C300: C300 Mark II clips converted to ProRes causing entire system crash

[Graham King]

I am shooting 1920x1080 at the 50Mbps codec. I convert to vanilla ProRes with Adobe Media encoder on OS X. 10.11.1.

There are certain clips that when I play them, the whole system freezes and the disk that the clip is on goes offline. It doesn't matter if I use QuickTime, FCP, or Premiere. And the spot in the clip is the exact same place every time. It's 100% repeatable.

When the playhead reaches that moment:

- the video freezes
- the audio continues playing for a few seconds
- the drive unmounts (and I get the warning from the os)
- the playback software has to be force quit
- finder has to be force quit but will not relaunch
- computer will not shutdown, have to hold the power button

All because of a ProRes file?! This is crazy! And it's killing me because it's happening on multiple projects. Any ideas on what I should do?

 

[Matt Turner]

First off I'd reconvert one of the files to a new file on another disk to make sure it's not the disk failing.
Unfortunately wildly unstable video software is normal, not the exception. Have you got the latest pro video codecs installed?

 

[Parrot]

This has happened to me a few times with multiple ProRes files from various sources. Best option (or only option) is, as Matt says, to re-convert the file.

 

[Graham King]

Thank you both for the note. It looks like it was in fact a disc problem. I was working on my trusty 8TB raid 5 scratch that been running 24/7 for 4 or 5 years now. Guess it's time to retire it.

I reimported the footage to a new scratch disc and all seems to be well again. And I dropped a few billz on a new 16TB scratch.