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External Hard Drive issues with Final Cut
I was just using the Capture Now function and at the end of the capture I chose “esc” to end it. The computer froze at this point so I force quit the application (with much difficulty). When I went to find the piece in my Capture scratch it said it took up about 35 gigs when it should have only been 7 (for a 10 minute or so piece). I trashed the 35 gigs worth of useless capture, restarted my computer, and began again with no problems this time. This has happened on occasion before. Any thought on what could be causing the problem?
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4 Replies
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As a rule of thumb, try to avoid using capture now altogether except in emergencies when you need to grab the first few seconds of the tape.
Most pros prefer to log the clip and then capture it. That way, FCP knows exactly where the clip should stop recording – and it does so automatically.
As to the cause of your problem, it likely has to do with a TimeCode break in your footage. Check your preferences and see if they are set to record over TimeCode breaks.
Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Seminar!
fcpworld.com -
This can happen to a lot of users.
Usually it’s an issue with the HD, reformatting it usually solves it. Occasionally I’ve found that I’ll need to trash FCP prefs then restart before it start performing correctly.
it’s an issue with allocating disk space. If you wait long enough (sometimes a LONG time) FCP ususally figures out to take off the unused disk space.
Unfortunately, you don’t know when it’s going to happen until it does. But having a 40gig drive is a little on the small side. It doesn’t take long for you to go ‘through’ the entire drive. Once you do, the drive can become too fragmented. Even though you might be emptying your trash as you go, a small drive will become fragmented quickly.Good Luck,
Todd at UCSB
Television Production -
Thank you for the suggestions. I will take note of them and try to avoid the situation in the future!
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Which version of FCP are you running, what computer are you running, what kind of hard drive do you have, what OS are you running and what version of Quicktime are you running? Definitely helpful to fill out your Profile so we can help identify specific issues faster.
Capture Now should work just fine, I use it here all the time when we have quick turnaround projects of three days or less and the client doesn’t have a Capture Log ready. It would be a waste of time to log all the clips and then capture them. So the client and I will usually just shuttle through all the tapes and capture on the fly as we see stuff we need.
What I’m guessing is that the drive is not really fast enough, is it a USB drive by any chance? Or there could be a mis-match somewhere with your OS, FCP Version and Quicktime. I’ve seen this issue in the past running OS 10.3 and one of the versions of FCP 4, though I can’t exactly remember which version.
Logging the clip and capturing did make the issue go away.
But if you get the chance, at least list your complete computer system in your Profile as this will definitely help us to help you. You can see an example of this in my Profile. Thanks!
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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