Capture Problems

I'm working wiht Hi-8 video (no time code) that is a little scratchy in spots - hits in the tape, etc. Trying to capture thru an AJA I/O as uncontrollable device, but I get still frames, jerky video, etc. Any way to "bypass" the controls and just shove it in there? I know it's not great video, but this project will take what it can get, and it really wants to get this. Running FCP 4 on a G4. Thanks for any suggestion you can gibe.



Ken Warren

Opps - I discovered an anomaly (?) I was trying to use an external drive (brought from another machine) for my capture scratch disk, which was where the jerkiness was happening. I changed to an internal drive, and the capture went just fine. Do I need to re-configure the external drive? Why does that happen?



Ken Warren

Were you trying to use a USB drive? You can't use USB for video editing -- data rate can't keep up. Is the drive properly formatted? What's the drive speed? You need 7200rpm just for DV. What capture settings are you using, what codec at what quality?

Wel, it's connected to the G4 with a USB cable. It's a LaCie 240G drive that usually is connected to our I-Mac, and captures with firewire just fine there. I moved it to the G4 for the extra storage capacity, and it didn't like the non-time-code video. I don't know about speeds and such - I can say that I haven't changed any default settings.



Ken Warren

Nope, can't use the USB cable. Switch it out for a FireWire cable. USB sends data in packets, so you won't be able to playback video files properly -- it won't keep up.

Everytime I try to open my log and capture, Final Cut shuts down... why? I've tried both ways to open it, the menu and open apple+8...

> Everytime I try to open my log and capture, Final Cut shuts down... why?
> I've tried both ways to open it, the menu and open apple+8...

Do you have the capture device on as you launch Final Cut? This will help. What are your Scratch Disk settings? What peripheral devices do you have hooked up to the computer? Finally, if all hardware appears to be in order, dump preferences and restart.