Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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About Mac Janitor from the link below:
“MacJanitor is designed to be used on a periodic basis by Mac OS X users who don’t leave their computer on (and awake) 24 hours a day. MacJanitor is provided as freeware as a service to laptop and energy-conscious home users.
The Unix subsystems on Mac OS X were originally written for machines that were typically never shut off. Mac OS X inherits this assumption in version 1.x, and has many system maintenance tasks that are scheduled to run between 3 am and 5 am. In addition, there are scripts designed to run weekly on weekends, and once a month in the middle of the night.”
You can read the rest of it here:
https://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html
– Don
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Jason,
Sometimes the directories on hard drives become somewhat corrupted because of all the writings and deletions of files that happen over time. It’s a good idea to have the program DiskWarrior and run it as preventive maintenance before problems start rearing their ugly little heads. DiskWarrior will build completely new directories instead of trying to fix the old ones like lesser programs do.
So when FCP tells you it can’t connect to certain media files, more often than not it’s the directory “pointer” that’s become corrupted and not the actual media.
Hope this has helped to answer your last question.
– Don
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If your media drive is getting full the transfer rates for capture will drop substantially to the point that you’ll get the ‘dropped frames’ warning.
– Don
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Using the audio mixdown command creates an invisible file within FCP. If you make any audio changes after using the mixdown command FCP deletes the file and you’ll have to mixdown all over again. That’s what happens in FCP 4.5, so I’m not sure about the most recent version of FCP v.5.
– Don
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You’re quite right, Gerry. I forgot about mentioning the 12/16 bit thing. Inexcusable on my part. I stand dejected (corrected). However, what I was referring to about FCP changing bit/sample rate for me is when I choose to download the 2nd two audio channels from a tape recorded with a Canon. In the advanced audio prefs when I make the change to get channels 3 & 4 I’ve noticed that FCP will change the bit rate from 16 to 12 without any further prompting (using FCP4.5).
– Don
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Sometimes losing audio sync is an indication that the capture rate isn’t set to the same rate as the source tapes, i.e. the source tape was recorded at 48Khz but the capture setting is 32Khz. Some cameras such as the Canon line don’t record audio at precisely 48Khz and 32Khz and sometimes that causes problems, even though FCP4.5 is supposed to know what camera is connected and make the appropriate adjustment. If you’re using a deck for capture and you’ve put in a Canon recorded tape, FCP may not know about the Canon audio, although I’m not sure about this since I’ve never tried to capture any of my Canon tapes from anything like a Sony DSR-11 deck.
In FCP version 1 I was always having sync issues with audio but since FCP 4X it became a non issue. Just make sure you’ve set your capture prefs to record just the first two channels, because if it’s set to anything other than that FCP will automatically drop the sample rate for capture down to 32Khz.
– Don
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Okay, it sounds like the problem is originating with the GL2 in the form of audio and video dropouts, etc. FYI, it’s not a good idea to change tape brands unless you get the camera seviced first. Some tapes are dry lubricated and some are wet lubed, so when you mix the two you’re inviting problems. I don’t see any way of fixing your present problem unless you want to try capturing your video to the computer using another camera/deck to see if it’s just an alignment problem with the GL2 or the tapes were indeed recorded with the dropouts. The only way to know for sure is to try the above method.
You should definitely get the GL2 in for service and tell the service person the problems you’re having with it. They’ll do a good cleaning and alignment for you. In future please stay with one tape brand. Both the Panny and the Sony Master series are good. You’ll be able to tell your boss that scrimping on tape quality is not the best way to impress his clients.
When you first put a new tape into your camera, fast forward to the end and rewind to the beginning. This accopmlishes 2 things: it pre-tentions the tape against the recording drum and also helps to throw out any microscopic bits of debris that sometimes get lodged in the tiny grooves of the heads. This practice will keep tape dropouts to a minimum.
Best of luck.
– Don
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Mark,
Repair permissions on your boot drive. Make sure that journaling is turned on for your boot drive and turned off for the media drives. Make sure you don’t have any antivirus software running in the background because FCP’s capture process is interfered with in a big way. FCP and especially Norton Antivirus do not like one another at all. Trash FCP preferences if you haven’t tried that yet. Here’s why and how to do it correctly:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html
You can also get a free program called Final Cut Pro Rescue that will automatically do the preference job for you. Just Google it and it’ll come up.
Try your project again and if you’re still missing media files it may be an indication of corrupt media drive directories. Get the program DiskWarrior and run it to diagnose directory problems. No FCP user should be without it.
Your project file may also be the culprit. If it’s corrupt you’ll have to copy and paste into a new project. You can also try do a “save as” with your existing project. This will write a new project file when you give it another name, but sometimes you’re just saving the same file corruption under a new name. All you can do is try.
– Don
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If you could be a little more forthcoming with your information it would be extremely helpfull in diagnosing your problem. Right now I can’t tell if the problem is with your source tapes or the issues you’re having don’t show up until the finished VHS tape.
You mention popping noises on the source tape. When’s the last time you had the GL2 in for a service/head cleaning and calibration? Is the picture jumping and stuttering on the source tapes? After capture to FCP? After recording to VHS tape?
– Don
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FCP is a RAM hog. The more memory you have the better it will run, because large project files and their accompanying timelines have to be loaded into RAM for quick access. FCP can make use of around 4 Gbytes of RAM, give or take. FCP5 may be able to utilize even more. If you don’t have enough memory for large projects FCP has to access some of the timeline info from the hard drives, which will slow everything down to a crawl.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never heard of a project file size limitation for FCP. But I do know that processor speed, RAM and hard drive transfer rates will limit your file size for you. Like they say in drag racing: “Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?”
– Don