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Weird green blinking screen on capture
Hi everyone,
I’m not sure if anyone has had this issue with FCP 7 and Snow leopard. After installing last month, I have had a bizarre thing start happening on capture. HDV or SD. If I have any other programs running, i.e, iphoto, youtube on safari, etc, the capture screen will start blinking green and sometimes a horizontal line will blink on as well. Today, I was editing a photo in iphoto and the whole screen blinked, the capture stopped and the computer froze. I couldn’t even shut down. Had to turn power off and restart. the capture was lost which I expected, but more upsetting was that this happened at all. FCP 6 and Leopard were rock solid. I could multi task and digitize at the same time. I have a Mac pro 8 core with four gigs of ram. I had just rebooted before digitizing and had done no editing in FCP. Can anyone explain this or have experienced this weirdness. I have a huge wedding season coming up and cam’t afford any problems. I want to iron them out now. Thanks for help in advance
gigih7
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5 Replies
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Without more specifics such as what you were capturing, and how. Let me through out a few ideas.
Was your FCP upgrade and SL clean installs?
Did you update your drivers?
Are you capturing to the system drive?
Did you do all the Prokit and SL updates until there were no more?
Repair Permissions?4GB RAM isn’t all that much, I wouldn’t run other apps and capture at the same time.
Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
Hi scott, thanks for your reply.
In regard to your questions, yes, my install was a clean install. A final cut pro genius at the apple store did it. Yes, all the drivers were updated and no I never ever capture to the system drive. I have 4 internal 1.5 drives and I capture to one of those separate to my system drive. I know 4 gigs of ram isn’t a lot. I feel it when editing effects, HD , etc. But this was SD captured to a fresh new project where it was the only one open in FCP. As I said before, with FCP 6 I never had an issue like this. Is it possible that Snow leopard is more of a Ram hog. I wonder if anyone else has experiences this blinking green screen. When its happened before without a crash, I do see that the footage is all there no blink when done if it makes it through the capture without crashing. But it is scary and because of the crashes definitely something that shouldn’t be happening
gigih7
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Scott, I forgot to mention I don’t know if the genious did the Prokit updates until there were no more. I don’t know what Prokit updates and SL updates are. God, i feel pretty stupid. I should know these things. I have never repaired permissions. Never had to before. Things ran really smooth in FP 6. It was a stable workhorse for me.
gigih7
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Hi,
I would use Sherlock Holmes logic. Eliminate all possible causes, and whatever is left has got to be it.OK so we have eliminated one suspect-capturing to the system drive.
I don’t want to sound like a hater, but I wouldn’t trust the genius bar guys to know squat about setting up an editing system. Could be they didn’t do a clean install as that is not the normal Apple method. And (IMHO) it is really to your benefit as a user to do your own system work. Or at least find another experienced editor to work on your system, instead of the GB guys. Best way to move up to a new version of either FCP or the OS is to do it on a fresh drive. That way if it behaves badly, you can pop the old drive back in and get back to work. Going to a new OS and/or FCP version is really not something that should be done if it will effect your work, or you don’t have a back up.
Best way to check for updates is to use the “Check for updates” function under the apple icon if your machine is hooked to the net. Always clone your system drive first in case an update adds a ‘feature’ you don’t want. That way its easy to roll back the update. You may need to do this multiple times, as some updates don’t show up until you have done previous.
Repair permissions is in the disc utilities. Pretty standard thing to do (along with trashing your preferences) if your having problems. If your unfamiliar, read up on these first.
Are you capturing the footage with FW, or a capture card? If you are using a card, you will probably need to update the drivers for SL.
It could also just be a bad cable. Or maybe a bad recording. Or both.
Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
Thanks again.
Actually my FCP certified trainer is also the Genius that installed my FCP 7. He specifically wanted to do a clean instal and was the one that told me. I know we did because I forgot to copy a few things and lost them after the instal. He is one of the Genius Bar guys that is also a one to one trainer. He works as a FCP editor in a popular Chicago editing house he is and outstanding editor. You’re right, I should learn to do this myself and I for sure will in the future. Sort of hind sight now. In the meantime I am just trying to find my way through.
Yes, I am capturing via firewire and have tried different new cables. They are fine. I thought that may be the problem early on, but this is a sporadic problem happening with different cables so I threw that possibility out in troubleshooting. I know that it’s not a good idea to run other applications while capturing, but since I did it in FCP 6 all the time with no issues, I have been concerned. I will definitely read up on repairing permissions. I have backed off on trashing preferences because I have so many favorite effects I have created as well as transitions and settings for different jobs. I didn’t know what would happen to those jobs I am in the middle of if I trash the preferences. Have you ever heard of this issue or has anyone else on this forum or am I one of those rare weird situations that happen to very very few or am the first. hate when that happens!!!!
gigih7
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