FCP won’t capture.ahhh

[Marc Poirier]

Did you try deleting the preference file…located in User/library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data/Final Cut Pro 4.5 Preferences

– Are u capturing to the system drive?

– Is the drive you’re capturing on “journaled” or simply “mac os extended”

What preset are u using for capturing.

Are u capturing with “non controllable device” or your controlling the deck?

check these out… but try the preference file first…it tends to get corrupted over time…

markyyy

[The Corporal]

Hi there thanks i’ll try deleating the preferences first. it has never worked since i installed it though. however it works fine on my powerbook.
yes it’s capturing to the system drive (160Gb) the drive is OS extended (journaled)
it’s PAL 4:3 capture preset 48Khz audio.
capturing directly though FW to panasonic DVC180A
does this explain anything?
thanks for the quick reply
Lec

[The Corporal]

I’ve just trashed the prefs and tried again but no avail.. it must be a system setting or something.
Lec

[Bill Lee]

Try:
0) Place a copy of the project that doesn’t work into the your Shared folder inside your home folder
1) Creating a new admin user in System Preferences>Accounts
2) Log out and log in as that new user. This creates a new set of user preferences without changing your existing set and allows you to check for the possibility of damaged user preferences. If the testing works with the new user and not with the old, then this would tend to implicate corrupt user preferences.
3) Open a new project and use the Easy Setup to select the appropriate capture and sequence defaults (DV-PAL). Set the System Settings>Scratch disk to save the captured media to a known good volume.
4) Open the Log and Capture window
5) Preview the tape and set In and Out points for a short (10 second) grab and log this clip (make sure that the clip plays back and there are a few seconds around each In/Out point so the capture can occur within good timecode)
6) Close the Log and Capture window
7) Select the logged clip (that has no media captured yet)
8) Select Batch Capture
9) If FCP does not capture, then it may be worthwhile deleting FCP and re-installing it (deleting instructions are found at <https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93811>)
10) I would not recommend “Capture Now” initially while testing (or indeed, for normal capturing) since the first thing the computer does when you click the Capture Now button is to allocate an amount of storage equal to about 230MB x n, where n is the value in (System Settings>Scratch Disk>Limit capture to [n] minutes) and then will start capturing. The larger the value of n, the longer the setup wil take and the greater delay before the first frame is properly captured. It sounds like your computer is hanging during this allocation of disk space.
11) If batch capturing works, then try opening the copy of your project you made in step 0) (it needed to be in a place that is accessible by another user which is why it was put in your Shared folder)
12) Try capturing a clip while you are in this project. If your project is corrupted, the capture may fail here.
13) When you are finished testing, log out, log back in as your original user and delete the newly created test user, and copy of your project in the Shared folder.
14) Boot from the Mac OS X install disk and select the Special>Disk Utility menu item. Run Disk First Aid on the boot drive and on the drive that you use to store your captured media on.
15) Reboot from your disk and run Disk Utility and run Repair Permissions to make sure that is OK.

The symptoms of a crash are that the machine will be unresponsive, and the fans may spin up to full speed (sounding like a G5 wants to take off). This fan behaviour is caused by a watchdog routine that, deciding that nobody is in charge of the fan speed and not knowing how much fan is necessary to keep the G5 processsor(s) cool enough, decides to be safe and turns on all fans just to be sure. Same effect if you put your G5 into target disk mode – the fans will spin up since the processor load is unknown and thus the amount of cooling necessary is also unknown.

Bill Lee

[Marc Poirier]

Capturing to your system drive is not recommended, since the drive is already been used for other tasks…and you shouldn’t use journaling on a drive…

here’s what the help topic says about journaling…

” When you enable journaling on a hard disk, a continuous record of changes to files on the disk is maintained in the journal. ”

I bet you it is being indexed also..

so imagine having the system drive working for software purposes, writing any changes occuring, plus trying to capture..

if u have access to another drive, try using it to see if it does the same thing…

markyyy

[The Corporal]

Thanks Bill and Markyyy,
I done as you have suggested and it seems to be working, dropped frames on the first attempt but it could have been due to a bad timecode.
it took almost all the steps so i’m guessing it waas a bad user pref.
capturing to an external device seems to help aswell.
thanks again
Lec

[Marc Poirier]

great!! have fun!

markyyy

[The Corporal]

Oh dear. maybe i spoke too soon.
it is now constantly refusing to capture media even onto an external device.
the batch capture opens and is fine for short clips (like the 10second test piece) but anything over 5mins & it just stalls.
any ideas on that one?
my oh my
Lec

[Marc Poirier]

OK! back to the drawing board…

how much space is there left on your drive your capturing on.

use the disk utility to check your drive for corruption…

lets take it from there

markyyy

[The Corporal]

Ok the external device is Lacie D2 250Gb with 100Gb free. definatly enough for a 15min clip to be captured.
it’s the same device that is used in conjuntion with the powerbook without any problems.
the final cut is a full legit copy (not some cut down p2p version).
any ideas?
thanks in advance
Lec