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Intermittent Dropped Frames in FCP
One of our workstations suddenly started suffering from intermittent dropped frames when playing off the timeline. Our projects are typically SD NTSC ProRes HQ sequences. But it seems to occur regardless of the project or the type of media involved. It happens with complex projects, ones with only one track of video and minimal effects/transitions, and even has happened with sequences containing only audio.
It doesn’t seem to change anything whether I switch between SafeRT or UnlimitedRT. The problem crops up typically within 5 to 10 minutes of editing. If I close and reopen FCP the problem goes away for a while.
This workstation is a recent generation MacPro tower with OSX 10.5.8 and FCP 6.0.6. It has 6gig of RAM and video captures and plays back to/from an external LaCie RAID1 storage unit connected via Firewire800. It has an AJA Kona Lhe capture card connected to DVCAM deck via SDI. We have three other similar workstations and none of them are suffering from this problem, including one that has the exact same hardware/software configuration. The other two are DV-only/Firewire setups on first generation MacPro’s but with the same versions of OS and software.
Looking for an initial direction in which to begin my troubleshooting. Any hints are appreciated.
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3 Replies
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Usually, this is related to drive speed. I’m not sure why you’re using ProResHQ with SD. It’s only recommended for grater than 1080×1920 resolutions like 2K and up. The data rate of HQ is high. If your drive is getting full or experiencing problems ro both, that could be what’s going on. Check the drive speed with AJA System Test and see if it’s enough to handle HQ.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.1, Motion 4.0.1, Comp 3.5.1, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.1)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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I did not know this about HQ. I may switch to regular ProRes in the future. But we have been using HQ for almost two years now without a hitch. We have even done one 720p show last year in HQ and it was great. This is a recent development only with this one workstation.
And, as I noted, the problem only kicks in after 5-10 minutes of editing. Once it begins, I could have my play head over a spot on the timeline where there is a single 720×480 TIFF image and it will still conk out. Once I restart FCP the issue goes away for another 10 minutes.
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Another thing I should note is that any project plays fine when I use the Print-to-Video function. These dropped frames only occur when playing right off the timeline. If it were an issue with throughput or codec, then I would imagine it would happen in either case?
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