Downside to “Abort Capture on Dropped Frames”?

[Shane Ross]

Skipping stuttery footage…that’s what happens when you drop frames.

#12 Dropped frames on capture/playback

Shane’s Stock Answer #12: Dropped frames on capture/playback

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58640

1) Do not capture to your main system drive. Since it is busy reading the operating system and application files, it will intermittently drop frames during capture. Capture to a separate internal drive, or external hard drive (firewire and eSATA for example).

2) Deactivate any anti-virus/filesaver software, including Norton and Virex. For some reason these programs think that the large files created when you capture media are in fact caused by some sort of virus, and they try to prevent this.

3) Check the format of the drive you are capturing to. It should be Mac OS Extended, journaling off. If it isn’t, copy your files from it and re-initialize it. If it is any other format, you will encounter problems. If not at first, then eventually.

4) Trash the FCP preference files. Use FCP Rescue available here:
https://www.fcprescue.com

5) Make sure that the hard drives you are capturing to are fast enough to handle the footage being captured to it. A regular firewire 400 drive cannot capture uncompressed HD, or even uncompressed standard definition. A RAID array of drives might be in order for these formats.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Raven Plenty] “I’d like to know if there is a downside or any risk in unchecking that preference. Thanks.”

For batch recapture purposes. If your timelcode is off, it’s going to make it hard to recapture.

What format are you capturing?

[Raven Plenty]

Thank you Shane for the various tips, we’ll see how many of those we can address.

Jeremy, we’re capturing DV footage.

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
Have a look at Live Capture Plus – which is a solution to FireWire capture problems:
https://www.squarebox.co.uk/lcplus.html

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Raven Plenty] “Jeremy, we’re capturing DV footage. “

Are there real timecode breaks in the footage? Are you logging and capturing or are you trying to bring in the whole tape in one go?

Jeremy

[Rafael Amador]

Some times FC is a bit too exigent when you check the ” Abort on dropped frames”.
I’ve been capturing 4 years DVCam with the “Abort on..” unchecked and not a single time I had a frame dropped.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Raven Plenty]

Jeremy, the problem is with dropped frames, not time code breaks. And yes, we’re trying to capture a full tape – not full, about 30 minutes. Again, I don’t see why it has to lose the footage that’s already been captured just because 1 frame is dropped. Why not treat it the same way it treats time code breaks? I say: “arrgh.”

Thanks for your input Rafael, I guess we’ll give it a shot and keep a keen eye open for any jumps where a frame might be missing.

(Just a note, I only had this problem when I vainly attempted to do other work on my computer while capturing. My colleague was having the problem, maybe he was doing the same.)

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Raven Plenty] “Jeremy, the problem is with dropped frames, not time code breaks.”

Doh! Sorry about that. I would suggest that you log and transfer to keep the error rate down (even if it’s in 3, 10 minute chunks instead of 1, 30 minute clip).

[Raven Plenty] “Again, I don’t see why it has to lose the footage that’s already been captured just because 1 frame is dropped. Why not treat it the same way it treats time code breaks? I say: “arrgh.””

It wouldn’t be accurate and audio and video would start to slip out of sync.

Are your firewire deck and firewire drives on the same bus or do you have them separated with a PCI card of some sort?

Jeremy

[Raven Plenty]

re: “wouldn’t be accurate…” but it’s already captured X minutes of good footage, why wouldn’t it just keep everything that’s good up to the dropped frame, and let me recommence from where it stopped? Instead of dumping megs or gigs of perfectly good footage, making me start over from the beginning? I realize I’m just venting and not contributing to a solution, but still. Seriously, this isn’t a major annoyance to more than a few people?

Regarding the firewire setup, it’s being captured to the internal hard drive. That’s the only setup we have now, we’re moving towards setting up a dedicated editing station that’s a bit more robust. (Although the computer is a month-old Mac Pro with plenty of RAM.)

Thanks for your help.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Raven Plenty] “Regarding the firewire setup, it’s being captured to the internal hard drive.”

Is it at least a separate drive that doesn’t have your system on it? The MacPro has space for three more drives besides your system drive.

Try capturing in smaller chunks. There’s less room for error, and if you do get dropped frames, you are only capturing the last 10 minutes, instead of last 30.

Work smart, not fast. Unless you want to do this:

Jeremy