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hardware/software advice
I am in some early stages of setting up an FCP-HD system. I’m not sure when my job description started to include engineer, but that’s for another forum 🙂
I am trying to resolve that dropped frame issue that seems so prevelant. With me,I get it even on sd projects. In looking over the forum, it seems I may have several issues. But before continuing to make wild stabs in the murk (it’s not totally dark) I wanted to ask some opinions, so I may approach my stabbing with some sense of priority.
I have a G5 Mac Pro, dual processor intel xeon. OS X 10.4.9 2 gigs of ram, Apple installed, with matching amounts on risers A and B. 2.66 mHz.
I have FCP 5.1.4 and QT 7.1.5
I have one 250 ghz internal HD with 79 Gigs available, and a terabyte external Western Digital 800 firewire drive (mirrored) with 368 gigs available. It is also journaled–which I read MAY cause some issues?
I have been using a camera for playback–2 different cameras, different formats, different cables, same problem with dropped frames. I have tried “capture now” with limited success, as well as “capture clip” with no success.
One of the forums commented that dropped frames on capture isn’t an issue, it just affects where you can edit in FCP, but for me it IS an issue.
No AJA card.
I had been capturing to my external HD, and someone suggested that 1) the Western Digital was not reliable, 2) my mirrored configuration for it was not good (because it was a software, not hardware configuration) and/or 3) using one firewire card to input from camera and output to drive was not good. NB: This person is also someone who would like to sell me equipment.
His suggestion, save to internal drive. Problem remains, and I see on the forum the warning “Never capture to same drive as operating system!” Other suggestion, get raid drive, but I was reading on this forum there are issues there, too.
And I haven’t even attempted outputting to tape yet!
So as I said, I am looking for a suggestion for priority on addressing what may be multiple issues. Equipment suggestions welcome too. Any advise would be so appreciated.
k
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4 Replies
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I suspect your drive configuration is less than optimal.
When you say your external Firewire drive is mirrored, does that mean that it is two drives in an external enclosure set up as RAID 1, or that it is a single external drive that mirrors your internal OS drive?
Either way, forget the mirroring. It isn’t helping your video throughput any, and in fact may be a limiting factor. If you’re worried about data redundancy, drives are cheap – you can always back up projects and media to another drive. Instead, consider striping two internal drives (RAID 0).
All of the Firewire ports on the Mac Pro (both 400 and 800) share the same bus, so if you’re using a Firewire device for monitoring video output while simultaneously using external Firewire drives for video storage, you’re creating a recipe for potential bus contention.
Two dedicated internal SATA drives striped together (RAID 0) should provide adequate disk bandwidth to prevent dropped frames, unless you’re doing full 29.97 1080i uncompressed HD. Format the RAID 0 as Mac OS extended (HFS+), NOT journaled. Journaled file systems are really only useful for the OS drive.
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My external is 2 drives in an external closure, so you concur that I should reformat so they are not raid 1–but rather, striped, raid 0 with Mac OS extended (HFS+) not journaled.
[Alan Okey] “All of the Firewire ports on the Mac Pro (both 400 and 800) share the same bus, so if you’re using a Firewire device for monitoring video output while simultaneously using external Firewire drives for video storage, you’re creating a recipe for potential bus contention.”
Does the statement above suggest that if I am not monitoring (I do not CURRENTLY have a video monitor hooked up to the system) the external drive SHOULD work? or is it safer/better to use the striped internal drive configuration?
At what point do I need the aja or blackbox card?
thanks again! k
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[ktofmd] “if I am not monitoring (I do not CURRENTLY have a video monitor hooked up to the system) the external drive SHOULD work? or is it safer/better to use the striped internal drive configuration?”
If you are not monitoring out through a Firewire device, the external striped Firewire 800 drive should work adequately. An internal striped SATA set will probably have a higher peak bandwidth than the external drive, but that probably won’t be an issue for SD, HDV or DVCPRO HD projects.
For uncompressed HD projects, I’d recommend at least 3 internal SATA drives striped together – and that may not even be enough bandwidth. Ideally, uncompressed HD work demands an external Fibre Channel or SCSI RAID capable of 230MB/sec. minimum throughput.
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Thanks so much! I’m sure as I dig down this there will be more questions, but that gives me a reasonable direction in which to swing my sword! And one that doesn’t necessitate immediate cash outlay for a new external. We are gearing ourselves for HDV, rather than fully uncompressed HD, so it sounds like I should be able to identify the drop frame issue without too much more hair pulling, from what you say.
Thanks again
k
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