FCP Footage inexplicably has speeded up

[David Bogie]

I think the first thing to try is trashing your FCP prefs, the .plist file.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Peter Dunphy]

Thanks David – much appreciated

I’ve trashed the .plist file as suggested but it’s still running fast. Any further ideas about action I can take please?

Regards

Peter

[Peter Dunphy]

I’ve tried importing fresh unrelated clips into new projects but am receiving the same ‘speeded-up’ness on all of them despite speed only showing as 100%.

Here are my specs below. Any suggestions will be truly appreciated.

iMac 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 20″

Memory 4GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Western Digital MyBook External Harddrive 750GB Available 423.46 GB

Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Capacity 297.77 GB Available 136.32 GB

Sequence Preset DV Pal 48 KHz
Capture Preset DV PAL 48 KHz
Device Control Preset FireWire PAL

Panasonic GS230

Quicktime Version 7.5.5

Mac OS X Version 10.5.5

Final Cut Pro 6.0.4

I’ll be happy to provide any further info if needs be.

Thanks for your help.

[Peter Dunphy]

Here is where I currently stand with this Final Cut issue I’ve been having. Any further advice would be really appreciated. Peter

The playback in FCP is sped up? Fishy. Try playing the exported movie file in QuickTime Player and see if it’s sped up. It helps rule out FCP bugaboos. If it’s sped up in QuickTime Player as well, then there’s something wrong in FCP.

* Yep I’m afraid that the exported movie is sped up in Quicktime player also.

Are you sure you didn’t nest your timeline into a 29.97fps timeline? 25fps media played at 29.97fps would look sped up. Check all your Sequence Settings and list the information here.

* All seems to be showing as 25 fps okay:

Sequence Presets

Editing Timebase: 25 fps
field Dominance: Lower (Even)
Pixel aspet RationAL – CCIR 601
Video Processing:YUV allowed (8-bit)
White Points: White

Compressor: DV – PAL
Millions of Colours (24 bit)
No Data Rate Limit
No Keyframes Set
Quality: 100
Audio Settings: 16-bit 48.000 fHZ Stereo

I find it unlikely that you could have applied the same speed change to every one of your clips in your timeline. And not notice it before the DVD burn, especially. So first thing I’d do is backup your project file and date- and time-stamp it. Then trash preferences and check the project again.

* Time stamped, trashed all preferences and checked it again, still fast unfortunately

A file or drive corruption can cause speed problems on playback. Are your media files in the Western Digital external? (Spread the word: Don’t use MyBooks for editing — they blow.) Move the full-quality movie file off your external drive and into the system drive, then play it back from there. Still sped up?

* Moved it onto my system drive and tried playing from there – still sped up unfortunately the same as before.

The next step would be to dump your render files and re-render. Use Tools – Render Manager to do that.

* Tried this also, dumped all the render files and re-rendered but no joy

Look at the clips in your timeline and see if they really are sped up. It’s highly unlikely. But if their speed values are more than 100 per cent, then it’d be a lot easier locating a backup project file before this happened than to try to remove a speed change from hundreds of clips.

* All the clips still show as 100%

I’ve shifted some other video clips from my external ‘MyBook’ to my system drive and imported them into a fresh project. The message displays ‘Would you like to change the sequence settings to match the clip settings’ to which I always click okay. Shockingly, these clips, once imported into FCP, also now play at the same fast speed as the other project.

Any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Peter Dunphy]

Here is where I stand now. Any further suggestions will be really appreciated:

Your settings look alright…

1. Did you happen to run any upgrades on FCP/QT/OS during the project?

* Yes I updated to Final Cut Pro 6.0.4 during the project. I also launched DVD Studio Pro and Motion for the first time since the update, just prior to burning the DVD with DVD Studio Pro. Can’t recall if I updated the OS or QT during the project. Is there a way to check update history such as in Windows XP (I’m pretty new to Macs)? Perhaps the update during the project has caused the problems? It’s unusual though that it has now affected any other videoclips I now import into FCP. Perhaps a complete uninstall/reinstall might do the trick?

2. Are the files captured to a different machine? If they are, check that they run off similar Quicktime versions (and preferably same OS and FCP versions)

The files are captured to the same machine, just the external MyBook hard drive. No other machines used.

3. Do you have more than 10-15% of free space on all hard disks?

Yes I have more than 15% free space on all hard disks.

4. Do the videos look sped up before rendering? Or does it only happen after the rendering. If it happens after the rendering, tag the scratch disk to your system disk and render.

Yes sped up before the rendering I’m afraid :o/

Any further ideas more than welcome. Thanks for all your help.

[Jim Corbett]

Hi Peter,

I’ve experienced the same problem you described. Sometimes it goes away after re-booting but not always. Did you ever determine what was causing your playback speed issues.

Jim

[Peter Dunphy]

Hi Jim,

I’m afraid I’ve no idea how it just started to work normally again! No doubt I’ll be on here again sometime in the future!

I guess the best advice I can give, which is what I did, is to setup Final Cut so that it doesn’t open with a recent project. Then turn your Mac off and leave it off for ages, turn it on, run disc permissions, then turn it off again. Then, when you eventually load up Final Cut again, try editing a ‘fresh’ project. Then hopefully that will run at normal speed again.

Best of luck!

Peter

[Peter Dunphy]

I just got the following info about this issue!! Hope it helps!

Join Date: Oct 2008
The Audio!
A-Ha! It is the audio! I had the exact same problem. Once I converted the audio to AC3 it fixed the problem! I hope this helps.

Cameorn

[Dan Flaherty]

Hey man. I have had this happen to. Mine happens after I render my sequence. Video speeds up to exactly 150%. You need to go under the sequence tab, and go to settings. In there there is a section under render control for frame rate. Make sure that this is at 100%!!!!

I have been trying to figure this same problem out for over a year now, and I see that this is an old posting. If you are still having trouble, I hope this helps!

[John Ferguson]

Hi Dan,
Thanks for the hint! I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out why the speed changed after a render. I can finally get this wedding out!

Cheers,

John