Crashing on import XDCAM (transfer)

[Andy Taplin]

Paul

I have exactly the same problem although I’m using Media 100 13.0.4. My guess is that this is an issue with the XDCAM transfer software talking to Media 100 in which case it’s unlikely to get solved by Sony as they have zero interest in Media 100.

M100 might be able to create a fix if enough of us moan about it – how about it guys?

I now import 3 or 4 clips at a time and then save M100 after each, at least then when it crashes I’ve only lost a few clips. Like you, if I import the same clips again they go in with no issues, so it’s not a clip specific problem.

Sorry I could not give you a fix but at least you know it’s not the clips or your system.

Andy

[Floh Peters]

Hmmm, I am importing groups of several XDCam clips all the time into Media 100, and I don´t see any crashes there. Have you tried the Suite 1.6.2 version? Maybe there was something fixed in the meantime…
What formats/framerates/framesizes are you using?

[Gregg Michaels]

I do a lot of XDCam-HD transfers as well, and no problems with the process. I’m running the XDCAM Transfer version 2.12 if that makes a difference. (Also suite 1.6.2)

GM

[Olof Ekbergh]

I have been using EX3 and EX1R footage for 3 years in M100 now, without a singe problem.

I always use/used the latest version of M100 and Sony’s XDcam Transfer.

I never used he M100 plugin. I use the transfer to rewrap the footage, then FCP to view and decide on the clips to use or part of clips, export by ref from FCP. Then batch import into M100 re-incoding as ProRes in the process.

This has worked very well for me, just don’t try to import HD footage into SD it does not work with M100 and XDcam footage in one step. You have to do this in 2 steps. First import and convert to Prores or whatever, then drop into a SD timeline and it will convert and re-incode to your specs. Then you can work in SD just fine.

I would love to be able to do this in one step, but it is not a huge deal anymore because most of my work is now HD. Well actually we still do about 70% delivery in SD but edit mostly in HD and then down-convert in the final step, and we archive everything in HD when working in HD.

Olof Ekbergh

[Michael Hanish]

Hi all,

For months I had similar problems to the ones Steve reports. With Clip Browser primarily, imports would crash or at least fail the Media 100 system in that maddening and unrepeatable way we all love so well. The failure would sometimes be a crash with the same error numbers Steve reports, and sometimes the import would fail with a message to the effect that the operation couldn’t be completed because the file was locked. This happened on 2 systems, all the most current everything. The problem was consistent enough to be crazy-making, but not enough to be predictable, and it defied all troubleshooting and repair efforts for months. Everyone was stumped, and it was seriously impeding my workflow.

The I saw something in a forum somewhere with a similar sounding problem, and the solution on offer was to log out, log back in as root, do the same thing in the same applications that previously caused the crash, log out as root and log back in as usual. It seemed pretty non-invasive, so I tried it. No crashes since and all imports have gone flawlessly, as they had before the problem started for me. On both systems.

I’m sure that somewhere there is a technical explanation for why this worked for my situation and, of course, your mileage may vary, but it might be worth a try.

FWIW, and good luck,

Michael Hanish

[Andy Taplin]

I recently replaced my hard drive with a new one and mysteriously my import problem has not shown itself in the last week or so – too early to tell if it’s gone completely but M100 is importing more clips in one go without issue than before – curious as the new drive is just a bigger, faster clone of the old one. Perhaps another Voodoo solution?

Andy

[Andy Taplin]

OK so my M100 is still crashing importing XDCAM but maybe I now have a clue as to the problem.

If I look in the M100 media folder at the clip that it crashes on, it says under ‘get info’ that it’s an NTSC video media file instead of the PAL file it should be. And the file name ends with V100.1 rather than just V100. The clip icon is also different. So is this because the file is corrupted during the failed import or does M100 suddenly ‘see’ an NTSC clip and then crash?

M100 only seems to crash like this if I import more than 4 or 5 clips at a time.

MAcPro 8 core 3ghz
OSX 10.5.8
Media 100 13.0.4
AJA Kona Firmware 6.0.2
Quicktime 7.6.6

Any ideas from Floh or Wicham?

Thanks Andy

[Floh Peters]

[Andy Taplin] “The clip icon is also different. So is this because the file is corrupted during the failed import or does M100 suddenly ‘see’ an NTSC clip and then crash?”

This usually is due to a corruption during import, and usually not the reason for the crash.

[Andy Taplin]

Thanks Floh, I guessed that was the case.

It’s a weird problem, is the XDCAM transfer software to blame most likely? I’m using version 2.11.0

[Floh Peters]

[Andy Taplin] “It’s a weird problem, is the XDCAM transfer software to blame most likely? I’m using version 2.11.0”
Absolutely not sure. You could try version 2.12 of the XDCam Transfer, and of course you could try the latest Media 100 trial version to see if one of these components fixes your issues. What is the exact error message of your crashes??