[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

One of the traps in adding text to video is you cannot make QUALITY EVALUATIONS based on the Canvas window on the computer screen.
If you do, you can end up making the wrong creative/corrective decisions.

You need to view the FCP output on an external video monitor (NTSC or PAL, depending on where you are) to check motion and/or quality of a FCP image or graphic DURING the edit (this is how FCP is designed).

The better the quality of the monitor, the better you can judge the levels, color and resolution of the edit… but in a pinch ANY outboard monitor will show you how the actual motion will appear and relative sharpness of the image you’re working with.

This is a must for making these evaluations on any project that will be output to tape or DVD.

As to specifics of titles on a DV timeline:

https://www.creativecow.net/articles/hodgetts_philip/titles/index.html

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/perfect_titles_phil.html

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

In addition to (or because of) a full hard drive…

There is a function in FCP that is often overlooked… and it can help with many audio and video “skipping”, “sticking” and “missing” problems.

You should “Mixdown” the Audio for playback before you dub out of FCP, or during the edit, if you have audio/video stuttering, drop-outs or freezes.

NOTE: Mixdown has even been demonstrated to help with slipping, skipping problems (or “missing” audio clips) for files being EXPORTED as QT (or similar) files out of FCP.

First, SELECT ALL of your audio tracks (highlight them) on the timeline, then:

Sequence Menu > Render Only > Mixdown.

You should see a dialog box telling you its rendering.

It might seem to make little sense that “Mixing down” even simple audio tracks will “fix” complex video “freezes” or random audio dropouts to tape or export, but it CAN.

NOTE: It does not matter of you only have one audio track, if there are random freezes during output, you should try the Mixdown.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

There is a function in FCP that is often overlooked… and it can help with many audio and video “skipping”, “sticking” and “missing” problems.

You should “Mixdown” the Audio for playback before you dub out of FCP, or during the edit, if you have audio/video stuttering, drop-outs or freezes.

NOTE: Mixdown has even been demonstrated to help with slipping, skipping problems (or “missing” audio clips) for files being EXPORTED as QT (or similar) files out of FCP.

First, SELECT ALL of your audio tracks (highlight them) on the timeline, then:

Sequence Menu > Render Only > Mixdown.

You should see a dialog box telling you its rendering.

It might seem to make little sense that “Mixing down” even simple audio tracks will “fix” complex video “freezes” or random audio dropouts to tape or export, but it CAN.

NOTE: It does not matter of you only have one audio track, if there are random freezes during output, you should try the Mixdown.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301852

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[boroc7] “Seriously…I’m so grateful. Spent more than week on this, and now it’s working. Thanks for the help that you all provide; it saves time, money, and stress.”

Glad you got it working, but if you had simply mentioned that this started after you upgraded to FCP5, it would have been the FIRST reply (certainly from me).

I even checked your profile at the time of thye post and no mention of FCP 5.

I foolishly thought that you surely would have mentioned a detail like an upgrade in the question.

A reminder that there is good reason to be very specific and complete when posting a question.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

Camcorder on, set to VCR mode
FireWire connected to camcorder and Mac
No other FireWire device connected to Mac (except for FW Hard Drives)
FCP Capture preset to DV NTSC

Check for bad FW cable or a bad camcorder FW connection by hooking your DV camcorder to another (borrowed) DV camcorder and see if your camcorder “shows up” on the other camcorder.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Andy Mees] “4) i have no idea, but here instead is my favourite joke …”

A pair of jumper-cables walk into a bar.
The bartenders says, “Hey, we don’t serve jumper cables in here.”
The jumper cables say, “We’re just thirsty, we won’t start anything.”

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

You say you’re using your camera to monitor output, and that’s probably the most common entry-level way to do it (thousands of FCP users do).
But, as Bret posted, to use your “good” camera as a “deck” for feeding in from and outputting to tape is lots of unnecessary wear to the camera’s mechanical components (I would not worry a bit about using your camera for monitoring purposes… no physical wear in that.)

A deck is the next-most-common device to use for these purposes, and is very practical in a small system.
The Sony DSR11 seems to be the deck-of-choice due to its low price (around $1600 USD), rugged reliability, the ability to play/record DV and DVCAM on mini and full-size tapes without an adapter, and in PAL or NTSC.

But, if that’s too much of an investment for now, here’s a very-low-cost compromise:
I have had GREAT luck buying used miniDV “home video” camcorders and using them as spare “decks” and A-to-D-to-A video/audio converter “boxes”. I have bought MANY of these little gems at local PawnShops for UNDER $175 each (some for $99). The transfer quality in and out matches a deck, and the video/audio output (they all have S-Video outs) monitors great!
AND… If you choose a SONY or PANASONIC camcorder (except for the earliest-built versions of the Sony VX1000), those two brands will ALSO will playback perfectly any DVCAM-recorded mini DV tapes as well as DV SP and DV LP (yikes!).

OTOH, there are many DV converter “black-boxes” available Just Google “DV input bridge” (many posters on the COW caution to “stay away” from the “Dazzle Hollywood Bridge” models).
That said, even the cheapest of these transcoders usually cost more than my “cheerful-cheapy” home video camcorder solution (and then you’d still need to connect a “deck” of some sort for in/out of DV footage.)

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

Does not sound good.

One thing to try is to remove the “backup” Battery and replace it with a new one.
(Its a CR2025.)

Open the LCD and inside on the CAMERA BODY you’ll see the small door covering the battery (about the size of a US Quarter).

See page 138 in the CL2 manual.

I would unplug the camcorder from the AC supply, remove the (standard) camcorder battery pack, and then pull out this “Backup” battery
and leave the camera without ANY power for about 10 minutes.

Then put in a fresh CR2025, connect the AC supply and see if your GL2 wakes up “fresh” again.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Arty] “so i everytime there’s a problem try a mixdown…will that eat up render space ?”

A. If the mixdown cures the problem, it should not pop up again on that timeline very quickly.

B. Its an AUDIO render so it is very small.