weird FCP problem, any ideas?

N

nakris

Member
I'm having strange distortion show up in my FCP project. Kind of looks like a capture problem, BUT I doubt that for the following reasons. 1. it's on ALL the footage at random intervals. 2. it's on footage that was previously problem-free (in other words, I captured a couple of weeks ago, worked with the footage a while, then these problems started showing up across all footage).

here's a link to a video sample:
http://homepage.mac.com/nakris/CD/iMovieTheater21.html

or see the jpg attached, though it only begins to give you an idea of the problem.

I don't even know how to describe this intelligently.

I'm using FCP 5.1.4
OSX 10.4.9
17" Powerbook G4 1.67, 1.5 GB ram
Capturing from a DVX100B using the DV-NTSC 24p (23.98) Advanced Pulldown setup in FCP.
Capturing to a 200 GB Seagate drive installed in a FW800 case (formated Mac OS Extended).

Again, the first bits of footage I captured were fine. I grabbed a tape or two and started putting together a rough edit. Then stopped for a week or so, went back to capturing (10 more tapes) and these problems were everywhere.

When I started my second round of capturing, I began by trying the demo of Live Capture Plus 2.x(beta). So at this point, I thought the problem was only within this app. I deleted the 2.xbeta version, wen't back to the 1.0.5 version, but no change.

I abandoned Live Capture (which I do not belive caused the problem), then found that all my footage was suffering from the same problem, even the first stuff I'd captured. I then suspected that Live Capture had somehow corrupted something (quicktime, perhaps). But, it wasn't even a package installer, just a drag and drop app.

So, now I'm wondering if OSX, quicktime, or FCP is freaky. I believe all have been updated recently, and I've accepted all new updates. The only thing there is that I'm sure the net would be swarming with people having the same problem I'm having, and I don't see that happening.

I've tried deleting quicktime prefs, FCP prefs, and re-installing each. No luck.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

TIA,
Nathan
 

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Could be the updates are putting more strain on your CPU. I use the same Powerbook with 2Gigs of RAM, and capturing is damned near imopssible. I had to get a PCMCIA Firewire card to plug my camera into, and run the hard drive off the built-in Firewire port.

Thing is, your camera and hard drive are having to share the bandwidth of one single Firewire data buss. It's usually to much for one FW buss to handle.

A Firewire card in your card slot uses a seperate data buss, so you can capture just fine that way.

Have you tried playing the captured clips in QuickTime Player?
 
Just to confirm, the FW400 and FW800 are on the same bus (my external HD is FW800)? That kinda stinks.

I have tried playing the clips in the QT player and they look the same.

I'm going to reinstall FCP and capture some new footage w/o upgrading.
 
Update: So I tried reinstalling FCP (my install disc is 5.1) and capturing w/o upgrading (to 5.1.4). Same problem, though seemingly less of them. Probably should be written off as anecdotal evidence - I only tried a few clips and didn't compare them to their "twin" captured clips from 5.1.4.

Next I tried moving the whole operation over to my desktop, which still runs FCP 4.5 . I captured a whole tape w/o a glitch. So I guess that at least rules out the camera and tape as the problems.

And, at least it gives me a way to get this footage captured.
 
Most likely it's your bus speed. Try capturing directly to the internal hard drive.

Noah
 
There was nothing wrong, you wasted time reinstalling, like Noah and I both agree, you can't really capture reliabley with an external drive on a portable Mac without the PCMCIA Firewire card.
 
That's odd because I have never experienced a problem capturing on the same bus. I did buy a PCMCIA Firewire card because I had problems going out to tape but I haven't seen the problem coming in from tape.
 
Depends on how much your capturing, format, etc. I've seen Powerbooks capture one week, flake out the next. It's "unreliable", not totally undoable.

The images look like typical, text book symtoms of the internal Firewire Buss being overloaded with too much data.
 
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To me, those artifacts look like one of two things. 1.) Bad/dirty heads on the deck. 2.) Loose FireWire connection. To check for these things, I'd hook your deck/camera up to a TV and watch a tape to see if you notice anything. Then swap out your FW cable and make sure the plugs fit snugly and don't wiggle around and do a test capture.

However, your statement that the artifacts now appear on footage captured earlier is throwing me. Did you watch this captured footage before and was it fine then?
 
Thanks for the replies, everyone.
I haven't had a chance to try Noah's suggestion of capturing to the internal drive, because I'm capturing to my desktop now, hurrying to make up for lost time. I will try that and report back.

AmyO - the footage all looks fine playing from the camera out to a TV. And yes, that bit of footage I captured first looked fine for several days as I tinkered with it, then, when the artifacts started showing up on the new footage, I looked at the old footage and it was there, too. That's what's throwing me, too.

That's also why I risked the potentially wasted time in re-installing, to eliminate
variables. I'm at the beginning of this project, and I'd like to know that I'm on solid ground at this point before moving on.

Again, thanks for all the help and suggestions, and I'll post back if anything new develops.
 
BenB is correct, I meant desktop computer, as opposed to the laptop. I have a G5 dual 2.5 w/FCP 4.5. Did a test caputure there (to an internal drive) w/o issues.

However, my next step was to connect the external FW800 I'd been using with the laptop to the desktop. Captured again, and the problems re-appeared. Seemed to confirm the FW bandwidth theory. When I connected the external to the desktop, I used a different FW cable, so by process of elimination, all elements of the chain have been ruled out as the source of the problem except the FW bus(es (laptop and desktop), and the hard drive itself.

So I tried a different external hard drive, and the problem went away completely. So, either my drive or enclosure seems to have issues.
 
The drive is a seagate barracuda 7200.7, 200 GB SATA. It was empty at the start of capture.

The enclosure is an Icydock U6.

That's the one with issues.

The one that worked flawlessly is an OWC enclosure, seagate 400GB IDE (can't remember the model #). About 40GB of free space.
 
I never heard of Icydock. I always use OWC or G-Tech. Although my 2 LaCie's are a year old and functioning just fine.
 
I'd never heard of icydock, either, but it was recommended by macgurus.com (who used to have quite the reputation back in the SCSI days (and may still, I don't know)). Plus, I'm a fan of the mobil rack design, and icydock has one of the few available in FW800.

Thanks again to everyone for helping to diagnosis this.
 
Emailed macgurus and got a very prompt and polite response that they have had another report of the same problem. Appartenly only affects video (meaning the enclosure has no trouble with other types of data) and is related to the FW800 bus in the enclosure. They're working with the manufacturer on a solution.
 
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