[John Whiteway]

Thanks.
A dumb question as I suspected.

John

[John Whiteway]

Well I finally found a solution to my problem. Don’t know why it’s a solution but it is.

In the past I’d be able to capture clips/tapes by simply setting in and out points then clicking the “clip” capture button on the Log and Capture menu. Suddenly doing that was leading to these strange crashes saying “Out of Disk Space” and even “dropped frames”.

By trial and error I’ve found that if instead I first log my clip/tape and then hit “Batch Capture” it works. No more “out of Disk Space”. No more “Dropped Frames”. Hallelujah!

Canada John

[John Whiteway]

Anyone out there who can help me with this?

[John Whiteway]

Since I last wrote I’ve changed hard drives, run tests on them, as well as trash my preferences, which I did earlier. Still, if I try to capture a tape (to disks with up to 460 GB available) I get the message “Error: Out of Disk Space”. The only thing I can think of doing now is deleting and then reinstalling the Final Cut software.

Here I’m kind of dumb and don’t want to make any mistakes. This Apple has been a stand-alone computer used only for Final Cut and the software was installed when I got it. The rest of my life has been conducted on a PC. So is there anything I should do before deleting Final Cut? Should I be doing anything to protect exiting project files, captured clips, thumbnail cache etc.? Will Final Cut just recognize these when I re-install? What do I do? Just open the Mac hard drive, identify the Final Cut application and drag it to Trash? Do I need to empty the trash first or should I leave it there for safety?

I look at the instructions that came with my ancient Final Cut 2 disks. Here’s what they say in full:

To install QuickTime, follow these steps

1) Insert the Final Cut Pro CD in your CD drive. (I see I have two disks: one “Final Cut Pro 2”, the other “Final Cut Pro 2:Tutorial Media” Do I need to install the second?)
2) Double-click the CD’s icon, then double-click the QuickTime Installer folder.
3) Double-click the QuickTime Installer icon and follow the onscreen instructions.
4) When the Choose Installation Type window appears, select Custom, then click Continue.
5) In the next window, click Select All, then continue
This replaces any previous versions of QuickTime and ensures a complete installation of all components required by Final Cut Pro.
6) When a message appears saying installation was successful, click Restart.

Is this all straightforward or might there be any potential pitfalls in the above instructions for someone unfamiliar with installing software on a Mac (In my case old software and an old Mac – a G4)? I guess I should also ask if you folks out there agree that re-installing Final Cut may be the answer to my problem, that this error message is the result of a glitch that has arisen in the installed version of Final Cut.

Thanks in advance for any help.

John

[John Whiteway]

Thanks for the answers.

I’d actually increased my minimum allowable free space from 1000MB to 5000MB hoping that that might solve the problem that had begun when it was set at 1000. Set this way FC still said I had about 465GB free space on my scratch disk.

I’ve checked and all disks remain HFS+.

What do you think about trashing the preferences and starting over? I know I’ve had glitches before; so FC is capable of loosing its mind. For example, a couple of years ago Final Cut started aborting any clip I tried to capture if the time code was over 34 minutes. Nuts eh! For a while I’d have to copy this footage over to a new tape to give it a lower time code if I wanted to capture it. Then one day, not thinking about this, I captured some audio and realized its time code was in the forbidden post-34 minute range. That seemed to break the curse. I went back and tried to capture this whole clip audio and video and now it worked. Who knows what was happening in the machine.

Hopefully I’m in a situation like that right now. Something nutty has happened in the system. Hopefully I’ll manage to make some little change – deliberately or accidentally – that will snap the program back into order.

But for now, what do you think about trashing and regenerating preferences?

John

[John Whiteway]

Could I ask you for a clarification. In your message you say that the standard NVIDIA graphic card that comes with the MacPro will only support two monitors if they are Apple. (I will be using an old LaCie 19 inch Electron Blue III and a Samsung 24 inch Sync Master 245T – for economic reasons.) Further on you suggest the ATI card works better with colour. Are you also saying that this card would work with two non-Apple monitors?

Thanks.

John

[John Whiteway]

Hello.

Just wondering if you got the answer you wanted to your question? I’m kind of in the same situation. Essentially when it comes down to it, the issue is what processor(s) and what graphics card to choose. There was one opinion in the thread that said you should choose the ATI graphic card “for colour”. I wish the author of that opinion could have explained a little more about what he meant. It what way does the standard NVIDIA card not work well with colour? How will one suffer if he chooses the NVIDIA? As for processor speed, what I take from the thread of response to your question was that it depends on whether you are going to work with compressed or uncompressed HD. I wish the author of this opinion could have suggested the processor(s) he recommend for each. In my case I will be working with compressed.

I write this hoping that you might be able to tell me what you’ve concluded/purchased. I also write hoping that some of those who answered you might read this and be able to give me an answer to the questions I’ve just raised. I find I really have to depend a lot on these fora for advice. Maybe the Mac salesmen are smarter where you live. But right here I’ve been striking out on most of my questions.

Good luck.

John