Dropped Frames in FCP with no solution in sight…

[Michael Gissing]

The one thing that jumped out to me was the NVidia graphics card. ATI is the recommended for FCS3. Are you actually having frames drop or just the warning? When I first started with FCS3 I had the warning come up on an internal RAID. I turned off the warning as there weren’t actually any frames dropping that I could detect.

The only other information you didn’t supply was if it was codec specific and also if it happens more with certain plugins, particularly FX plugins that rely on the graphics card (hence my interest in the Nvidia.)

[Jeremy Garchow]

Turn your scopes off.

[Anthony Dias]

I’ve tried turning off the warning and sometimes it plays back ok… but eventually the playback keeps degrading over time to the point where the video is stuttering and sputtering and skipping frames left and right.

In the past I had mixed codecs but lately the only thing I’ve been using is ProRes LT (I convert all my video in Compressor.

The problem persists. Playback is perfect during the first 15-30 minutes of operation but then a frame will get dropped here and there and as I continue editing it just gets worse.

Then I restart and go through the cycle all over again.

What I don’t understand is why the SAME exact sequence would play fine at one point and drop frames 30 minutes later. (I’m talking about a fully rendered sequence with nothing new, nothing changed except for the passage of time).

Somebody suggested that it may be a “memory leak”. But I have no idea how to test that as I understand it is a programming issue and not something I could fix myself unless I was a hard core programmer.

As for the NVIDIA card vs. ATI I have held a suspicion that it is in fact the NVIDIA card but again, I have no way of proving or disproving unless I buy an ATI card which I may have to try.

Thanks for the tips!

-Tony

[Anthony Dias]

Jeremy, when I do a fresh restart, my computer works flawlessly with the scopes operating very fluidly and getting absolutely no dropped frames.

The dropped frames only occur after the computer has been on for a while.

I think that if it was a matter of turning off the scopes, it would be consistent and I would get dropped frames every time I turned them on.

But, as a matter of fact, once I start getting dropped frames, I get them whether or not my scopes were turned on or not.

thanks for the reply,
-Tony

[Jeremy Garchow]

But do you really turn them all the way off or just close the window?

[John Christie]

Just a shot in the dark, here. Do you always mixdown your audio? Not just render all. It’s always helped me with dropped frames over the years.

Cheers

John C

[Anthony Dias]

Well, in fact I have turned the scopes off and left the window open. It also happens when I use the Standard Window Layout.

Anyway, whether I left them on or off, it still doesn’t explain why it works great for a while and then chokes 30 minutes or so later on the same exact sequence.

Put it this way:

Scenario 1
Restart the computer and launch FCP only.

Sequence “The Tomato” is 5 minutes long in ProRes LT. Scopes are off in the drop down triangle menu and I’m using the standard window layout, so the scopes aren’t even activated anyway.

I’ll do some editing. Razor blade here, extend edit there, transition over there, render all, render audio, slip n’ slide, hit home, press the spacebar.

The 5 minute sequence plays great.

30 minutes later, after doing the same type of thing and after rendering everything, the same sequence starts dropping frames.

Scenario 2
Restart the computer and launch FCP only.

Close all sequences. Open a sequence called “Two apples and a rose” which is 4 minutes long.

No editing, no nothing, just press the home key and press the space bar – it plays great, perfect.

then, leave the computer alone for about 20 or 30 minutes

come back to the computer, hit home, press the space bar, so far so good for about 5 or 10 seconds thenBAMM dropped frames! Turn off the warning, but video playback is crap.

Anyway, I appreciate your help, but I think it’s one of those things that you would have to see to believe. Maybe I should record it and post it on the internet so people can see what I’m talking about. But I don’t have time for that right now.

And in case your wondering, I have experimented with turning off all internet connections on the mac pro, disconnecting the ethernet cables, and using my laptop for any internet activity.

But this problem persists and it is really maddening.

-Tony

[Anthony Dias]

I have tried limiting “real time audio” to 2 tracks only, forcing me to render audio if I ever go above that.

And in cases where I had multiple audio tracks running simultaneously, rendering the audio made no difference in the playback quality whatsoever. In other words, if the sequence played fine, 8 real time audio tracks did not matter.

in fact, I’ll have to verify this, but I’m pretty sure that I have had sequences with NO audio tracks which played fine one moment and dropped frames after an undefined period of time (usually within 30 minutes).

[Peter Wiggins]

I’d be tempted to open the Mac up, give the internals a good hoover and make sure all the boards are seated correctly.

Peter

[Stephen Best]

I have the same problem as you. My system has two 3.2 GHz Quad Core processors and 8 GB of RAM.

Capturing from tape resulted in drop frames and FCP freezing. It didn’t matter if I was capturing from a deck or the original cameras that shot the tape. Sometimes a capture worked, but more often it failed.

The solution I found was to use Adobe Premiere Pro to do the captures. I have Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, and it worked without a hitch.

I don’t think the machine is the problem. Final Cut Pro is the problem.

Regards

Regards
Stephen Best
https://stephenbest.ca