[Khashyar Darvich]

I appreciate your feedback, Kevin.

Yes, my ntsc monitor is connected through the break out box of the Kona Le.

Yes, the sequence is an ntsc dv/dvpro format.

I haven’t had any dropped frames when capturing on my dv deck, and it is turned off when I am not capturing, so I don’t think that it would impact the dropped frame issue… It is the only firewire connection on the monitor, so I think that the firewire information passes through the monitor and is pretty clean. But, it may be a good idea to get a firewire card any, since I have 2 extra free pci slots.

Regarding the video tracks… I am not doing much visual layering, but I just can see the visual layered clips more easily if I place them in video layers… But, again, I will use L-Cuts if it is going to help.

I have used other software with the same visual track layering of clips (Media 100, AVID and Adobe Premiere), and I never had this same issue.

I feel that the G5 Quad should be able to handle this.

I just finished rendering EVERYTHING on the timeline (now I have 5 video layers- including many rendered subititles and titles- and 12 audio tracks), and after 5 minutes into the timeline I had dropped frames again.

By the way, I do have some mp3 music files that I imported as a temp track… Is that going to be a big problem? Do I need to burn a CD, and then reimport them as AIFF files?

Also, what are the avergae number of video layers that everyone tends to work with on a long project. Two to three? Sometimes 4? (Perhaps this is a good question for a seperate thread).

Khashyar

[Khashyar Darvich]

The hard drives are all about half full, so they shouldn’t be fragmented.

The audio mixdown will go quick? If that is the case, then there is no reason not to mix it down.

Khashyar

[Khashyar Darvich]

Thanks Jeremy,

Actually, not all of the rendered options were checked, so perhaps not everything was getting rendered, although I would always choose the “Render All – Both” option. this may have affected playback…

thanks for clarifying the audio mix down feature… I will certainly do that (and understand that it will not combine audio tracks and leaves them in tact)… But, my question is: since each audio track requires about 0.2 mb/sec of hard drive resources, why would there be a need to mix down audio tracks if your hard drive can handle 75 mb/sec? Pro Tools, for example, can manage 20+ audio tracks without a problem. I understand that video requires more hard drive streaming resources, but audio tracks are much smaller in file sizes than viedeo tracks are…

However, I will definitely try to mix down the audio tracks on my 2 hour timeline 🙂

I think that first, I will try to see if I keep dropping frames after I reduce the video tracks from 6 to 5 (I’m half-way finished with that), as well as render with all of the items checks.

I appreciate your feedback and thoughts,

Khashyar

[Khashyar Darvich]

Thanks, Shane.

The G-Raid drive is connect through a firewire 800 port.

Nothing is connected (or daisy-chained) to the G-Raid, although the firewire hub on the 30′ cinema screen is connected to the second G5 firewire port.

Connected to the monitor’s firewire hub is one Sony DSR-25 dv deck, although it is not on or being used when the dropped frames occur.

I read on the G-Tech website that the G-Raid (when connected via a firewire 800 port), “saturates the FireWire bus bandwidth and provides a minimum sustained data transfer rate of 75 MB/second.”

If a DV video track is about 4mb/sec, and an audio track about 0.2 mb/sec, then if I had 6 simultaneous video tracks (24 mb/sec) and 12 simultaneous audio tracks (2.4 mb/sec), then that would not come close to the 75 mb/sec that G-tech says the G-Raid can handle.

Khashyar

[Khashyar Darvich]

Hi Shane…

I see that the G-Raid specs state that it can work with 7 DV video streams…

However, at the time of the dropped frame, there were only 2 video tracks present on the timeline.

I know that audio tracks take fewer resources than video tracks, but I think that I will try to reduce the number of video tracks to 5 and see if this resolves the issue….

Khashyar

[Khashyar Darvich]

Thank you, Shane.

I am working with (mini)DV.

By streams, do you mean all video and aiduo tracks combined?

The reason why I like to work with several layers is so that I can layer clips build image sequences via layers.

If I have to limit the number of tracks I am using, then I might use more L-cuts in my edits so that I need fewer video tracks.

I appreciate your feedback,

Khashyar

[Khashyar Darvich]

Hi Jerry,

Thank you for your feedback.

So, you believe that a Quad G5 with 4.5 GB RAM would not be fast enough to handle 12 audio tracks and 6 video tracks?

At the time of the dropped frame, there were only 4 audio tracks (connected to the two video clips) at that point in the time line.

To mix down the audio tracks, can I change the “User Preferences” to lower the “Real-time Audio Mixing” setting to less than the default 8 tracks? My understanding is that tracks above the set number will be rendered.

Since I need to export all of the seperate audio files to be mixed in Pro Tools, I don’t want to mix down tracks right now.

Yes, all of my video and audio files are on the G-Raid (aside from some photos and music files, which are on a new secondary internal Hard Drive.

Thanks for helping me understand what the issue is.

Khashyar

[Khashyar Darvich]

Thanks for your feedback, Ty.

I just spoke with this other studio engineer friend of mine, and he mentioned to me that although ideally you want to have your average highs at tone (which is -12db’s on my FCP and digital camera meters), that an audio meter scale and the levels that you set depend on the RANGE of that audio meter scale.

For example, the audio meter on Final Cut Pro ranges from 0 to about -96. My engineer friend (not the same person who is working on my film) said that this means that zero is at about 96 db’s, and that an average reading of -24 to -30 db’s on a scale of 0 to -96 db’s is very acceptable. My friend mentioned that -30db (on a scale of 0 to -96) would be able 66 dbs, which is loud enough to increase the gain and not have artifact issues.

What are your thoughts about this?

Are audio levels relative based upon what the range of that scale is? Does -24/-30 on an audio meter scale of 0 to -96 sound like a good level?

Thanks,

Khashyar

[Khashyar Darvich]

Hi guys,

I appreciate very much your feedback and thougtful comments.

This ios helping me have a better understanding of optimum audio levels.

I just want to clarify a couple of things about the circumstance that I am referring to:

1) The narration recording that I am referring to took place at one of the top three recording studios in Los Angeles, with $10,000 to $15,000 mics (two micorphones), using ProTools.

2) the files were saved to my hard drive and to a DVD as Pro Tools .wav files, and I am checking levels after the files have been imported to Final Cut Pro, panned to one side, and checked on Final Cut Pro’s auio meter. (Is it psosible that Final Cut Pro is reading the level of the wav file at a different level than ProTools would?)

3) The average DB on the Final Cut Pro audio meter is from -24 to -30, with peaks at about -18db.

4) the recording studio had their own engineer working the HIGH end control board, and MY audio engineer was sitting with him during the recording. This is part of the reason that it baffles me that a mistake had been made on the levels (if a mistake truly was made).

5) A second audio guy who is working on this project with me laoded the files on ProTools, and the sound waves looked low there also, although the version of ProTools that he had did not show the exact Db level. This second engineer also did say that we could apply gain and the narration recording would sound great.

Here is exactly the point that our main audio engineer was making to me in a 45 minute conversation that we were having:

1) That as long as the audio “sounds” good to the ear (through headphones or through studio speakers), then that is the main judgment of whether audio levels are o.k. (and not a meter). He said that perhaps someone at an academic institution might recommend “going by the book,” and setting levels strictly by an audio meter, but that most audio engineers will go by how the audio sounds to them. (He did say, however, that the audio must NOT peak the meter, however.)

2) He said that with a very good mic and in a quiet setting, that it is possible to raise the gain of a DIGITAL audio signal with no hiss or artifacts. (Personally, this goes against what I have been taught, that you set audio levels to the higehst level possible without peaking– By the way, I like the two mono audio channel approach that was mentioned in this thread, with one channel being set slightly lower than the other).

3) He also said that during a sound mix of the film, that he will not be focused on mixing the audio at a certain level (except that it does not peak), and that during my final level output adjustment when the film is going to take is when I should set the final overall level so taht it does not go past zero.

Thanks again for your thoughts and feedback on this. I am also copying and pasting your comments to him (and the second audio guy) in an email so that they and I can have a good, definitive discussion about this.

Khashyar

[Khashyar Darvich]

Thank you very much for your feedback, thax..

Again, this is confirming what I had always thought to be true about the standard way of setting levels: set the levels as high as you can without peaking or going over “zero.”

My audio engineer also said that with digital recording, especially in a very quiet environment like a studio (and especially with very high end mics like the ones that we used to record the celebrity), that you can increase gain without any hiss or other artifacts.

Are you saying that if audio is recorded low (let’s say, with an average level between -30db and -24 db), that increasing the gain so that the average is -12 to -6 db WILL result in some artifacts or hiss, even if the gain is added through ProTools?

Thanks again for all of your feedback and thoughts on this,

Khashyar
Khashyar