Frames dropped

[Lee Berger]

Carrie:
What types of drives are you using and what Aja Io setting are you using to capture? If your drives are not fast enough and your setting is too high, say Uncompressed 8 or 10 bit, you could experience dropped frames.

[Jay Blanchard]

Lee, I work with Carrie & I can fill you in on some of the technical specs. We’re working from a G5 Dual 2GHz machine running the latest Panther update. All footage is being captured to a 1.4 Terabyte Xserve as composite 8-bit uncompressed.

The next steps we’re planning are to defrag both the boot drive and the Xserve drives (although we’ve done very little work on either so far). Would repairing the FCP permissions delete the Io presets? If not, I’d like to try that as well.

I’m also looking to test the drive speed of the Xserve to make sure that the throughput is acceptible for 8-bit uncompressed, but I haven’t been able to find a free app that allows me to do so. Does anybody know of one?

Thanks,

Jay

[Aja Sales department]

Hi-

Our KONA System test utility has a disk test function:

https://www.aja.com/ajashare/AJA_KONA_System_Test.app.zip

I would recommned that you contact our Support department, as they would be glad to assist you.

support@aja.com
(530) 271-3190

Thank you,

—
AJA Video Systems
(530) 274-2048 Intl.
(800) 251-4224 US
sales@aja.com

[Lee Berger]

I have the same configuration and have never dropped a frame. You should not be experiencing dropped frames. According to AJA’s data rate calculator 8-bit uncompressed is about 28 Mb/second. You Xserve should be able to sustain over 120 Mb/second. Double check under the FCP systems settings to be sure that the XServe is set as your scratch disk.

Have you checked the Io Faq https://www.aja.com/support_Io.html#faq ?

This has nothing to do with dropped frams, but your message says you captured as as composite 8-bit uncompressed. Did you really mean Component? If not you should be capturing component for best quality.

Defraging a mostly empty drive probably won’t help as there is plenty of space for contigious blocks. You could try repairing permissions, don’t know if it will help, but won’t hurt. Also try trashing your FCP preferences.

Try capturing at DVCPro50, to see if the problem occurs at a lower data rate.

Finally, try XBench which is a free at http://www.xbench.com.

[Lee Berger]

I have the same configuration and have never dropped a frame. You should not be experiencing dropped frames. According to AJA’s data rate calculator 8-bit uncompressed is about 28 Mb/second. You Xserve should be able to sustain over 120 Mb/second. Double check under the FCP systems settings to be sure that the XServe is set as your scratch disk.

Have you checked the Io Faq https://www.aja.com/support_Io.html#faq ?

This has nothing to do with dropped frams, but your message says you captured as as composite 8-bit uncompressed. Did you really mean Component? If not you should be capturing component for best quality.

Defraging a mostly empty drive probably won’t help as there is plenty of space for contigious blocks. You could try repairing permissions, don’t know if it will help, but won’t hurt. Also try trashing your FCP preferences.

Try capturing at DVCPro50, to see if the problem occurs at a lower data rate.

Finally, try XBench which is a free at http://www.xbench.com.

[Lee Berger]

Read the previous Post from the most excellent AJA Sales Department and the Kona Test application is much better then XBench.

[Jay Blanchard]

Thanks everyone! We’ll try the Kona tester & repair permissions, delete prefs, and defrag. I’ll be sure to post again to let you know how it’s working.

[Bob Zelin]

not to answer Jay’s question, and just to cause trouble –
I find it pathetic that this guy had the insanely expensive XServe RAID – I don’t care if he only has ONE drive in the system – he should be able to do
8 bit uncompressed. Without knowing the details, I don’t think that Apple will sell a system without a minimum of 4 drives, and with 4 drives striped together, this system should FLY with composite SD video. Whats pathetic is that he is suffering with the XServe RAID, while half this list has $300 Firewire 800 drives, and working in 8 bit uncompressed with no problems.

I truly feel for Jay – I feel your pain.

Bob Zelin

[Jay Blanchard]

Umm, not sure if that was empathy, sarcasm or envy….could you please clarify Bob?

As I mentioned, we’re using a 1.4TB Xserve, so we have four drives running. I wasn’t the person who configured the machine, but I’m assuming the drives are striped. I agree that there’s no reason why this setup shouldn’t be working, and I’m not sure if the issue is on Apple’s side (Final Cut Pro/Xserve) or on the AJA side.

I’ll do the drive speed tests today & report back.

[Nick Price]

Jay,
i think you might ind it was heartfelt exasperation….
Defragging wont make any difference, unless your drive is nearly full. As Bob said, firewire drives are fast enough so an Xraid should be fast enough to paint your house with.

just a few little ideas.

Check there is nothing else connected to you computer via firewire, and if it is, it needs to be on an additional firewire card.
Check your capture settings, in fact post them here if you can. There are so many little things in FCP settings that can catch you out. Check them. Then check them again. Really.

check that you scratch discs are set correctly as someone mentioned.

can you play out material that is on the drive already? might give an indication as to where the prob lies, menatlly and physically

good luck
nick