[Anthony Dias]

Jeremy, when I do a fresh restart, my computer works flawlessly with the scopes operating very fluidly and getting absolutely no dropped frames.

The dropped frames only occur after the computer has been on for a while.

I think that if it was a matter of turning off the scopes, it would be consistent and I would get dropped frames every time I turned them on.

But, as a matter of fact, once I start getting dropped frames, I get them whether or not my scopes were turned on or not.

thanks for the reply,
-Tony

[Anthony Dias]

I’ve tried turning off the warning and sometimes it plays back ok… but eventually the playback keeps degrading over time to the point where the video is stuttering and sputtering and skipping frames left and right.

In the past I had mixed codecs but lately the only thing I’ve been using is ProRes LT (I convert all my video in Compressor.

The problem persists. Playback is perfect during the first 15-30 minutes of operation but then a frame will get dropped here and there and as I continue editing it just gets worse.

Then I restart and go through the cycle all over again.

What I don’t understand is why the SAME exact sequence would play fine at one point and drop frames 30 minutes later. (I’m talking about a fully rendered sequence with nothing new, nothing changed except for the passage of time).

Somebody suggested that it may be a “memory leak”. But I have no idea how to test that as I understand it is a programming issue and not something I could fix myself unless I was a hard core programmer.

As for the NVIDIA card vs. ATI I have held a suspicion that it is in fact the NVIDIA card but again, I have no way of proving or disproving unless I buy an ATI card which I may have to try.

Thanks for the tips!

-Tony

[Anthony Dias]

I just realized that perhaps FCP doesn’t have live scrolling… I’m not sure where I got that from… maybe all the audio apps I use that do have that functionality?

[Anthony Dias]

I agree with Rafael and highly recommend DiskWarrior… not so much for the dropped frames problem (which it might fix), but for the simple fact that it fixed a RAID 1 pair of drives which my computer was unable to read/write.

DiskWarrior is not a defrag tool, Instead it fixes any directory problems there might be on your drive… you can see more info on that here https://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/details.html

Another thing you made me think about was when you said “I always render it, whether it’s a green or red bar. ”

My preference is to use the “Render All – Both” command (Option-R) with all the options checcked.

But whatever render command you use, if you select it with your mouse up in the menu, is everything checked up and down the line?

Also, on the timeline, where do the dropped frames usually occur? is it at transitions, edit points or randomly in the middle of a clip?

Do you have “show audio waveforms” turned on? (does the dropped frame occur when your playhead reaches the far right of your timeline and then causing the timeline itself to scroll over)

Are you viewing your Canvas at 100%, 50% or 67% (or whatever %).

Where are your Waveform Cache and Thumbnail Cache located? (if they are on your main drive, and if your main drive has been idle/spun-down and suddenly you need to access it…)

What happens if you have iTunes running in the background, with the volume all the way down, playing music off of your main drive (you know, to keep it spinning).

What if you use 16bit audio instead of 24 bit?

Do you get dropped frames if you use ProRes 422 (LT) instead of HQ (duplicate a sequence, change the setting, render EVERYTHING, and see if you get dropped frames?)

Do you get dropped frames in SD?

I guess I’m just throwing random questions, but sometimes, that’s the way you’ll find your bottleneck.

good luck, and if you ever figure it out… do let us know…

[Anthony Dias]

Have you tried opening the activity monitor to see what happens when you press play in FCP?

I am on a small network and sometimes, usually when I am file sharing with another computer, there will be a spike in activity in the Network pane that coincides with the dropped frames. In my case, this was because I was accessing a file from another computer.

Also, keep an eye on the %CPU column. See if anything goes crazy when you press play. (obviously, you’ll have to move the FCP windows around to see the Activity Monitor in the Background. In fact, this is how I figured out that my Viewer window Motion and Filters tabs were associated with my dropped frames.

Also, check your Energy Saver settings… see what happens if you check and uncheck the “Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible. This can cause dropped frames if you are accessing a different scratch disk which has been asleep, but it doesn’t account for dropped frames over and over again.

A more extreme approach (if you have time on your hands) would be to install FCP 6 and OS x 10.5… Then, see how it works. Do the “combo” updates if necessary, and see if you still get dropped frames.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember which codecs are supported in FCP 6, but you could find that out fairly quickly if you look it up.

Anyway, I understand the frustration of having a “top of the line” computer and getting dropped frames. Unfortunately, it probably won’t change for the better any time soon.

[Anthony Dias]

Just out of curiosity, try and see what happens when you close the Viewer window.

Just curious, because I was having dropped frames left and right whenever the motion or filters tab was open in the Viewer… but if I close the viewer, the dropped frames problem goes away.

I posted about this in two other places, but I guess I’m still being “moderated” so my posts don’t show u p right away.

I’m pretty sure this is the same bug. I have FCP 7.0.2 AND Snow Leopard 10.6.4

Good luck.

[Anthony Dias]

I just want to add to the chorus of unhappy FCP 7 users who keep getting dropped frames whereI shouldn’t be getting them at all. Specifically: DV-NTSC timelines. Trust me, I have worked on way lower-end machines without these types of problems, including my first generation MacBook and G5 Power Macs.

So, my conclusion, after hours of trouble shooting is that either the FCP 7.x update is SUPER BUGGY or there is a hardware incompatibility in my system… which is technically still a bug right?

Oh, and all my software and hardware drivers are UP TO DATE as of today.

Some potential problematic hardware that I have connected to my machine (see machine profile at end):

– Digidesign MBox 2 Pro (which is on it’s own FireWire PCI card because it used to cause my audio to stop working)
– Matrox MXO2 LE w/Max
– G-Safe (2x2TB)
– ColorMunki (definitely has cause some headaches as well with Motion showing blank canvases)

here’s my system:

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 3 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per processor): 12 MB
Memory: 14 GB

[Anthony Dias]

Hi Greg,

I’ve been having huge problems getting my 1080 30P EX 1 footage to look good on a DVD.
I was having stair-stepping, weird aliasing and crappy quality picture.

Finally after a lot of experimentation and frustration, I found a Final Cut Pro + Compressor + DVD Studio Pro solution that I am satisfied with. Hopefully it might help you out.

I am still tweaking settings and taking notes and I’ll let you know if I come across better settings.

The clips are imported wit Sony’s XDCAM Transfer utility and drag & dropped into my FCP project bin.

In Final Cut Pro 6.0.6, the sequence settings are set as follows:

[General Tab]
Frame Size: 1920X1080 HDTV 1080i (16:9)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Anamorphic (not checked)
Field Dominance: None
Editing Timebase 29.97

Quicktime Video Settings:
Compressor: Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)
Quality:100%

[Render Control]
Everything checked and 100%/Best quality
Codec: Same as Sequence Codec

After editing and whatever, the whole sequence is rendered via Sequence> Render All> Both.

Then, the sequence is exported. File> Export> Using Compressor…

Compressor Settings (Inspector)

ENCODER
[Video Format Tab] no change (NTSC, 29.97, 16:9, Progressive)

[Quality Tab]
Average Bit Rate: 7.7 Mbps
Maximum Bit Rate: 9.0 Mbps
Motion Estimation: Best

[GOP Tab]
GOP Structure: IP
GOP Size: 6
Pattern: IPPPPP

FRAME CONTROLS
Frame Controls On:
Resize Filter: Best (Statistical Prediction)
Output Fields: Same as source
Adaptive Details: On (not really)
Antialias: 0
Detail Level: 0
Rate Conversion: Best (High quality motion compensation)

At this point, the whole thing is submitted and the wait begins…

The quality is WAY better at these settings than the standard compressor setting “DVD: Best Quality 90 minutes”.

It may not allow you to fit as much into a DVD, but I think most of us on these forums aren’t making feature length movies.

peace,
-Tony