio segments of the files. I rarely have more than 6 tracks open.Lowering the playback quality will increase the numbers of tracks you can play in realtime.
History note: Older NLEs required audio and video to be captured to separate drives, unnecessary with DV.
bogiesan

Dropped Frames PPro CS4 AVCHD MTS cards

I just purchased a Panasonic AG-HMC40U video cam. I am using a Sandisk 32GB extreme SDHC card. I did a shoot where I shot for two one hour sessions turning the camera off once and then on again between the two sessions. I have a Dell Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920@ 2.67GHz 12GB ram, 64 bit with Win 7 home edition. I put the card into my computer and saved the complete set of files to a folder on the computer.The files on the card are divided up into 26 minute sections which seems odd since I turned the camera off and on only once during the session. I import the stream files into Adobe CS4 Prem Pro. What I notice is at the end of each segment there is a dropped audio and visual frame. Not good when recording someone singing! I can overlay the visual with shots from another camera but the audio is not replaceable in live shows. This also happens with my other Canon Vixia...but I figured it was the camera..now I know its not. It happens with other SDHC cards as well.
I did take my card files to the store where I purchased my Panasonic and they had Mac Final Cut Pro. They imported the segmented files into it and it came in as two (which was the amount they should be) and there were no dropped frames.
I am perplexed as to why this is happening. I am told by everyone so far that I had talked to that it is Adobe Prem Pro CS4 that is not inporting the files correctly. Should I upgrade to CS5.5? Will this correct the issue? Help.

if its just one "red" frame..at each "segment" , you can cut that one frame out when you see it. and it wont hurt your timing etc or sync...when sound and video is still linked. ( in other words that one frame is cut out for both video and sound)
I tend to think its the fat32 thing ( mac ) vs NTFS ( pc ). dont be bummed ...happens even with pro dailies and stuff from fcp and avid to dvd dailies and is just one of those things you can fix ( cut the frame out ) ...pretty fast and easy to do.

Cc 7.2.1 lags on timeline and program monitor, and drop frames.

Hello guys i have cc 7.2.1, and every basic operation i do on the timeline , moving clips, trimiming, scrubing on the timeline everything lags, its not fluid. When i do a simple scrubring on the timeline, the CTI takes sometime to get to the position i selected to do the playback.
But the worst part is the trimming or moving clips, it takes ages before i get an image on the program monitor. If i move a clip into a middle of 2 clips it takes ages to see those two little privews images with timecode, to see where to put it. So is very hard to edit like this.
Another odd thing is when in redering mode i select to use sofware only i dont have drop frames, when i chose cuda i have drop frames!!
I´m editing h254 from a 5d and 7d on externa llaccie usb 3 , have the a macbookpro 16g i7, iris pro and nvidia 750m, and a external samsung, via DVI.
Anny sugestions?
thank you.

Thanks for the Tips.
One thing that i discoverd was, when software only is enabled i can't edit. Everything as that lag i reported above, but i have no drop frames with external monitor.
Now comes the funny part, when i enable CUDA for my Nvidia gt 750m, i can edit !!! everything becomes almost normal, image on program monitor comes quick, and i can do trims. BUT i have drop frames on external monitor!!!!! so therefore i cant have a proper edit enviroment.
The only solution is to edit without an external monitor with cuda enabled, that way i dont have drop frames. I guess this is a syntom, that something is not working well on CC 7.2.1.
Thank you all.

Dropping frames in QT export from CS3

I just got CS3 for my PC and I was all excited about the new
feature that lets you export dynamic/actionscripted/MovieClip
content. I do animation targetted at TV, so everything needs to be
rendered to AVI or Quicktime, so I figured that this new feature
would let me use a dynamic camera symbol as I've always wanted to.
I've run into a problem, though: the export process seems to
drop frames! As far as I can tell, Flash is rendering and recording
the frames of the animation in real time (or perhaps just close to
real time). If the computer has any hiccups because of another
process demanding some processor time then the resulting quicktime
will have frozen bits where the renderer couldn't keep up.
You can see what I'm talking about by looking at the
quicktime and an AVI of the same scene here:
http://www.pinkandaint.com/flasherror/bad.mov
http://www.pinkandaint.com/flasherror/good.avi
To test this theory, I tried witching applications a bunch
during a render. Sure enough, there were long sections in the
resulting quicktime where the renderer missed frames. The quicktime
is the right length and number of frames -- it just repeated the
same frame over and over where it couldn't keep up.
That's not the only problem, though. When I look at the
exported quicktime file in either Quicktime Player or Premiere pro
(version 1.5) it reports a framerate significantly lower than in
the original FLA. In the file I'm looking at right now, the FLA's
framerate is listed as 29.97 but the MOV file reports a rate of
19.29 (which is, incidentally, different than the framerate I got
any other time I exported the same scene). In premiere, when I tell
it to interpret the footage as having 29.97 fps the clip gets
significantly shorter than it should be -- in this case 161 frames
rather than the 208 frames that it is in the FLA.
I'm pretty sure this is the same way that the various
SWF-to-video programs do things. I thought it was an interesting
kludge to use those external programs but I was sure Adobe would be
able to do something more elegant and sure-footed with this new
export feature. Couldn't they have somehow guaranteed that each
frame would get captured? It seems like they could have just
modified the Flash player to play with artificial time, where the
time to render each frame was always reported as 1/framerate.
Oh, and there's one more problem. The Quicktime renderer
seems to do something different about the order of execution of
actionscript or something. In the rendered quicktime movie the
first frame displays my camera symbol even though I explicitly made
it invisible with actionscript on the first frame of its timeline.
When displaying in the Flash player the first frame does _not_
display the camera symbol....
Has anyone else encountered these problems? If so, have you
figured out a workaround? I tried setting the framerate really low
(I was at 29.97, so I set it down to 10) but it still seemed to
miss frames.
-David

I can understand your frustration with this feature as it
tries to capture in real time what's being
compiled in the player - but your last line is a bit unfair:
"...it
> exemplifies the Flash team's disregard for animators in
favor of web developers."
Copy Motion and Copy Motion as AS3 are useful new additions
for animators. I will add however that I
myself have a list of animation oriented features I would
love to see added in flash but for now
have you checked out www.flashants.com and their SWF2Video
tool? It exports an SWF to AVI with
flawless results. Worth looking into if you have the need to
output any kind of flash content to video.
Chris Georgenes
Animator
http://www.mudbubble.com
http://www.keyframer.com
Adobe Community Expert
*\^^/*
(OO)
<---->
animator_geek wrote:
>
quote:
Originally posted by:
Newsgroup User
> [...]
> Turn off other applications. When recording, Flash uses
all of your system's
> available resources as much as possible, so any
interference of the system
> performance affects the result of the recording. We
recommend you exit other
> applications while exporting to a video.
>
>
> So you're telling me that Flash makes my computer
completely unusable while
> it's rendering? Sorry, I thought we left that kind of
limitation behind with
> DOS. Particularly for something like this, where the
rendering process should
> be
completely independent of real-time. The renderer should go
exactly
> as fast as it needs to in order to capture every frame.
Whether I set the
> frame rate to 1 or 1000 should make no difference in how
many frames are
> dropped in the rendering process.
No frames should ever be dropped I
> mean, what's going on here? You guys have access to the
actual source code of
> the renderer. Can't you adapt it so that it when it's
rendering non-real-time
> the SWF thinks that it's executing at exactly the frame
rate it desires? You
> could just set the renderer's "clock" to whenever the
render was started, then
> increment it 1/fps seconds every frame. The program
would never be the wiser.
> You could even let the timer run (or simulate it
somehow) for 1/fps seconds
> between rendering each frame, thereby handling any timer
events that need to be
> sent while the SWF is running.
>
> Clearly I'm not privy to the inner workings of the Flash
player but as a user
> there's a certain standard I expect, particularly when a
company touts this
> great new feature. It's supposed to work as advertised.
This feature clearly
> does not.
>
> Now I've been a software engineer in the past and I know
that sometimes
> workarounds have to be made but this is just too much.
To me as a user, it
> exemplifies the Flash team's disregard for animators in
favor of web developers.
>
> -David
>
>
quote:
Turn off audio. The audio in a Flash movie may also slow the
performance
> possibly causing dropped frames. Turn off the audio, if
you have many
> dropped frames in the first attempt. Other video editing
tools can be used
> to add the audio to the video after export.
>
> Reduce frame rate. If the movie dimension is a full size
NTSC video, 740 x
> 480, and frame rate is 30 fps, you are more likely to
have dropped frames.
> Reduce the fps of Flash movie increase the chance of
grabbing all the
> frames. Other video editing tools can be used to adjust
the frame rate of
> the video after export.
>
> Optimize your animation. Try to avoid a lot of screen
motion. The greater
> the area of change on the screen, the more likely
slowdown will occur. Also,
> if possible, restrict your use of transparency and alpha
channels as they
> too can cause poor performance.
>
> Use ActionScript 3. Animation created by ActionScript 2
and ActionScript 3
> are different in play back performance. Convert the
ActionScript in your
> animation to ActionScript 3 for optimized performance.
>
> Dimension settings in 2 places. The dimension settings
in Export Settings
> dialog sets the dimension of the SWF movie to be
captured. The Size settings
> in QuickTime Settings dialog sets the dimension of the
exported MOV files.
> If the SWF size is smaller than the exported MOV size,
the picture quality
> will be degraded; if it is larger than the exported MOV
file, you may have
> better picture quality. For best quality (and often
performance) these
> settings should match.
>
>
>
> "animator_geek" <[email protected]>
wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> >I just got CS3 for my PC and I was all excited about
the new feature that
> >lets
> > you export dynamic/actionscripted/MovieClip
content. I do animation
> > targetted
> > at TV, so everything needs to be rendered to AVI or
Quicktime, so I
> > figured
> > that this new feature would let me use a dynamic
camera symbol as I've
> > always
> > wanted to.
> >
> > I've run into a problem, though: the export process
seems to drop frames!
> > As
> > far as I can tell, Flash is rendering and recording
the frames of the
> > animation
> > in real time (or perhaps just close to real time).
If the computer has
> > any
> > hiccups because of another process demanding some
processor time then the
> > resulting quicktime will have frozen bits where the
renderer couldn't keep
> > up.
> >
> > You can see what I'm talking about by looking at
the quicktime and an AVI
> > of
> > the same scene here:
> >
http://www.pinkandaint.com/flasherror/bad.mov
> >
http://www.pinkandaint.com/flasherror/good.avi
> >
> > To test this theory, I tried witching applications
a bunch during a
> > render.
> > Sure enough, there were long sections in the
resulting quicktime where the
> > renderer missed frames. The quicktime is the right
length and number of
> > frames
> > -- it just repeated the same frame over and over
where it couldn't keep
> > up.
> >
> > That's not the only problem, though. When I look at
the exported
> > quicktime
> > file in either Quicktime Player or Premiere pro
(version 1.5) it reports a
> > framerate significantly lower than in the original
FLA. In the file I'm
> > looking at right now, the FLA's framerate is listed
as 29.97 but the MOV
> > file
> > reports a rate of 19.29 (which is, incidentally,
different than the
> > framerate I
> > got any other time I exported the same scene). In
premiere, when I tell
> > it to
> > interpret the footage as having 29.97 fps the clip
gets significantly
> > shorter
> > than it should be -- in this case 161 frames rather
than the 208 frames
> > that it
> > is in the FLA.
> >
> > I'm pretty sure this is the same way that the
various SWF-to-video
> > programs do
> > things. I thought it was an interesting kludge to
use those external
> > programs
> > but I was sure Adobe would be able to do something
more elegant and
> > sure-footed
> > with this new export feature. Couldn't they have
somehow guaranteed that
> > each
> > frame would get captured? It seems like they could
have just modified the
> > Flash player to play with artificial time, where
the time to render each
> > frame
> > was always reported as 1/framerate.
> >
> > Oh, and there's one more problem. The Quicktime
renderer seems to do
> > something different about the order of execution of
actionscript or
> > something.
> > In the rendered quicktime movie the first frame
displays my camera symbol
> > even
> > though I explicitly made it invisible with
actionscript on the first frame
> > of
> > its timeline. When displaying in the Flash player
the first frame does
> > _not_
> > display the camera symbol....
> >
> > Has anyone else encountered these problems? If so,
have you figured out a
> > workaround? I tried setting the framerate really
low (I was at 29.97, so
> > I set
> > it down to 10) but it still seemed to miss frames.
> >
> > -David
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>

Dropped Frames -- Releted to Capture?

I was quickly working on a project for old friends, which I have now easily been able to finish to satisfaction, but got some dropped frames warnings during the process, which it did not hurt to ignore. Now I want to analyze why this happened?
I had some previously footage on DV tape that had been copied from VHS, via VCR to camcorder in VTR mode -- no problem with these in FCP, utilizing In/Out timecodes. However I had to quickly review a lot more old VHS tapes, and chose to use my Canopus ADCV 110 to allow for rapid review and selective capture. Furthermore, it seemed much easier to do this in iMovie HD, capture selectively, and then export as QT dv, and import into FCP. All this seemed to work, and I could edit. But exclusive to those clips captured in iMovie and exported, I started to get this warning about dropped frames.
Was this caused by the path of capture/export directly, or did the fact that I exported to the same scratch disk drive as those clips captured directly in FCP matter? Although using my new Mac Pro, I was still using my LaCie FW 800 disk as capture scratch. Is it the lack of timecodes on those assets captured via the Canopus, and should I expect the same issues if I capture via the Canopus, but in FCP? Part of the reason I used iMovie to capture, was I couldn't figure out how to monitor the sound from the VCR, which had no headphone jack, if reviewing via the Canopus and FCP.
I love the Canopus, but have not made extensive use of it in this situation. However, I believe it actually gave better quality than "remastering" to DV tape, first, btw.
Ernie

I have also come to the same conclusion. I've been capturing video just fine and now I get this "dropped frames during capture" error message.
SAME computer
SAME external 7200 rpm drive for capture
SAME fire-wire cable
SAME camcorder
SAME mini-dv tape
I upgraded to OS 10.4.9 and iTunes 7.1.1 a few days ago and only now am I receiving this error message. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Dropped Frames & Firewire Busses - A Discussion

A side discussion broke out on this recent thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=231733&tstart=0
and because this discussion is OT to the thread, I thought it might be helpful to start a new on-topic thread.
A number of FCP users have experienced dropped frames when capturing or outputting to tape while using a DV VCR/camcorder and a firewire drive for media on the same FW bus. There are many causes for dropped frames, but this discussion centers on the relationship between FW drives, DV devices, and using a single firewire bus.
Some say that having the DV device and the firewire media drive on the same bus can be a cause of dropped frames with some systems. Others disagree. I'm in the first camp, so I'll leave it to others to explain the other side.
I'm starting this thread to pick up where the side discussion on the thread linked above left off.
In response to Hughes Video:
If I'm reading your post correctly, my opinion is that your testing doesn't adequately address the real world situation. In practice, the FW port on the DV device is receiving data at 3.6MB/sec and buffering. Then it sends a data stream to the FW bus at about 12MB/sec, where is again buffered before being sent to the destination drive.
The benchmark test results you noted don't predict what happens in the real world when capturing a DV stream from a VCR/camcorder to a FW drive. To do that, you need to be able to report in a time graph what the throughput is for every 1/30 of a second while capturing.
I'm not sure that's what Adam Wilt has done, but he's told me that he's done thorough testing that proves the points he's made. I don't know what testing that entails.
I do know, as I posted in the other thread, that when those who are having dropped frames separate the DV device from the FW drive on separate busses, their problems resolve. I don't know the technical reason for that, but I theorize that it has to do with the data moving and buffering in both directions on the same bus simulteneously. If the bus speed is decreased when both devices are on the same bus (whether daisy-chained or on separate ports), I don't know. But I know the problem resolves when you separate them.

this begs the question though: how do users of an
imac or a mini get around the limitations of one
internal harddrive and one firewire bus?
zeb
They can't. iMac's are a consumer (and terribly sexy) computer. Make no mistake, if you are doing this for a living you need a PowerMac. Want less headaches with dropped frames and FW? Then take a closer look at better drives. G-Raid, Weibetech, and Granite Digital make the best out there, and invest in another FW 800 card for 'em. End of story.
Want to avoid dropped frames forever and ever with any video format? Forsake FW drives for fibre. SCSI is dying a slow but steady death IMHO.
Yeah, it all costs more, but you GET more (speed). Faster drives don't drop frames. Nothin' new there...
There is a tendancy with new users of NLE's to cut corners. Don't do that, because it results in unhappy NLEing.
Do I use FW drives? Of course I do, and use exclusively the above brands, I've clients who want to keep all media ever captured. (also a good idea) but I include in my invoices the cost of buying more FW drives to do the job. It works, I don't drop frames, have happy clients, and drop frame free system. I'm using the G-Raids for uncompressed storage and FW 800 Weibetech and Granite digital rigs for DV res storage. It works beautifully.
Jerry

FCP X multiclip dropped frames?

After playing a multiclip for a few seconds, it begins to drop frames, then freezes. And up comes this image.
What's up? It's on my new 8gig iMac

This is an update;
     After finding that the proxy clips you mentioned ran fine, discovered that I couldn't edit the Multicam footage as described in the manual. No Blade. No cuts. Just angle switches. So today started hunting thru FCP X Support and discovered something.
     Once you get a Multicam Clip going on the timeline, you've got to create a New Project in the Browser, then open it and drag the Multicam Clip from the Browser to the empty Storyline. Ta Da!!. Everything shows up correctly. And works even better than it used to in older versions of FCP.
     But here's the point;
Nowhere in any of the FCP X Help files does that necessary process get mentioned. And that kind of sloppy oversight is not like Apple. Please fix it.
     As a matter of fact, it would be a great idea to make those extra steps not even necessary. That's what Steve would want done
     Also
Remember that problem about dropped frames? Well, it's gone away. Even Optimized/Original 17 minute Multicam clips are running fine now.
Go figure.

Problems with dropped frames in FCP 4.5 Log & Capture

Thanks for the advice on my previous post regarding sound problems - those are now sorted, but I am having problems with dropped frames in Log and Capture. I am using FCP 4.5 with OS X 10.4.10 on a Powermac G4. CPU 867 mhz dual processor. L2 Cache 256 kb, L3 cache 1 mb. Memory 1g. Bus speed 133hz. I am capturing from a Canon XM1 via Firewire. The scratch disk is a 500gb Seagate FreeAgent USB 2.0, 7200rpm.
Basically, the video and audio are fine while playing back in Log and Capture and I can control the device, but any attempt to capture, whether Capture Now or Clip result in a very jerky picture and aborts with dropped frames after a few seconds. The sound is ok for the few seconds before it aborts. There do not appear to be any problems with the timecode.
My capture preset is DV Pal 48hz.
Any advice or pointers gratefully received.
Thanks, Ally

Well quite. I have just tried it in the internal hard drive and it works fine now. I am going to have to capture everything to my small hard drive and move it across to the external. Then, when I have finished I am going to bang my head against the wall and buy an external HDD with Firewire.
Thanks,
Ally

Ability to Recover Dropped Frames in Spanned MTS Files?

Hi everyone,
I know there's a previous thread about an issue similar to this, but it's been a long time since someone commented so I'm trying to get a quicker more specific answer here. I'll keep this short:
Using a Sony NXCAM, and I was not aware of needing to use the Content Mangement Utility to export footage onto my editing machine. I realize this is how you get the spanned MTS files back into a single file. I now have over 200 GB of footage shot over a week long period. I just copied over the MTS files ONLY to my editing machine each day, then reformatted the cards to make space for the next day's footage.
Now, when placed in the timeline, all the clips have the dropped audio frames where they were split.
My question is, is there a way to recover/recombine these files AFTER they've been taken off the memory card, and I no longer have anything but the MTS files only - not the PRIVATE folder, or any of the accompanying stuff.
Am I SOL here? Or is there a way to recombine the spanned files at this point?
Using Premiere Pro CS5.5, but also have access to CS6 if needed.

I was not aware of needing to use the Content Mangement Utility to export footage onto my editing machine.
You don't. In fact, I always recommend no special software is used. Just Windows Explorer or Finder. BUT...you do copy over the ENTIRE CARD. Once on the hard drive, you do not delete, rename or otherwise alter the contents of any of those folders.
The dropped frames you're seeing are common when you do not copy over the entire card. I am not aware of a fix.

Final Cut Pro dropped frame rate issue

Hi there, i currently shot a short film on the canon 5d mark II 30fps and i am trying to edit it in final cut studio 2. I have recently bought the new macbook pro 15inch 2gb module.
Now the canon footage is h.264 but when importing the clips into final cut pro 6 there is a lot of dropped frame rate issues but I thought this machine could handle HD footage?
Can someone more advanced than myself recommend what i am doing wrong or a work flow that i can work with to stop dropped frame rates and render times.
Last piece of information, the project will be entered in film festivals in the spring its only a 3 minute short and i have 5 folders of footage under 4gb each which was taken from the camera
Thanks for your help.
Michael

You are missing a huge conceptual point. If the file can not spool off of the hard drive fast enough, you get dropped frames. It isn't a processor or ram issue right now, it is a hard drive speed issue. Your system drive is overtaxed trying to run OSX, applications AND spool video. It just can't keep up. Changing the graphic card isn't going to help (and how do you change the card in a laptop?)
Get an external esata drive - with the new MacBookPro you'll need an esata Expresscard34 adapter for the computer to connect the drive. Firewire is not an option with that machine and USB2 will not cut it with high data rate formats like ProRes.
When you drop in the ProRes clip to the timeline and it tells you there is a mismatch, this means your preset for the timeline is something other than your clip. You WANT ProRes and you need the sequence to match your clip - tell the program to CHANGE the sequence to match the clip.
Video is not easy and it isn't inexpensive. Time to open up those manuals and your wallet!
Good luck,
x

Those darned dropped frames...

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