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HELP! Dropped Frames Capturing in FCP
I need help, it’s driving me crazy…..
I am trying to capture from my PAL Panasonic MX300 3CCD camera into Final Cut Pro HD into an G5 dual 2.0’s hard disk.
Every time I try to capture it drops frames, it even drops frames playing the footage through the Log Capture window. I have been resorting to capturing in iMovie which started off okay but now it too is dropping frames.
I tried a head cleaner and that did nothing and I’ve tried a bunch of suggestions via forums like this one and nothing seems to work; Firewire Basic, not overlapping windows, external video set to all frames, nothing fixes this.
Playing footage on the camera when it’s not connected to the mac via firewire is fine but as soon as I try to capture (via the log/capture window’s “capture now” button) it drops frames.
Help me!
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7 Replies
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How full is that hard drive? It’s best not to capture to the system drive, but to another. You can fit another SATA driver internally quite cheaply and that should solve everything.
However, you should also check that your system drive is functioning well, that it’s not too full, and I’d also run disk utility on it to repair permissions and check it’s health.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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Can I make a guess.
You are either capturing to your boot drive (A BIG NO NO) or
You have routed the camera through a firewire drive incorrectly.
If it is the latter, try swapping the firewire connections on your external drive. Some drives don’t care which port is used, others use a specif throughport so you have to go IN one from the computer and OUT the other to the camera.
I used to have this problem in FCP 1.2 until I figured out this little trick.
David
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These are all good tips, but reaading your post closely, I think there may be something else going on here.
When you say “dropped frames”, is FCP complaining about them, or are you seeing jerky playback in the Log and Capture window? Can you see the footage droping frames on a video monitor (or even your camera’s display?). The Log and capture window DOES NOT give full 25 or 30 frame playback and will look staggered while capturing. If FCP is not complaining about dropped frames (the default), then you may not have a problem. If you check the captured files, you may find that they have been captured just fine.
Good luck, hope this helps.
e.
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Thanks for your suggestions.
My hard disk has 35 gig available and I have tried every firewire port but it still skips.
It definately is dropping frames because even after capture I play the footage back and the footage jumps. Any other ideas???? -
I am capturing to my boot drive. Why is this a problem? I have 160 gig external, is this what I should capture on?
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Absolutely!
Your system is reading and writing to your boot drive all the time. This fragments it, making it slower. And the more full it gets, the slower it gets. On my Media drive, I start to notice slowdowns in access speeds even when I have 10 to 15Gb left. It also clears the bus, providing a whole uninterupted data stream to and from the drive for nothing but your video, minimising bottlenecks.
If you haven’t already tried this, I suggest you give it a go!
e.
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Still getting dropped frames. I am now capturing to an external hard disk with 120 gig free space and have also tried another firewire cable. I have even tried another G5 other than my own. What else could this be????????
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