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Final Cut Advice Needed – Too processor intense?
I’m having a few problems in Final Cut with new footage imported from a PMW-EX1 camera. the resolution is 1920x1080p/30 & and all setting have been changed to reflect that in Final Cut.
Even with extremely short clips (3 of about 10 seconds each) and nothing else opened, whenever I play it back it gives me an error message saying:
“One or more frames were dropped during playback. If this occurs frequently, try:” and then names a few suggestions. I’ve tried them all, except the last one which is increasing the speed of my system.
I have plenty of hard drive space, but I am not using a separate one right now, I only have my main hard drive. I’ve spoken to a couple people who suggested I get another hard drive which I’m going to. Also, they said I should switch to the Apple Pro Res Codec under audio/video setting in sequence presets.
I’m looking for some guidance as to what to do, if these are good suggestions, and where I could learn more about codecs and which ones are best to use.
If you need any additional info from me, please let me know. Thank you for your help.
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2 Replies
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if you are working with uncompressed HD, you will need a large drive array that can do a minimum of 220mb/sec. In the old days, this was a $13,000 Apple XServe RAID, but with modern drives today, you can do this for between $3000 – $4000. “What” you say – “I don’t want to spend anywhere near that amount of money” – then my advice to you is to start using COMPRESSED HD – either DVCProHD or ProRes422 (which both look great). With these, you can get away with an internal SATA drive, or an external FW800 drive (not a FW400 drive). You should really have a minimum of 2 external drives stripped together RAID 0 to get decent performance, but you can probably get away with one.
“This is crazy” you say. “Why can’t I do uncompressed HD, with just the single internal drive that I have – why do I have to spend any money on more equipment” – this is when I get the baseball bat out. Open your wallet, buy the equipment that you need. If you have no money, reduce your resolution. ProRes422 and DVCProHD look teriffic.
I urge you to go to http://www.aja.com, under support, pick any product, and download the AJA SYSTEM TEST program – it’s free. Run it at the 1920×1080 frame size that you are working at (you will understand when you download the program). You will see that your internal drive is running at about 60 – 80mb/sec. This is simply not fast enough for the HD signal you want to work with, and this is why you are getting this error message.
Bob Zelin
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Bob,
There’s nothing uncompressed about the video Seth is trying to edit, but trying to play it back off of his system drive is NG. Even a single firewire 800 drive would do.
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
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