Someone please help me keep my sanity !

Green Dog

Green Dog

Active member
Long story so I apologize if I lose you guys along the way or if my question/problem seems like a simple fix to some of you with tons of experience. I'm at my wits end to solve this problem.. First let me say that I'm somewhat of a newbee to FC and video in general but I'm trying really hard to catch on. I've tried for 2 or 3 months to solve this problem but just can't figure it out. I had previously been using an older G5 tower but needed to upgrade to a faster system and didn't want to have a big tower sitting around any more. I purchased my iMac last November, a 2 GHz Intel Core Duo, 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM with a 320 gig internal drive, along with a ViewSonic monitor and a new version of Final Cut Express. I'm shooting on a DVX100A and it's mostly small doc's and some corporate work. All was good with the capturing as long as I had only the internal system drive but when I decided that I needed some extra space to keep footage on that's when the problems started. I purchased a WD My Book Studio Edition 1 terabite 400 & 800 firewire external HD to use as my scratch disk. Problem is because the iMac has two firewire ports that share the same bus I can't have the camera connected and the external drive connected at the same time. Ok, so I'll just unplug the external drive, switch the scratch disk to the internal and capture to the internal, then disconnect the capture device, remount the external HD and move the footage to the external... Make sense ??? I thought so even though it's a pain in the ass.. Was just a short term fix. Now the problem is this... Because I shoot the footage over a long period of time I capture as I go and I can't figure out how to get captured footage from one folder to another. Once the captured footage has been moved from the internal to the external drive I can't seem to get newly captured footage into the folder containing all the previously captured footage. I have 7 hours of footage that I captured a few weeks ago in a folder on the external drive but when I captured another 2 hours of footage to the internal drive FCE places it in a new project folder. I need it in the same folder with the previous footage but don't know FCE well enough to get that accomplished.. What I'd really like to do is be able to capture my footage and have it go directly to the scratch disk on the external drive. Unfortunately I've been told that this isn't possible with the type of external drive I currently have so I'm looking at purchasing another external drive (300-500gig G-Tech ?) that I can connect to the firewire 800 port on the computer and then connect the capture device to the new external drive for capturing and daisy chain the WD terabite in there for long term storage. I just need to figure out some way to get all my captured footage in the same folder and keep it on a larger external drive so that I can access it when needed for editing. Whew, sorry for the long story... I've spent hours researching, reading FCE manuals and searching the DVXuser site for some sort of answer. Anyone ????

Thanks,

Steve
 
Hi Steve,
I have a few comments that may help.

- WD is not a professional video / audio editing drive. I agree the G-tech would be a better choice. Editing puts a ton of strain on the drive. WD's were not desigened for that kind of constant data flow.

- When you open / create a project, always save it before capturing. The capture folder is named after the project's name. HDD/Final Cut Pro Documents/Capture Scratch/"untitled project 1" If you open a saved file, it will place all new capture data in the same saved file's Capture Scratch folder.

- I have had little success with daisy chaining. You will probably get dropped frames and may even find capturing impossible. FW is a chatty protocol and the more you hook together, the more bandwidth is taken up by talk between devices.

- If you have Master Tapes, than you probably do not need a whole lot of 'long term storage' as FCP (and I think FCE) will allow you to batch capture from an existing .fcp file.

Unfortunately, I am not sure what your best bet is for the problem at hand as the IMac does not offer a whole lot of upgrade ability. I'll think on this some more and post again if I can come up with anything.

Sincerely,
Jason
 
One more comment...Once you have all of your footage on the external, open you master file and reconnect the media to the footage in external HDD/Final Cut Pro Documents/Capture Scratch/"untitled project 1". (command+I)

In fact, you can create your own folder inside of the FCP Document's folder - external HDD/Final Cut Pro Documents/Capture Scratch/"AWESOME PROJECT" and move all of the footage from all of the other folders into that one. Then Import the files into a new project or existing project (Command+I)


J
 
Thanks Jason, I'm going to try your recommendations. Might try recapturing the last footage and see if I can save it to the folder on the external drive where all the other stuff's saved.

Steve


AwakenedFilms said:
One more comment...Once you have all of your footage on the external, open you master file and reconnect the media to the footage in external HDD/Final Cut Pro Documents/Capture Scratch/"untitled project 1". (command+I)

In fact, you can create your own folder inside of the FCP Document's folder - external HDD/Final Cut Pro Documents/Capture Scratch/"AWESOME PROJECT" and move all of the footage from all of the other folders into that one. Then Import the files into a new project or existing project (Command+I)


J
Click to expand...
 
Jason,

Just realized I don't think I can recapture the last footage and save to the folder in the external drive... The only way I can get FCE to recognized the capture device is by disconnecting the external HD as it and the capture device can't share the same firewire bus. So when the external drive is disconnected then the internal has to become the scratch disk and the external doesn't even show up on the computer.

I currently have all the footage on the external drive but because of the problem mentioned above the footage is in two different project folders. Can I follow your directions on reconnecting the media and get the new footage in the folder with the previously captured footage ?

Steve

AwakenedFilms said:
One more comment...Once you have all of your footage on the external, open you master file and reconnect the media to the footage in external HDD/Final Cut Pro Documents/Capture Scratch/"untitled project 1". (command+I)

In fact, you can create your own folder inside of the FCP Document's folder - external HDD/Final Cut Pro Documents/Capture Scratch/"AWESOME PROJECT" and move all of the footage from all of the other folders into that one. Then Import the files into a new project or existing project (Command+I)


J
Click to expand...
 
i get handed those wd drives by clients all the time. they seem to be the cheapest on the market and most commonly purchased by people who have no preference. with that said, while i am not a huge fan of wd, i have not had any problems editing hd from these drives. switching to a g-drive or whatever will probably not make a huge difference if any at all.

i would double check the format of your drives. i know wd's come pre-formatted as MS-DOS FAT. you should have them formatted to mac extended for best performance. i had a client leave one formatted as FAT and it gave him problems. he reformatted to mac and problem solved.

as far as plugging your cam in at the same time as your drives, no problem. just get a quality firewire hub and connect that way rather than daisy chaining. at the moment i have no less than 8 FW400 drives connected to my mac pro thru 2 hubs and 2 ports. running flawlessly. i also have 2 FW800 drives daisychained running perfectly.

so before you blow your wad on the popular brand of drive, fix your problem. wd drives are going to perform just fine, especially with SD.

in fact, chances are if you pop your imac open you will find a WD drive. apple has been using them for awhile. my new mac pro came with one installed.
 
Thanks for the info cheezweezl.... I appreciate it..

As for the WD drive, I tried to research which drive to get by searching through tons of info right here on DVXuser and found lots & lots of folks using these drives so when I was ready to order I called my wife's sales rep at Mac Mall (he's into video editing) and he recommended it as well. Now what I didn't know at the time is that the My Book Studio Edition HD really doesn't allow me to plug the capture device into it and capture footage using that drive as the scratch disk or at least that's what I've been told. The G-Drive supposedly will allow me to connect my capture device directly to the firewire port in that drive and capture using it as my scratch disk.

I just checked my WD external drive and it's formatted Mac OS Extended (journaled).

It's really frustrating to be so in the dark with this iMac... I've been trying to "fix the problem" for over two months now and I keep getting mixed information.. Some folks tell me,"I have an iMac with 4 external drives and I have no problem plugging my capture device into the firewire port." Other folks say,"because the iMac firewire ports share the same bus you can't have an external HD plugged into one port and the capture device into the other port." I've been told that if I get the G-Drive my problems will be solved and some have said I can't daisy chain while others have said they do it all the time. So if I seem a little confused, well I am..

Anyway, I'll try a hub to see if that fixes the problem.

Again, I do appreciate the info and advice, just a little frustrated with this crazy computer/external drive issue.

Steve

cheezweezl said:
i get handed those wd drives by clients all the time. they seem to be the cheapest on the market and most commonly purchased by people who have no preference. with that said, while i am not a huge fan of wd, i have not had any problems editing hd from these drives. switching to a g-drive or whatever will probably not make a huge difference if any at all.

i would double check the format of your drives. i know wd's come pre-formatted as MS-DOS FAT. you should have them formatted to mac extended for best performance. i had a client leave one formatted as FAT and it gave him problems. he reformatted to mac and problem solved.

as far as plugging your cam in at the same time as your drives, no problem. just get a quality firewire hub and connect that way rather than daisy chaining. at the moment i have no less than 8 FW400 drives connected to my mac pro thru 2 hubs and 2 ports. running flawlessly. i also have 2 FW800 drives daisychained running perfectly.

so before you blow your wad on the popular brand of drive, fix your problem. wd drives are going to perform just fine, especially with SD.

in fact, chances are if you pop your imac open you will find a WD drive. apple has been using them for awhile. my new mac pro came with one installed.
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Out of frustration and the fact that I can't get a firewire hub or cables locally I made an appointment with the Apple store in San Antonio for tomorrow morning to see if one of their "wizards" can determine what the firewire problems are but in the meantime I tried something that I didn't think would work.

I disconnected the external WD HD from the firewire 800 port in the back of the iMac, reconnected it to the iMac with the USB-2 cable in the USB-2 port, connected the capture device to the iMac with the firewire 400 cable in the firewire 400 port, changed my scratch disc to the external WD HD and opened Final Cut... Now, in the past when I've had the external HD connected to the firewire 800 port on the iMac and the capture device connected to the firewire 400 port on the iMac, Final Cut Express wouldn't recognize the capture device. Now it recognizes the capture device and actually captured the footage to the scratch disk on the external WD HD... I've looked at the footage expecting dropped frames but so far have found nothing wrong with the captured footage. This process worries me though as I've read USB-2 won't capture video or something to that effect so I'm still going to get a hub and new cables and may still take the thing in to the Apple store tomorrow.

Steve
 
Green Dog,

Lots of the mixed signals you are getting is because there are recommend ways of doing things and not recommend ways of doing things, but just because it's not recommend doesn't mean it won't work (it just means it might not work as well or as consistently). For example, capturing to a USB 2.0 isn't recommend, but that doesn't mean it won't work. Daisy-chaining your camera thru a FW400 drive isn't recommend but that doesn't mean it won't work. Unless something is malfunctioning I don't see why you can't have your external drive and your camera plugged in at the same time. All Macs, not just iMacs, just have one FW bus that's shared by all the built in FW ports.


-A
 
Hey Jason,

Thanks for your help man..... I'll be trying the things you recommended as soon as I get a hub and new cables. (tomorrow) Gonna let the Apple people look at the iMac to see if there's some sort of firewire port issue.

Thanks again..

Steve

AwakenedFilms said:
Steve - Happy troubleshooting and hope you find a solution soon.


J
Click to expand...
 
I'm sure my posts have sounded a little confused and maybe a little short but please know that it's all due to frustration... This issue with the firewire and external hard drives has been going on for nearly three months now and I'm trying everything that's being recommended, one at a time. So far nothing's really worked except for when I used the USB-2 cord and port. This however is not a permanent fix so I'll take the iMac and external HD to the Apple store to have them check the ports & bus tomorrow morning. Hopefully this will solve the problem and if not I'll try using a hub and new cables. I really appreciate all the recommendations and suggestions. You guys are all great sources of information.

Steve

adkimery said:
Green Dog,

Lots of the mixed signals you are getting is because there are recommend ways of doing things and not recommend ways of doing things, but just because it's not recommend doesn't mean it won't work (it just means it might not work as well or as consistently). For example, capturing to a USB 2.0 isn't recommend, but that doesn't mean it won't work. Daisy-chaining your camera thru a FW400 drive isn't recommend but that doesn't mean it won't work. Unless something is malfunctioning I don't see why you can't have your external drive and your camera plugged in at the same time. All Macs, not just iMacs, just have one FW bus that's shared by all the built in FW ports.


-A
Click to expand...
 
Might finally have this problem licked.... From what the Apple Store determined this morning, looks like it's a bad Firewire bus... The Firewire 800 port actually quit working while the Apple guys were testing it out. At first I think they thought I was nuts when I explained the problem I've been having but as they plugged and unplugged different external HD's and tried to get FC to find the capture device they finally realized it just wouldn't work. Sooooo, I hope to have the computer back in a couple of days with the problem resolved... I'll update everyone on the status when it's back in the office.

Thanks to everyone for all the help...

Steve


Green Dog said:
I'm sure my posts have sounded a little confused and maybe a little short but please know that it's all due to frustration... This issue with the firewire and external hard drives has been going on for nearly three months now and I'm trying everything that's being recommended, one at a time. So far nothing's really worked except for when I used the USB-2 cord and port. This however is not a permanent fix so I'll take the iMac and external HD to the Apple store to have them check the ports & bus tomorrow morning. Hopefully this will solve the problem and if not I'll try using a hub and new cables. I really appreciate all the recommendations and suggestions. You guys are all great sources of information.

Steve
Click to expand...
 
Problem FIXED.....

Problem FIXED.....

Ok guys,

My external HD and FCE problem is fixed... Long story and lots of different things done, both by me and by the Apple Store geeks, but what it finally came down to was using a firewire hub to fix the problem... Yup, after having the puter at the Apple Store and trying different cables, checking the ports and bus I decided to just try a hub and that fixed it... No more problems capturing to the external drive.

Thanks to all who advised and suggested possible fixes.

I'm a happy camper... Now if I could just figure out how to use FCE.... :cheesy:

Steve
 
Glad to hear it was not the drive that was the problem, as I have the exact same drive and it was the solution rather than the problem, after 3 other HD's did not cut it, both on an Imac and a Macbook Pro.
 
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