fcp quits on capture

[Guest]

Hey guys, I just got my shiny new g5 and i'm considering getting a legal union with the machine, however...

As pretty as it is I've had a few problems with it: perhaps some of you guys could direct me to a thread or help me with this one.

First of all i'm capturing 24p"A" material with the digital squeeze mode. I have hour long chunks of a boring seminar that i'm mastering to DVD, so I'm capturing the entire tape (dont' worry I've unchecked the box: "limit capture to 30 minutes") When I start the tape I let it run for 10-15 seconds and then i hit "capture now" 5 of the 7 tapes have crashed the entire system. The problem I guess is a break in the timecode (since the beginning of tapes are prone to dropouts) but should this break in timecode crash a dual 2.5 cpu with 2 gigs of ram?

anyone else noticing this problem? or did I get a lemon?

thanks guys and gals!

 

[glassblowerscat]

Re: fcp quits on capture

Crashes the entire system, as in: you have to shut down? That's amazing.

I have had a "capture now" problem or so. Timecode breaks are the devil. If you're sure that's what it is, I'm not sure how to help you. But I've had problems with capture now that I solved just by actually logging the clip and capturing by timecode, which you should really do anyway, as it makes archiving and onlining easier if you ever need to return to or re-capture a project.

Other than that, try using iMovie to capture things with timecode breaks. It pays no attention; just keeps capturing whatever video comes through. There's also some kind of "ignore timecode breaks" option in FCP... I can't remember exactly where.

Good luck with that.

Ryan

 

[Scottdvx100]

Re: fcp quits on capture

Are you capturing to Firewire drives or to internal drive?
Capturing hour(s) or footage non-stop is just asking or trouble, especially with Firewire drives. Do you have plent of disk space? (needing 2G or more for system swap space)
Set the limit to 60 minutes if that's what you're capturing otherwise FCP may pre-allocate a lot more disk space.

 

[powerdog]

Re: fcp quits on capture

In addition to Scott's comment, if using FW drive, you need an 800 FW drive on a second, 800 FW bus. This means getting a drive like a Lacie Extreme, plus a card like the Sonnet Allegro. Using this stuff, I haven't had any crashes.

 

[Guest]

Re: fcp quits on capture

Thanks for the pointers guys,

after some frustration, i have finally loaded all 8 hours of video onto the machine. by the way i was capturing to a clean 250gb internal s-ata hard drive. So disk space wasn't a problem... Although when the system would crash and i would cry, I re-booted the computer and found a massive file (180 Gigabite) movie with the name that I gave the "capture now" clip.

I would have to throw that fake movie file away for the system to work properly, then re-re-boot and then cross my fingers again for another capture.

So, what have i learned from all of this? maybe using capture now with 24p Advanced settings within the first minute of the tape may not be such a good idea. Maybe my mistake will help someone else avoid this problem in their own editing adventures.