FCP cant do anything without locking up

This particular program that is. I'm using FCPHD , and before I posted about the problems I was having while doing NOW capture. It would always lock up and just sit there. Then we figured out that Batch Capture solved the problem and would capture video. Fast Forward 3 weeks later and now the Batch Capture is freezing up on every video clip saying it has dropped frames. And I know that is not accurate, because every single tape in my office can not have dropped frames on them.

Is there a way to tell FCP to continue capturing , and playing, through dropped frames? If the computer is having a seizure and thinking it has dropped frames on everything it sees, I might as well tell it to capture the dropped frames (if possible that is).

Thanks for any solutions
Adam

have you tried changing your firewire cable? i had this problem once and that was an issue.

another this is to deactivate ANYTHING "norton" in your apple system prefs - that will kill capturing in no - time flat!

tell us about your machine configuration -
are you capturing to your system drive?
how much space do ou have on scratch disk?

Thanks for the reply. Just a quick side note, I was not meaning to bash FCP or Mac . . I was just wanting to bash this particular Mac and kick it out the window As I dream about doing with most computers. I know FCP is awesome because my co worker also uses it, which is why I am so frustrated with my computer and why it hick ups so much.

Here is the specs on the computer I am working on:
Machine Model: Power Mac G5
CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 2.5 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1.5 GB
Bus Speed: 1.25 GHz
FCPHD 4.5

And it's sort of cool how you mentioned the fire wire. I was skeptical of that idea at first when my vendor and co worker suggested. To me it felt like they were reacing for any reason they could think of, no matter how simple it sounded. But this just reconfirms that possiblity. I was directed to a site with a fire wire called Unibrain at [unibrain.com] Has anybody else here worked with those?

I forgot to add that I am capturing to my extenal media drives that still have 176 gigs left of space. And the freeze up issues were also happening when I was capturing to the internal drive with 159 gigs of space still left on them.

Adam
PS
I trashed my prefs and FCP User Data . . and started capturing with a Canon Gl1, the same footage that was stopping due to dropped frames on the JVC GY 300U . . but now it's capturing (Batch capturing that is) just fine using the Cannon GL1. Not sure why.

<<<extenal media drives>>>
<<<capturing to the internal drive>>>

That's two places you shouldn't be capturing to.

How many media drives do you have? If the number is over one, that's too many.

You probably shouldn't be capturing to the System Drive either.

In order of bestness:

A *second* large fast internal drive.
External SCSI Drives.
One FireWire 800 drive
One FireWire 400 drive
The System Drive.

Never capture to daisy chained FireWire drives.

Koz

man, shine that! ive been capturing to 2 and 3 daisychained FW400 drives for 4 plus years and ive NEVER had a ANY problems - at all...

and ive run all kinds of boxes g3 g4 g5 powerbook TIbook ALbook, os's 9.2 through 10.3.9...

the ONE CONSTANT in all of these systems has been PROMAX firewire400 drives. i've used over a dozen of them and never had a single issue - and by all accounts here, most think it shouldnt even work...

with thiis kind of repeated success, there is NO WAY that its just luck

go here:
[promax.com]
i have three of these stacked on my desk right now. cheap fast and reliable

- i'll shut up now.

<<<ONE CONSTANT>>>

Oh, I bet there's more than one. I bet you also pay attention to the condition and health of the drives, how full they are, and are careful to erase them between shows.

If you fail to do those things, chained drives will kill you faster than doing anything else. Instabilities and poor performance is cumulative on chained drives.

Koz

embarrassingly koz, not really... ha ha! i do have a VERY ridgid folder structure and dont just toss files left and right though - that may help

i use them until theyre full then shelve them. (or just use them for small one-off jobs) ive never once repaired a permission, used disk warrior, or erased one.

never had the need.

i'm certian that if more folks used these drives we'd hear a LOT less complaining...

I think this is more about "capture now" I've had the same problem and have no problems with batch capture, I read somewhere that the fix is to limit the size of the capture scratch??? never tried it

Limiting the size of the capture scratch has not helped here. I've tried 30 minutes, to 15 minutes to 5 minutes and it freezes up every time on the "NOW" capture.

Adam

No I'm capturing to the right drives . . it's an external SCSI drive set up by the Mac guy who came out and set everything up. I'm still tinkering with it, thanks for all the feedback.

Adam