Missing/Dropped Frames – Automator script or ideas to fill in gaps by duplicating other frames?

[Marco Solorio]

You absolutely MUST use a program like ShotPut Pro to transfer the media off your SSDs or you’re asking for trouble doing it manually from SSD to the Finder by just drag-and-dropping. The same holds true for any other camera that populates its storage with countless files.

Marco Solorio | CreativeCow Host | OneRiver Media | ORM Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Media Batch

[Sm Smith]

Thanks, Marco – I hired a professional DIT to handle the downloading on the day of, and do not know what he used to download from the media.

However, the issue now is still salvaging the media that is on the master harddrives. The SSD’s have all been returned to the rental house.

[Marco Solorio]

Glad to be of help! Personally, I’d get on the DIT and find out what they used to transfer. If they didn’t use ShotPut Pro or Pomfort Silverstack to transfer the footage (and did it manually), they (A) shouldn’t have the title as DIT, (B) shouldn’t get paid, and (C) never get hired again. Media transfer is SERIOUS and there’s no joke about it, ESPECIALLY since you had rental SSDs and have no access to the footage ever again. I honestly feel bad for you because this sort of thing should never happen with a real DIT on crew; they’re an assurance that the footage that was shot is being transferred reliably, safely, and systematically. Using any of the transfer tool software I mentioned will never result in missing files like you had. Honestly, if you don’t have access to the SSDs, or they have already been formatted by the rental house, then you have a serious problem on your hands with those missing frames. Not sure what can be done about it.

Marco Solorio | CreativeCow Host | OneRiver Media | ORM Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Media Batch

[Juan Salvo]

The likeliest cause here isn’t a bad transfer but an ssd unable to keep up with the raw data rate. It’s really important with raw to get one of the approved SSDs. And I mean exactly one of the tested models, not one that is close to it. Lots of factors in getting sufficient performance from these devices.

Colorist | Online Editor | Post Super | VFX Artist | BD Author

https://JuanSalvo.com

[Sm Smith]

Thanks fellas, but again, I realize several things that may have caused the dropped frames, which is a different thread topic — what I’m really asking for — and at this point, already have someone replacing the missing frames by manually duplicating them, a tedious and time consuming task — is to find a solution to filling in the gaps in image sequences that are missing frames.

I find it difficult to believe that there hasn’t been someone in the past finding a reasonable solution to filling in missing frames, whether they were in a .tif, .dpx, or other image sequence. One major headache has been that the only program that seems to deal with CinemaDNG is Davinci Resolve.

[Marco Solorio]

I guess I’m confused then. The process of file transferring should NOT be done manually. As mentioned it should be done with software like ShotPut Pro or things like this will (not might) happen. It does all sort of various data checks to ensure the files transfer over correctly.

Resolve isn’t the only software that can work with CinemaDNG, but Resolve definitely is the best software to manage CinemaDNG. If a shot has missing/dropped frames, it’s not the fault of Resolve, as this could be the case with any image sequence file structure that is imported into Resolve. IOW, Resolve isn’t the software doing the original file transfer and as such, isn’t responsible for any missing frames, just as much as After Effects wouldn’t be responsible for missing frames in an image sequence import either.

ShotPut Pro:

https://www.imagineproducts.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=5

Good luck!

Marco Solorio | CreativeCow Host | OneRiver Media | ORM Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Media Batch

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[Juan Salvo]

To answer your question, is there software to fill in the gaps, the answer is no. And duplicating frames probably isn’t a good approach. You’ll end up with stutterry playback. I’d say the shot is unusable unless its like a static shot where nothing happens.

Colorist | Online Editor | Post Super | VFX Artist | BD Author

https://JuanSalvo.com

[Jonathon Thompson]

it is a must to use a third party software program to copy this media over? are you sure it wasn’t more of an issue with the SSD this person used?

[Ned Soltz]

This is the same issue I had with a loaner BMCC for my upcoming review. The loaner SSD recorded well until the actual shoot we were doing. It then dropped frames on every single take. The anecdotal reports I was receiving from other users is that this Kingston 120 SSD seems to work for a week or two and then fails.

Switched to a SanDisk 480 SSD that I own and we had no problems.

And yes, ShotPut is the way to transfer files. Version 5 has just been released.

Back to my dropped frames, I haven’t seen the footage but spoke with the editor who says that he was able to use multiple takes and cut around the dropped frames.

Ned Soltz

[Marco Solorio]

The SanDisk Extreme 480 GB is the only way to go, AFAIC. I’ve been mentioning this often around different BMCC outlets and in my BMCC workshops/presentations. I’ve been using the SanDisk 480 GB with the Cinema Camera since mid-2012 and to date have not received a single dropped frame in either RAW or ProRes, even when mixed on the same SSD. I’ve had issues with other SSDs. In short, I’m not messing around with any other SSD since the SanDisk model has been 100% rock solid. At this point we have many of these SanDisk SSDs for our BMCC and all are perfect.

Marco Solorio | CreativeCow Host | OneRiver Media | ORM Blog | Facebook | Twitter | BMCC Newsletter