Dropouts when printing to video from FCP

R

rumigirl

Member
I'm trying to print a 58-minute FCP 5.0.4 project to tape. The project is on an external hard drive attached to my dual-processor 2.7Ghz G5. The tape is in my Sony DSR-30 deck, which apparently can only record in DVCAM mode (newbie alert -- can't understand her own deck!). I can't use standard 60-minute miniDV tapes, because the accelerated DVCAM tape speed makes the deck think it's "done" at 40 minutes (is that right?)

Anyway, I have now tried three times to print to DVCAM tapes, and I keep getting a dropped frame error. The errors have occurred within roughly the same 15-minute period about 45 minutes into the project. I printed to:

-- a brand-new 64-minute Sony PDV-64N DVCAM tape
-- a recorded-upon-once-before 124-minute Sony PDV-124N DVCAM tape
-- the 124-minute DVCAM tape with all the "extra" sequences closed and the real-time audio mixing limit dropped to 6 tracks (from 8) and the "limit real-time video" setting dropped from 22 mb/s to 18 mb/s (which resulted in the dropped frame error occurring sooner, not later in the print-to-tape process -- I think I went in the wrong direction with that setting -- if it has any bearing on this issue at all!!!!!).

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong, or what the possible problems might be? And if I ever DO get FCP to record the whole project on this one 124-minute tape, should I just throw the tape out and start over, anyway, because I've recorded on it too much already (even if I'm just archiving on this tape)?

Oh, and you guys are gods among mortals. (Does flattery expedite problem-solving?)
 
Dropped frames on output more than likely means your computer can't keep up in streaming the data out.
Does it playback (not print to tape) without problems?
Is everything pre-rendered?
Do you have enough storage space to put the movie clisp onto your internal drive(s)?
An external FireWire drive technically isn't recommened by Apple. You're inputing and outputing through an internal single firewire path. If the clips are all over a slow hard drive then it may not be able to playback the edted stream in rela time.
Consider rendering out to a QT movie and then making a new sequence with just the movie. That way there's no mixing, rendering or hard drive jumping.
 
Verrrrrry interesting.... Thanks for the response. More info/questions: I DO have some playback problems sometimes (but they're at a workable level -- is there such a thing? or are dropped frame errors during playback always a baaaaad sign?). I just now tried playing the part of the sequence where the dropouts seemed to be occurring, and I got some dropouts. Twice they occurred in almost the exact same spot, but the third time there was no dropout in that spot; it's inconsistent. (And one time, I saw the Grey Pixels of Death on my production monitor, and then FCP "recovered" and kept playing the sequence without actually giving me an error.)

This video, although long, has very few separate clips in it -- maybe 4 altogether. (It's a taped local access TV show; I just made the intro, fixed audio levels, made a bump, and did the credits).

The drive is a Maxtor 7200 rpm drive -- not fast enough?

I think everything is pre-rendered. Oops, no it wasn't. Is now (Render All does it?)

Is this the way you would make a sequence with a QT movie: Export to QT movie -- import the QT movie file (?) -- and then print to video?

Many thanks, Scott!
 
It's not your mac... but dust in Sony DSR-30 deck... try to playback a head cleaning cassette... I had the same problem with my vx2100e on avid....
 
Scott, you saved my life.... I thought everything was rendered, but it wasn't -- and this last print-to-video procedure was a success!!!!

Puts me in a dancin' mood....

Vincent P, love the heart in your Red camera icon thing... I will do as you advise. I've only recently come to understand how bad it is to mix tape types in a deck -- and I've been doing that (although not a lot) -- so I needed to clean the heads anyway -- and now I have twice as much incentive to do that as I did half an hour ago..... Thank you!!!!!!
 
vincent_price said:
It's not your mac... but dust in Sony DSR-30 deck... try to playback a head cleaning cassette... I had the same problem with my vx2100e on avid....
Click to expand...
Update: VP, I think you're right about the dust... My one dropout-free print-to-video operation was a fluke. I tried it again, just to make sure everything was okay (and to print to a less tired DVCAM tape), and I got an error again. So then I created a QuickTime version of the video on my system drive (not on an external drive), imported it back into Final Cut, and tried to print the QT file to video, and I got another dropped frame error.

The heads in the deck must need cleaning... But I'm grateful for all of Scott's advice, because I learned a ton by following it. Thanks to you both.
 
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