mac pro audio playback problems in fcp 6

[Adam Rivera]

I’ve been having the same problem on a project that I’m currently trying to print to tape. Were you able to find a solution to the probelem? ~ Adam

[Andrew Saliga]

Same problem here too.

More detailed post on this COW thread I started.

https://snipurl.com/a1chy

[Clicerio Muñoz]

Sorry I am in a hurry. No time to get in a bunch of details. Even tough don’t want to let you behind. What I did, worked to me very well and in just a few minutes.

FACTS
1. Mac Pro, FCP 6.0.3. I had two projects open at once at the time of the problem. Project one: HDV, DV, DVCAM files. Sequence settings (output) DV NTSC. Second Project: Just DV and DVCAM.
2.- The problem came when I tried to review my TV spot (which was into the Second Project) on the external monitor… ( Same thing happened when I tried to do “Print to video”). A disgusting and acute noise mostly in channel one… hard… impossible to recognize words or background music
3.- I went to this and other forums. No answers. ( In the mean time I did several test using other FireWire cables, another VCR, etc)
4.- IMPORTANT:(I am not saying “this is the main cause of the issue”, I am just letting you guys know what I did) I tried to run FCP RESCUE 5. I did not know it was not good for Leopard. When I realized that… I THREW OUT ALL THE FILES RELATED TO THIS PROGRAM… then:

SOLUTIONS:
1. I did restart my Mac
2. I went to FCP app and opened package contents
3. I threw out this file:
Final Cut Pro 6.0 Prefs
4. I came back to FCP, but just opened my SECOND PROJECT. Tried to “print to video” again… ¡ It worked out !

I sincerely wish this will give you, at least, a clue… maybe a hope.
Thanks. Good Luck. Sorry if I made mistakes. English is not my mother language.

Clicerio Muñoz, LMMC
Gerente Operativo
Digital Producciones
clicerio@digitalpro.tv

[Clicerio Muñoz]

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT MY POST ABOVE:
THE FILE “Final Cut Pro 6.0 Prefs” IS NOT into Package Contents… IT was a writing mistake from me. The file is into: Your user name/Library/Preferences/FCP User Data.

Sorry.

By the way!!! Some news. This problem happened to me again TODAY. Do you remember my “Project One”? (Check above. I am talking about a multiformat project) Well… it was open again, AT THE SAME TIME THAN OTHER TWO different projects, one of them HDV and the other one DV.

So I went to my own solution and it worked to me again…

My preliminary conclusion is:
This issue is related or caused by some video characteristics combination (field dominance , for instance; mixing formats maybe, or even a single corrupt file )

Another thing: I just realized writing this, about another very similar issue: sometimes you have a single clip which is part of a complex editing time line. When you master your video, just right there in that clip, the audio goes out or sounds tricky. No matter what you do (re converting, exporting, recapturing, or whatever to that fu.. clip) the “thing”is going to still forever in your MASTER TAPE, PRINT TO VIDEO AND SO ON (Hey… NOT IN your .mov file, of course)… until you apply to that single clip a “shift fields” filter.

I hope my long hours, even days trying to fix this last issue some time ago, will be worth for more people besides me and my coworkers.

GOOD LUCK

[Jeff Strachan]

We have had a similar problem
We uses a Sony DSR11 via firewire to capture from and print to.

Once in a while when playing back a clip the audio will sound fine and the meters will show good levels when playing back in FCP
BUT
when sending to the tape machine the audio is heavily distorted and the levels on the tape deck indicate that the audio in is wildly overdriven.

We shut down FCP and reboot the computer and all is OK again until the next time.
the other solution is as above, dumping user preferences and starting over.

Obviously these are both only stop gap solutions. I believe it is a bug in the Apple software. there are known problems with the way FCP communicates over Sony’s ilink(firewire1394) and in corruption of user preference files.

Hopefully (??) Apple will get these bugs worked out at some point in time.

[Andrew Saliga]

I still haven’t found a fix for this, only a workaround. My computer has been needing a clean install for awhile, so I’ll likely just start from scratch.

I will add though, that my issue wasn’t when outputting through FireWire. I was trying to output with my Kona LHe via SDI to DigiBeta deck.

-Andrew Saliga

[Jeff Strachan]

I was in contact with the tech in a larger office of the company I work for. they have 15 FCP suites and 20 people editing.

He states that the problem is the user pref file getting corrupted, that Apple/FC knows about the problem and so far have not fixed it. The work around is as discussed, to dump the user and start again fresh.

The work around he uses throughout the year is a variation on creating a new user. Once he has created a user on a system he then copies the user pref file to a new folder on the desktop and names it “123”. That way a brand new, uncorrupted copy of that file is just sitting there on the desktop. When FCP starts acting funky he dumps the user pref file and then copies the ‘clean’ file of user pref’s that is sitting on the desktop to the preferences library and re-names it. As far as FCP is concerned this is still the same user and the file is as it was when first created.

He also said that once a year they take each machine out of service, format the drive and re-load FCP (of course first backing up all media even though they do not format the media drive(s)).

,,,, I now just get mad at the PC vs. Mac ads. Is there really any difference?

[Jeff Strachan]

I should add that the suite in Vancouver is not using firewire to machines, I believe that they are using an AJA board and sending SDI to DigiBeta as you are.

[Andrew Saliga]

Interesting. I’ll have to try that out. I’ve heard other people mention it might be the user file becoming corrupted, but I’ve never heard of this particular method to have a new pref file at hand.

Thanks for all the help. As soon as I get a minute to test it out, I’ll post back.

-Andrew Saliga

[Andrew Saliga]

Just trashed my FCP prefs. No fix.

Just to make sure it wasn’t an issue with the deck playing back tapes, I tried an old DigiBeta. It played back without any problems.

-Andrew Saliga