Dropped Frames During Capture on X-RAID using FCP HD

[Jeffrey Burns]

The xserve G5 OSX server requires its own partition for the metadata. This means you need to dedicate half of a xserve RAID rack to do this. I just purchased a second xServe RAID in order to do this. I have 6 terabytes of storage for video and 500 meg for metadata. This seems to have fixed the problem. I assume you using xsan clients and have a OSX Server.

[Tony! Hulette]

Make sure in your performance settings that “Use Controller Write Cache” is on (make your you have the RAID connected to an uninterruptible power supply) and the “Use Drive Write Cache” is checked. Make sure that the “Allow Host Cache Flushing” and “Use Steady Streaming Mode” is left unchecked. I use the 8 stripes option.

You must format the RAID as Mac OS Extended (no journaling).

Make sure your RAID and the Fibre channel card has the latest firmware (backup before updating). Make sure no other card is plugged into the same PCI bus as your Fibre channel card.

If you’re capturing through your Mac’s Firewire port, make sure no other Firewire devices are connected while capturing. If you using a capture card/device, check with the manufacturer for suggestions.

Triple check your FCP settings and make sure the video/audio is not going to the startup drive and that all your capture settings are correct. Of course, make sure the Canvas and Viewer is set to “Fit to Window.”

Make sure the RAID is not anywhere close to full.

Trash your FCP prefs and caches.

Turn off any Virus software (or anything running that doesn’t need to be).

Set your Energy Saver preferences to never for “Put your computer to sleep” and under options change your “Processor Performance” to “Highest.” (these probably won’t fix your problem, but you should do them anyway).

If nothing else seems to work. Suspect 3rd party memory. Remove it all leaving only the stock Apple memory and see if the problem goes away.

That’s all I have off the top of my head right now, but there’s probably a few doesn’t more possible causes.

Good Luck,

Tony!

P.S. You can reset the controllers on your RAID and that will reset the default passwords. Here’s how: https://searchdocs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86367&coll=cp

[Scott B.]

I found the solution to the “dropped frames” during capture issue I posted above. There is an Apple article, ID # 302780 “Xserve RAID:Optimizing video capture rates,” that solved the problem. In RAID Admin deselect the “Allow Host Flushing” button found in the Admin settings under “Use Controller Write Cache.” Do this every time the RAID is restarted. This solved the problem. ALthough I changed the settings on the RAID from Extended Jounaling to just Jounaling (which I found can be done only through Terminal in Applications by entering: “Diskutil disableJournal /volumes/RAID”)-mind the spaces!). By just disabling Journaling, the capture problem remained. Only after I deselected “allow Host Flushing” was I able to capture without dropped frames.

Thanks for your help.

[Leon Johnson]

Just purchased a Lacie F800 1 TB RAID system for my Mac G5 1.8 Dual with 2.5 GB RAM. I did the required formatting directions out of the LACIE box, and connected it via firewire 800 to the MAC G5. The disk appeared on the desktop – no problems. I captured a few clips using Final Cut Pro 5, but then FCP started to drop frames.

I found this thread, and thought I needed to download Xserve, and RAID Admin 1.5. I can’t, however, get the RAID drive to appear in the RAID Admin. I click Add System + button, but I can’t figure out how to get the RAID Admin to recognize the RAID that is on my desktop so I can follow the rest of the set up directions as described here: https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302780

Thanks anyone who is able to help.

Leon