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Video Dropout/Dropped frames during Capture without error messages
Dual 2.5 Ghz PowerPC G5
4 GB DDR SDRAM
Running OS 10.4.11
FCP 6.0.2
Canon ZR65 (very old)Hey everyone. I’ve searched through the forums and tried several different things but this problem has come up on and off in the last few months and I’m still at a loss of how to resolve it. Every time I capture into FCP it drops frames in the capture window. As I watch the tape in the camera it is fine.
I’m capturing to an External drive with plenty of space. I tried capturing to my internal and got the same problem, so I know it’s not the external drive. With the same equipment on a friend’s computer it captures fine, so I assume the external drive and the camera are not the issue. I don’t have another camera to work with so I’ll have to see if I can borrow one to test out.I’ve trashed preferences, ran disk utility, reinstalled FCP, reinstalled QT, disconnected my USB hub. I tried every FW port and all of them result in this problem. I started with the ones on my computer and then went to the ones on my monitor. It worked ok for a bit when hooked up to my monitor, but then started dropping frames again. Also, most of the time there’s no message that it’s dropping frames. It just keeps capturing;despite my settings to abort on dropped frames. I’m thinking that it might be the firewire ports that are the issue but I want to see if there’s anything else I can try before going down that road.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. The pre-made jump cuts just don’t work for me! Thanks. 😉
-S
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14 Replies
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What are you using to capture?
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I wrote the software and equipment I’m using in the beg. of the post. Did you mean something else?
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Is that a camera?
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Yeah, it is. Sorry if that wasn’t made clear before. It’s a very old camcorder that I borrowed for a project. Mini DV, NTSC… I think there may be a compatibility issue with it on a G5. The person who lent it to me uses it on his G4 and has no problems. I’ve heard that some camcorders can give you problems when capturing in FCP.
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Try pulling all of your other firewire devices completely and capture to your internal drive.
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Thanks, but I tried that a few months ago when this problem first started. Also, the external drive works fine on other people’s computers so I know it’s not that.
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If everything works on other people’s systems, that points to yours.
When’s the last time you reloaded your system?
The other thing to do is beg, borrow or rent a dv deck or more modern camera.
Jeremy
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Hi again. Well, I’m still waiting on a friend to get back to me about the camera but I did reload my system tonight and updated all of the software. All that’s on it now is OS 10.4.11 and Final Cut Studio. I tried capturing again. There were still dropped frames but not as frequent. So, I decided to try capturing to my internal drive again… and it worked!
So, I have somewhat of a solution for the time being. I’ll just have to capture as much as I can to my internal HD and then copy the files to the external. Now I’m wondering if it’s the external HD that’s the problem. I guess it could be, but I don’t know why it would work perfectly with my friend’s G4 and it worked great on my G3 laptop (before my laptop died), but not on my G5. Have you heard of different brands of drives creating problems with G5’s? The one that was given to me for this project is a Seagate Freeagent Pro/750 GB drive.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions Jeremy. You’ve been very helpful. One step closer… 😉 ;0
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[Sondra Reisman] “So, I decided to try capturing to my internal drive again… and it worked! “
This is because your firewire drive and dv camera are fighting for the same bandwidth. If you got a PCI card that would separate the two, you could capture straight to your external drive.
Jeremy
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Oh… well, I just looked in the About This Mac section under PCI cards and it says “No information found”. I just assumed that I had one. Does that mean that I don’t have one installed or that my computer just isn’t recognizing it?
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