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external drive and FCP capture problems
hello all,
I am new to this community. I am working on my first full feature documentary film on conflict in South Thailand (my own research, filming and writing as well)- with only a few small music videos and small shorts for experience.
I am getting very frustrated with my editing set-up. I have a 12″ powerbook with final cut pro 4.5 HD, a 160GB acomdata external drive (7200 USB 2.0 and fire wire) and my Canon XL1 DV video camera. I am trying to save all FCP files to the external drive. It works fine if I capture everything to my computer and transfer to the external afterwards (I always seem to loose a few files in the process) but this is not going to work for long as I am editing a 50 minute video and I don’t have the space to edit on my powerbook drive. I have read several guides about external drive and FCP problems. The one that made sense to me is that because I have to use the USB wire to connect to my external instead of the firewire (as its hooked up to the cam and the 12″ MAC only has one firewire port) that the transfer speed may be too slow for FCP.
What happens when I go to capture a clip is that the capture screen goes completely black and at the bottom it says allocating disk space (it will stay this way for hours- and I have to force quit FCP in order to get it to stop) I have all the system preferences set to point to the external and the external has 140 GB left of storage.
Any enlightenment on this problem- or even how others using similar setups that are successful with a powerbook 12″ and an external would help!
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7 Replies
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Nick,
First of all, good luck to you making a film in that part of the world. I’ve been there, and know you don’t have much in the way of resources there. Stay POSITIVE.Secondly, your scenario of capturing to the PowerBook and then transferring them to the External FireWire drive is a good way to go, but you simply MUST use the FireWire cable to use as you edit.
You are going to be forced to use the camcorder AND the FireWire drive in a daisy chain. No way around that, ’cause you simply should NOT be using USB.
I use the same kind of setup: a CHEAP FireWire drive (with 911 Oxford bridge), a CHEAP Canon Camcorder and daisy chain them to my 15″ TiBook with ZERO problems.
My key? Short and discrete clips will never give me trouble. If I capture an entire tape, and make my cuts from that HUGE clip, THEN is when problems begin to pop up.
SO: If you log and capture short and discrete clips, you should not have too much trouble.
Chok Dee Krap!
Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Seminar!
fcpworld.com -
Thanks for the vote of confidence! kopunmaka!
(My powerbook has only about 25GB left on it) If I keep transfering the files via firewire from my camera to the powerbook and then hooking up the external with a firewire connected to the powerbook in order to transfer the files I just copied to the powerbook (in order to allocate enough space)- what will happen when I want to edit and render sequencees of the film using the files on the external drive if I can’t access both the cam and the powerbook at the same time? The problem I think is only one firewire input into the MAC- if you say that the USB is the problem… (which it looks like it might be)
Did I understand you correctly?
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if I didnt make that clear- the 12″ powerbook only has one Firewire input- therefore I cannot create a a dasiy chain with all three devices hooked toghether using firewire- so If that last message was jumbled- I appologize-
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Does the drive have 2 firewirwe ports? If so the connect your camera to the drive and then the drive to the computer. If your powerbook has a PCMCIA slot then you coud get a firewire card to go in the slot to add another bus and more firewire ports.
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Nolan! Well done- although there is no PCMCIA slot..I was able to hook the cam firewire into the external along with the powerbook- (I dont know why I didnt think of that?!) so that solves the problem of using only firewire cables..
however- I am still getting a similar response when I try to capture footage from the camera. The camera plays fine in the viewer, but as soon as I go into log and capture and try to capture footage- the capture window goes to black and underneath it- it reads “allocating disk space” and then nothing happens. I have went into the system preferences of FCP to ensure that the settings are pointed towards the external drive as per this guide https://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_fcp5_prefs.html.
Any other insight as to what may be going wrong?
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Hi Nickie, forgive me if I’m missing something – I really don’t understand why you need to leave your camera daisy-chained in your set up. You only need it to pull in additional source media – you don’t need it while editing.
[Nickies] “I am trying to save all FCP files to the external drive. It works fine if I capture everything to my computer and transfer to the external afterwards (I always seem to loose a few files in the process)”
You already have the workflow in place for what you should be doing – maybe with a minor tweak or 2. This is the workflow I use when editing on my Powerbook (long form documentary as well).
1. Hook your camera up to your Powerbook.
2. Set you Capture Scratch disk to your internal harddrive.
3. Log and capture the clips from your tape to your internal drive.
4. Unplug the camera from the computer, plug in your external drive with the firewire cable.
5. Transfer your captured media files to a media file folder for your project on the external drive.
6. Double check it went okay.
7. Delete captured media from your internal drive to free up space. Repeat Steps 3-7 as necessary.
8. In your FCP project (keep this on your internal drive, and back up to external hd), reconnect the media links to your new location. (using File/Reconnect Media)
9. Start editing.If you shoot more video, bring in the footage you need when you have it. That’s the only time you need to have your camera attached to your computer. You also shouldn’t be “losing files” when you transfer from your internal drive to your external.
Trying to run your camera through your external drive really doesn’t work too well (not that it can’t). Basically your trying to pull information in and send it out at the same time on the same firewire bus, and that creates problems.
[Nickies] “but this is not going to work for long as I am editing a 50 minute video and I don’t have the space to edit on my powerbook drive”
Editing from an external drive does work and that’s the only way to go with a powerbook and the amount of footage you have when cutting a documentary.
Boyd
“Go slow to go fast” -
Boyd,
Thank you very much for your advice. It sounds like the best option for me and it makes sense. I really appreciate your time and help!
Nickie
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