Dropouts on my footage

[rightfrog]

Going through my footage from my short film and there seems to be a lot of little dropouts on the screen...

Anyone have a similar problem? I don't have my camera with me to put the original MXF files back on a card to try them on the camera, but is it an issue with FCP or am I screwed?

[monolith]

This may or may not go to your issue - I've just been chatting with a mate who I shot for, and he was concerned that the timecode was skipping. Of course, the thing was that we shot 24PN and the timecode still reflects the 60 fps sampling rate prior to pulldown - so while the numbers don't line up, the footage is juicy uninterrupted 24P(N).

But YOUR issue is that the actual footage skips, right Rightfrog? Jumpy movements, missing frames, general heartache of the highest order?

If so, I've yet to have these sorts of issues in FCP with any type of footage.

[rightfrog]

I'm actually talking about digital hits on the video, little random green and blue blocks on the footage...the timecode is fine and the frames aren't jumping, it's just little hits on the video.

[monolith]

Ohohohohoh - right, sorry.

In fact, I'm reeeeeally sorry cuz I can't help ya. It's beyond my ken.

[Barry_Green]

That is completely not right. There's something wrong with your transfer/FCP process. Play the footage back from the card -- dropouts are impossible (well, maybe I should say "virtually impossible"?) on P2, so there's something haywire going on when you're transferring it or something...

[rightfrog]

Yeah, when I get home I'll retransfer the footage and let you know if that works...

[therealslimfigge]

My editor complained about dropouts in my footage once. Then we discovered that it was her deck, and not the footage.

[rightfrog]

My editor complained about dropouts in my footage once. Then we discovered that it was her deck, and not the footage.

This is footage from the P2 card coming straight into FCP...there's no deck...no tape...

[soarprod]

Which is why there should be no dropouts - someone a few weeks back had a smiliar problem and it ended up being something weard in FCP.

[rightfrog]

Yeah, I'm hoping it something in FCP and not something with the files...ugh.

[filmstox]

I have had the same drop outs, little green blocks scattered through the frame in FCP on a few clips. It seems to happen when the data flow from your hard drive is not quite up to the task. Since putting the footage on a SATA Raid instead of a firewire drive, the problem has gone away. Occasionally I will still see the green blocks for a second after hitting play on a timeline, but this is trying to play back 720@24pn footage on a 800mhz G4 that isn't even supposed to be able to run FCP 5.0.4. The blocks are an artifact of the playback and are not embedded in the footage. When I render out the quicktime for DVD the footage is perfect.

If the trouble was on import, the green blocks will be part of the footage. You should be able to scrub through the clips frame by frame and find the block on a single frame consistantly, indicating that the information on those pixels at that frame are missing or corrupt. I've found that when scrubbing frame by frame the blocks dissappear entirely since the computer can easily keep up with a slow sequence of stills. This way I know it is happening in FCP and is not in the footage itself.

Sorry for the long winded post, hope it helps...

-filmstox

[rightfrog]

Hmm...well, that sounds okay...but I'm running everything off of a 7200 RPM Firewire 800 drive on to a Dual 2.7Ghz G5...that should be plenty...

[jasper]

I had the same problem. I only had one dropout, but I talked to a guy from panasonic and he said it was an importing problem, not the card. I deleted the media file, within the Avid MediaFiles folder and re-imported it. The dropout was still there. I opened a new project and imported the file fresh and it came in fine.