FCP Glitch ? Random and unexplainable frame rates?

doondoon

doondoon

Well-known member
Apparently there is something wrong with the way the newest Final Cut Pro reads the FRAMERATES P2 footage.

I just got off the phone with Panasonic Broadcast here in LA (I thought there was something wrong with my P2 cards).

Panasonic told me they've alerted Apple to the glitch and that Apple is supposedly working on fixing it.

Has anyone else experienced RANDOM FRAME RATE GLITCHES.
Basically, in FCP under "vid rate" some of my clips are 9fps, 12fps, 18fps. Now it wouldn't be such a big deal if I shot the footage this way, but I didn't. All the footage was shot 720p/n.

I'm consistently seeing framerates that are jumping all over the place!
The audio is fine and running at normal speeds.... but the footage isn't!


About 90% of the clips are normal (23.98fps) the other 10% are either speed up or slowed down.

I'm getting 9fps, 12fps, 4fps, ect...

This really really scares me!
 
Strange frame rate problem HVX

Strange frame rate problem HVX

I had the same problem when I was shooting a short film in November. We had to reshoot some stuff because of it. The problem would occur when i pulled the footage directly off the camera and ingested it into FCP without saving it to the hard drive first.

It has been recommended that you don't go directly into FCP. Transfer the footage and all the additional files within the folder to your hard drive and then ingest them into FCP. It is very important that you copy every file from the p2 cards, even the ones that are not video files because they contain information about the footage and allow you to ingest it into your NLE later. It is good practice to transfer to your hard drive, bring it into FCP and then check the frame rates before you format the card.

Good luck!
 
That's scary! Really Scary!
Yeah I always copy ALL files and I used the pcmcia on a macbook to external hd.
weird?
P2 isn't bulletproof.


aaabassett said:
I had the same problem when I was shooting a short film in November. We had to reshoot some stuff because of it. The problem would occur when i pulled the footage directly off the camera and ingested it into FCP without saving it to the hard drive first.

It has been recommended that you don't go directly into FCP. Transfer the footage and all the additional files within the folder to your hard drive and then ingest them into FCP. It is very important that you copy every file from the p2 cards, even the ones that are not video files because they contain information about the footage and allow you to ingest it into your NLE later. It is good practice to transfer to your hard drive, bring it into FCP and then check the frame rates before you format the card.

Good luck!
Click to expand...
 
aaabassett said:
It has been recommended that you don't go directly into FCP.
Click to expand...
I'll go a step further: I recommend that you don't go directly into a Mac. Not until they fix the problem.

Use a P2 Store, you should be fine.
Offload from the camera directly to a 1394 hard disk, it should be fine.
Offload from the camera directly to a USB 2.0 On-The-Go drive, it should be fine.
Offload the card directly to an external drive using a PC laptop, it'll be fine.

Offload directly from the card into a Mac? That's where unreliability can set it. Not for everyone, certainly. But when it happens, that's the scenario. So if you're having problems, you need to send feedback to Apple to describe what it is that you did and what didn't work. And then you need to find an alternative to offloading card contents from a card directly into a Mac.
 
Get a PC laptop, even a CHEAP one, P2 Genie, P2 Viewer, an external battery powered OTG drive and add DV Rack HD 2... that should be a required set-up for the HVX. Stop whining that you dont want to use a PC, think of it as a P2 Dump Station.

By the way, all of the above are available for LESS than a 60GB P2 Store. Format the HDD in Fat32 and VOILA... go edit in FCP. I have yet to have a single problem with this workflow, prolly gone thru 500 4GB P2 card tranfers and 30+ projects.




ash =o)
 
Barry_Green said:
Correction: macs using P2 aren't bulletproof. P2 copies perfectly fine on PCs every single time.
Click to expand...
I think the real problem lies in the OS and how it handles copying large files. In other words, the problem is not specific to P2. Since OSX is essentially warmed over 'Next' computer OS from 20 years ago--long before anyone dreamed of such large files--some of the workarounds patched into it have understandable drawbacks.
 
See, that's what I'm starting to think too. Prior to P2, were people routinely shoveling around 4GB files? To this degree? Probably not, and especially not on FAT32. And now that we're seeing people saying that it's happening in other circumstances, totally unrelated to P2, it starts to make more sense.

If I'm keeping track, this is now the third different company (outright or off-the-record) that is working with this issue who is pointing the finger at Apple's OS. It would be great if Apple would just look into it and see if there's something they need to fix. The idea of eliminating P2 from the list of suspects should make it much easier to find.
 
Barry_Green said:
See, that's what I'm starting to think too. Prior to P2, were people routinely shoveling around 4GB files? To this degree? Probably not, and especially not on FAT32.
Click to expand...


Just for the record - yes! At least a fair number of people. Certainly in transferring, say, DVD disc images to duplicators and such, many of us were very commonly copying 4GB files back and forth to FAT32 drives. Things like the Firestores have been in use for years, and people using them with Macs (many!) were copying these files routinely. Audio interchange, scientific data... never a problem like this.

Again, I'm not one to totally rule something out in general, but I think doubting Mac OS X's ability to copy large files in general is a bit much. I'm not saying P2 is the problem - but it's certainly related to the problem. Just... how?
 
Barry_Green said:
Correction: macs using P2 aren't bulletproof. P2 copies perfectly fine on PCs every single time.
Click to expand...

Barry, let's put this in perspective. I ingest a boatload of P2 clips into my Macs every week and have not seen this, or any of the other problems importing P2 clips that some others have reported.

Yes, I always transfer to a HD first or am ingesting from a P2 store. Zero problems on a variety of Macs... G5 dual 2.0... PB G4 17, and the new C2D MBP 17.

Let's start reporting the firmware versions in our cameras since I'm hearing the some people are having issues with some the same computers as ours, which would tend to remove the computers?
 
Barry_Green said:
I'll go a step further: I recommend that you don't go directly into a Mac. Not until they fix the problem.

Use a P2 Store, you should be fine.
Offload from the camera directly to a 1394 hard disk, it should be fine.
Offload from the camera directly to a USB 2.0 On-The-Go drive, it should be fine.
Offload the card directly to an external drive using a PC laptop, it'll be fine.

Offload directly from the card into a Mac? That's where unreliability can set it. Not for everyone, certainly. But when it happens, that's the scenario. So if you're having problems, you need to send feedback to Apple to describe what it is that you did and what didn't work. And then you need to find an alternative to offloading card contents from a card directly into a Mac.
Click to expand...

I'm waiting for someone to point out the obvious: why would you not go to a HD first before ingesting. I think loading from the camera and then clearing the cards without a HD copy is scarier than what this thread is reporting. Kind of reminds me of the guy that was only keeping the QT files and erasing the MXF files... not a good idea.
 
Dan Montgomery said:
I think the real problem lies in the OS and how it handles copying large files. In other words, the problem is not specific to P2. Since OSX is essentially warmed over 'Next' computer OS from 20 years ago--long before anyone dreamed of such large files--some of the workarounds patched into it have understandable drawbacks.
Click to expand...

This is fuzzy logic... the current OS X bears little resemblance to the Next OS.
 
Barry_Green said:
See, that's what I'm starting to think too. Prior to P2, were people routinely shoveling around 4GB files? To this degree? Probably not, and especially not on FAT32. And now that we're seeing people saying that it's happening in other circumstances, totally unrelated to P2, it starts to make more sense.

If I'm keeping track, this is now the third different company (outright or off-the-record) that is working with this issue who is pointing the finger at Apple's OS. It would be great if Apple would just look into it and see if there's something they need to fix. The idea of eliminating P2 from the list of suspects should make it much easier to find.
Click to expand...

Barry,

Yes we were. I've been all NLE since 1994. Long before the advent of P2 I was doing everything in uncompressed 10 bit, so a 4GB file on our Macs was actually pretty small. I think everyone is forgetting that it was PC's that had the file size limits... not the Macs. Macs have always has an advantage in that area. I was playing full frame video on Mac laptops long before we could get it to work under Windows. Hell, each week I play lots of full frame HD in Keynote. We're still getting disappointments trying that in PC PowerPoint...
 
A fellow board member, Zoostory called me on Saturday experiencing this very problem. It was the first I'd heard of it. Now that it seems to be popping up, I'll try to get together with him to troubleshoot the problem. Can anyone that has experienced this please post the following details to this thread...
  • P2 Card Size
  • Camera Model (PAL / NTSC)
  • Machine Type
  • OS Version
  • FCP Version (especially if you are experiencing this issue only after the recent update)
  • Archive Drive File System, Bus Type, and Manufacturer
  • Capture Scratch Drive File System, Bus Type, and Manufacturer
  • Method of mounting the P2 Card (Cardbus Slot, FW from Camera, P2 Store as Card Reader, P2 Store as transfer drive etc.)
  • Shooting Mode, Resolution and Frame Rate as set at the camera
  • Any workflow software involved (p2 Genie, p2Log etc.)
  • And finally, can you play the bad clip back in the camera and what frame rate does the camera think the file is.
 
Dan Montgomery said:
Since OSX is essentially warmed over 'Next' computer OS from 20 years ago...
Click to expand...
Nothing could be further from the truth. OS X is UNIX, Next wasn't, the two have nothing in common.

5.1.3, problem solved.
 
filmstox said:
A fellow board member, Zoostory called me on Saturday experiencing this very problem. It was the first I'd heard of it. Now that it seems to be popping up, I'll try to get together with him to troubleshoot the problem. Can anyone that has experienced this please post the following details to this thread...
Click to expand...

I just shot all day yesterday in 24pN and brought all the clips in. They all say 23.98 in the frame rate column. I transfered the cards to the P2 Store, then copied them to the disk array on the G5 Dual 2.0, using the finder.

I have four other projects on the disk array that were shot over the last 6 months, most of which we used a PB G4 to transfer the cards from the CardBus slot to some external drives, and then copied those to the disk array using the finder. They all correctly show 23.98.

Tonight, I'll try using the camera to transfer the footage and see if that changes anything. Can you tell us what their workflow was?
 
Mitch_Ives said:
So has 5.1.3 solved all your P2 import issues?
Click to expand...
It sure has. Filled up an FS-100 twice this week and not a single problem. Well, there is ONE problem now. When I go to the drop down menu to turn on or off the pulldown removal, I get the spinning lollypop of death. But then I realized I had about a kazillion clips highlighted. Not that it makes any difference, but, there you have it.
 
Mitch_Ives said:
Can you tell us what their workflow was?
Click to expand...

I will double check and try to have Zoostory join in this thread but I think they were on a MacBook loading 8g cards through the P2 store as a card reader. These were backed up to a G-Raid FW HDD and a Seagate USB HDD. Footage as then imported on set to FCP 5.1.3.
 
filmstox said:
I will double check and try to have Zoostory join in this thread but I think they were on a MacBook loading 8g cards through the P2 store as a card reader. These were backed up to a G-Raid FW HDD and a Seagate USB HDD. Footage as then imported on set to FCP 5.1.3.
Click to expand...

FWIW, G-Raid's were known to have some issues with G5's... there may have been issues with other Macs as well...
 
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