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FCP – Dropped Frames
So I am getting dropped frames all over the place when using FCP 6. Not a big deal during editing, but totally unacceptable when I’m going to finally layoff to tape. I’m working with a MacPro, it has 4GB of ram, and my footage lives on a Promise RAID VTrack, which happens to be brand new (leading me to think this is where the problem lies) I am also using a Blackmagic card. I did a speed test for my RAID and the numbers came out great… Disk Read = 284.5 MB/s, Disk Write = 235.7 MB/s… However in Final Cut the dropped frame error message I get says on the bottom “RT Extreme has determined these dropped frames were caused by slow disks….” Any clue anyone? I’ve tried everything I found on the apple website/black magic website pertaining to this issue… Does anyone have an idea of settings I can try or is it most likely a hardware issue? I am currently working with uncompressed SD 10 bit footage, so I don’t even want to know how bad it gets when I work with HD stuff.
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8 Replies
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Tell us more about the Promise RAID and how it was set up prior to editing with it.
Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
I did not setup the Raid system… is there a way to check the settings of it? All i got from control clicking it and “get info” was that the format is XSAN…
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Is this the first project using the XSAN? Has it been road tested?
If it were me, I’d give a call to the VAR that installed it and get the down-low.Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
I was planning on contacting the people who installed the new RAID, i just wanted to make sure I exhausted every other possible solution first before I go ahead and blame the problem on a hardware issue. Are there any settings within Final Cut that would usually solve a dropped frame issue, minus:
1. deleting FCP preference files
2. changing RT from safe to unlimited and vica versa
3. turning external video off
4. turning video playback to none
5. making sure scratch disks are set to the correct place.thank you very much for helping me with my problem.
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10 bit uncompressed SD only requires 27 Mb/sec, so even thought your Promise VTrak is running WAY TOO SLOW, you still should be having no issues, and not getting drop frame issues.
do you have another single internal SATA drive in your MAC Pro ? You can try recording to this, and see if you get dropped frames. You will have no issue doing this with 10bit uncompresssed SD (not HD!).
I have often seen that a corrupt sequence will cause dropped frame error messages, even when the drive array is working perfectly (and let me assure you – your’s is not). Can you play back your individual clips without drop frame errors. I suggest that you quickly create a new sequence, and drag a bunch of your clips into this new sequence, and play it back, and see if you get dropped frames. If you don’t – then your drives are ok, and its a corrupt sequence.
You did not state how many drives are in your VTrak. The less drives you have, the slower it performs. If it’s loaded, you should be getting DOUBLE the performance you are getting right now.
Bob Zelin ‘
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The VTrack has 8 drives in it… 6TB out of 12TB… I tried a few different sequences and projects so it does seem to be a hardware problem. That’s all I needed to know, I’ll have the tech guy come in. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing something stupid or had an incorrect setting. Thanks a ton.
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We have also had the “due to Slow Drive” curse infect our projects every so often. The first thing I do is goto System Drive> Applications> Right Click on FCP> Show Package Contents> MacOS> Render Files.
If you have a folder with your project name in there and rouge render files inside that folder that is the problem.
Somehow ( I think it is because System Settings is incorrectly setup ) render files get into this folder. Deleting them solves the trick for us all the time.
Quite possibly when your raid was set up the system setting defaulted to sending the renders to this folder prior to you correcting it.
It seems to be the answer if you are getting an error concerning slow drive on a raid system to check the System drive since that is probably the slowest in the chain.
good luck,
Victor
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AwEsOmE!!! I had the same problem, and Bob Zelin’s idea to simply copy everything into a new sequence worked fantastically. And it only took about 10 seconds.
Thank you!!!
– Chas
https://music.willowrise.com
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