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XDCAM crashes – has ANYONE gotten to the bottom of the issue?
As per a number of other threads late last year, many of us are experiencing constant crashes working with XDCAM media – and I also know many of you aren’t.
In short, I have a large XDCAM EX HD 35Mbps project that is almost impossible to work with – timeline scrolling and opening a bin with icons displayed seem to be the most common reason for a crash, but they also happen for multiple other reasons – editing, trimming, in playback, including at least three occasions where I wasn’t even touching the keyboard and was across the room, nothing happening on the system and POOF! FCP just disappeared. It’s desperately frustrating, and as the project proceeds, it’s getting worse. To synopsize:
FCP 6.06
OSX 10.5.8
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHZ w/ 14GB RAM.
Media is on external eSATA five-drive Port Multiplied RAIDI’m trying the name only, no thumbnails thing now, but it’s not just timeline related, as per crashes when opening a bin with icons. Has ANYONE had any success in getting to the bottom of this?
No, I can’t transcode everything (250+ hours) to ProRes – there’s neither the time nor the disk space for that, I’m sorry to say. And, no – I can’t upgrade to FCS3 in the middle of this project, though I’m keen to know if anyone sees the same problems in FCP7?
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9 Replies
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[Philip Owens] “And, no – I can’t upgrade to FCS3 in the middle of this project, though I’m keen to know if anyone sees the same problems in FCP7?”
I don’t know what to tell you about XDCAM and those issues as we avoid the format at all costs, but I can tell you 35mbps is working just fine on 8 new workstations I just designed at the PBS station here in Atlanta on FCP 6. I do know there are some issues with 50mbps playback through the Kona because there are some issues from Sony that have not been addressed, but the workaround there is to simply set up playback for 10bit uncompressed on the card.
In terms of FCP 7, it is the first version of FCP that I will honestly say you can upgrade in the middle of a project. We just did it here with our current documentary (85 hours or so of material) as I needed another copy of FCS and 3 is now out. So I did the clean install on a new hard drive of the OS / Studio and all the drivers. There has not been a single hiccup in a week of running the software on three workstations. The first thing we noticed is how incredibly fast it works with large projects. The project files are opening easily 4x faster than FCP 6 and there’s zero sluggishness even with over 8TB, thousands of clips and over 65 hours of material being worked with.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative MediaCreative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
Philip
I am working in FCP7, and i can tell you even though there’s no crashing issues, it still has problems. renders take too long, glitchy renders when ther are done, stuttery playback,
I have not had this problem with either DVPROHD or even Uncompressed 8 bit. I have not transcoded anything either, as i did not have the time.
It also seems the problem gets worse if i try and render using ProRes.
any thoughts?
“I like video because its so fast!”
Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc. -
[Bob Flood] “I have not had this problem with either DVPROHD or even Uncompressed 8 bit. I have not transcoded anything either, as i did not have the time.
It also seems the problem gets worse if i try and render using ProRes. “
I have learned that there are a lot of issues with Sony and getting the proper information to Apple and other vendors, hence XDCAM does not work as elegantly as the Panasonic codecs. Could have something to do with Sony really wanting you to work on Vegas, but I have no idea.
I had no idea about the 50mbps issue until the folks at the PBS told me they were having issues playing back the format through the AJA Kona LHi’s. Since Panasonic is 100mbps we knew there was nothing wrong with the throughput. Some investigation on my part has led me to something to do with Sony and lack of information being shared or something along those lines. No one wants to give me the entire story, but it’s probably Sony trying to protect their property and of course they do own a competing NLE. From what I’ve heard it’s a pretty good NLE too.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative MediaCreative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
Oh, the irony. About 25 years ago Sony introduced a synchronizer to lock audio decks (24-track, 8-tracj, etc.), video decks and other devices for audio sweetening. They had spent over a year talking to users of all sizes to find features people wanted. They delivered the best damn synchronizer on the market. A couple of years down the road they announced they were discontinuing the product because competing manufacturers of audio decks, etc. wouldn’t share their protocols. Amazingly, they refunded 100% of the purchase price when they took the system back.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 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 2 (FCP 6.0.5, Comp 3.0.5, DVDSP 4.2.1, Color 1.0.3)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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John
I used to work with Grass Valley and CMX doing demos, and everytime Sony rolled out a new VTR, the Sony edit controllers would have the protocols for it right away, but it would be at least a couple of months till they gave em to GVG or CMX.
“I like video because its so fast!”
Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc. -
THanx walter
Its good to know i m not alone!
i need to start looking at alternative workflows so as to avoid working in XDCAM EX
“I like video because its so fast!”
Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc. -
FCP 7 certainly works noticeably faster with XDcam material, I’m currently working on two large XDCam 50 Mbit projects and I still get very occasional crashes when scrolling through a timeline at high speed, however thats the only issue that I have. Turning off timeline icons in large sequences seems to fix the problem.
I have zero problems with renders to ProRes or playout from my BMD card.
I would recommend you upgrade, I did it mid-project with an upgrade install, not a clean one (I did clone my system drive though) and have found no problems. It might help and I don’t think it would do any harm
Steve Connor
Adrenalin TelevisionHave you tried “Search Posts”? Enlightenment may be there.
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This, to me, had to do with Long GOP codecs which when you understand what is happening with Long Gop, you would understand the crashes. I would transcode to a timecoded I frame codec asap, even if it’s a low res sd version, then reconnect to HD later.
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Yes… Long GOP does play an important role into XDCAM’s viability to most.
But, we’ve been using XDCAM since the beginning of the format and other than waiting on full support from Apple a few years ago. We’ve found the format to be rather robust and clean. Easy to edit and work with. Mixes with ProRes extremely well. We have yet to have any broadcast facility complain about the quality of video.
Crashes almost always occur when the systems are not configured properly – odd memory sizes or not enough memory. Oh yeah… keeping the Sony software and your decks up to date is also a big help.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com
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