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Still can’t get HDV to playback in HIGH; it defaults to ‘medium’
I’ve posted a few times on the matter, and three weeks on now, the problem is still totally unresolved. After cutting with HDV 1080p 30 in a timeline of the same for nearly 2 years, and with no playback issues at all, I now find myself with the “High” quality setting greyed out. I’ve also had several kernel panics, with fans running during sleep mode, and can only assume, but am unsure, that the two are related. To briefly summarize, I’ve erased the OS, reinstalled Leopard from scratch, reinstalled FCS 2, tested before upgrading (at FCP vs 6.0.4), and also with latest updates, reseated the RAM, reset the VRAM and PRAM, bought NEW RAM (tried with various placements, between 2 GB and 4GB), and even bought a new external harddrive – and have of course tested with no peripherals connected, including that drive or internet. I also took the computer into a local Apple Store where they tested it for 2 days, finding nothing wrong! I showed them that “High” is greyed out, they recognize my problem, but they simply have no answers for me. It continues to crash on me left and right, doing so twice while I was on the phone with Apple today, who can only wager that perhaps the processor is going. But it’s a guess at best…
HDV 720p plays High Quality and seems to be the bar. Anything above that, HDV 1080p 30, or ProRes, doesn’t. And just to reiterate, IT DID less than 3 weeks ago for almost 2 years.
Anyone out there have any bright ideas? I will forever be your editing slave! (with conditions, of course)
Thanks,
Chris
2 GHz PowerPC G5, 10.5.8, 4 GB DDR SDRAM, FCS 2
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7 Replies
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Chris,
What is your media drive configuration?
If you click on the RT drop-down menu at the upper far left of the timeline what are the settings that are checked?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Hi David,
All my media is on an external LaCie d2 Quadra 1 TB drive hooked up to my PowerMac with 800 FW. (It was previously on a 750 GB, same make). I’ve backed up most of my G5 files here, so the storage currently reads – Used: 753 GB. Available 178 GB. There is nothing currently daisy-chained to it.
Keep in mind that I get the same results with the ‘High’ being greyed out whether trying to play media from this drive, the previous one, or by simply opening a brand new project on my internal drive (160 GB) without a single clip in the timeline.
The RT drop-down menu by the timeline shows the following checked:
Safe RT
Scrub High Quality
Playback Video Quality: Dynamic (with Medium or Low available, High greyed out)
Playback Frame Rate: Full (all available)
Record to Tape: Full Quality (both available)Chris
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Okay, first things first…
1) Your media drive is starting to get pretty full, and I’ll bet it’s running much slower than it did when it was not as full. You need to download the System Test from https://www.aja.com/products/software/ and run the Disk Read/Write Test. After running a few times on your media drive with a few different settings post your speeds back here. There is no right or wrong BTW, you’ll wind up with an average if you try a few different ones.
2) Change the RT Playback Framerate to Dynamic.
The bottom line is, your system throughput has, for one reason or another, gotten worse. My guess is that LaCie drive is probably quite sluggish. We”l see what the test reveals about that.
Changing the RT framerate to “dynamic” may allow you to change the Video Quality to high, as the throughput demands will drop.
Ultimately, getting a raid, even just a two-drive firewire raid will boost your system throughput. A SATA raid would do way better.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Thanks for sticking with me on this David. I just ran some tests using the AJA app on my external media drive. Here’s what I’m getting:
file size: 128 MB
NTSC 25 – Write: 51.5 MB/s, Read: 59.0
1920*1080 8 bit – W: 68.4, R: 78.9
1920*1080 10 bit – W: 68.5, R: 78.9file size: 1 GB
NTSC 25 – W: 51.3, R: 59.4
1920*1080 8 bit – 69, R: 78.8
1920*1080 10 bit – W: 69.1, R: 80.4I don’t know how to interpret this though. I’ll start copying stuff back onto my HD to clear up some space.
I tried changing RT Playback Frame Rate to Dynamic. High is still greyed out…
Chris
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thats pretty darn low performance.
no wonder your having a problem.
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Really? What should I be getting? I’m clearing up space now and will re-test and repost later.
THAT SAID… why would FCP still default to medium settings when I open a brand new project (as a mere test) setting the scratch drive to Macintosh HD – with no external drive attached, no media imported, just an open timeline set to my desired HDV 1080p30 setting? This after trashing the prefs of course. I did the same thing at the apple store with a new imac and the high setting was indeed available.
Chris
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So I now have 350 GB of free space on my 1TB Lacie Drive. I’ve repaired permissions on my mac, verified disk (including the 1TB which is fine), trashed FCP’s prefs… and still NO HIGH QUALITY setting. Processor is set to high in energy settings, put disk to sleep unchecked… what else is there to do?
As for read/write speeds, here’s what I’m getting now (only marginally improved):
128 MB file size:
DV 25 – W:55.7, R: 61.5
1920*1080 8 bit – W: 69.5, R: 78.91GB
DV 25 – W: 52.8, R: 62.3
1920*1080 8 bit – W: 69.5, R: 79.1If this is slow, what should it be reading? My previous drive tested about the same and was working fine for me before my kernel panic.
Any other ideas?
Chris
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