FCP 5.0.4 playback troubles on PB G4 Ti

Hello,

I have important video presentation coming up. I'm planning to use FCP 5.0.4 on my PB G4 Ti, 15 inches, 1Gig of SDRAM, OSX 10.4.6. Video & Audio out via Firewire Canopus ADVC110 connected to video monitor and PA.

During playback FCP randomly stops for a split second once in a while. Sort of stuttering effect. I have 70 min of videos with just one video track and 2 audio tracks in a sequence. Everything is rendered.

I tried to do basic troubleshooting but FCP still unpredictably stuttering. I even disable "Auto Save" function in preferences.

Any suggestions what may cause this stuttering glitch during FCP playback?

Thanks!



C-E-N-T-E-R ART PROJECT
Film, Videos, and Music
Web site: [c-e-n-t-e-r.com]

> During playback FCP randomly stops for a split second once in a while. Sort
> of stuttering effect

Sounds like dropped frames. What we need to know to diagnose:

1. Where are the clips on your system -- what kind of media drive? Check the drive's format.

2. Are the dropouts consistent? If you play the timeline three times, do the glitches appear at the same spots every time? If so, then you have those glitches on the clips themselves and you won't be able to solve this issue without recapturing the media.

3. What are your clip and sequence settings?

First, they shouldn't be clips. That's asking for troubles. Save the show(s) as Self Contained, Quicktime Movies and play those. I bet your problems go away.

If you don't have room for that on your hard drive, then that's really the problem. Clean off stuff from the hard drive until self contained movies fit.

If that doesn't work, see: Mok.

Koz

Thanks for suggestions.

1. Clips are located in the same folder on internal PB Ti drive.
2. Dropouts is inconsistent and happened once in a while around every 10 minutes or so in different places.
3. 1 video and 2 audio tracks DV-DVCPRO, 48Khz.



C-E-N-T-E-R ART PROJECT
Film, Videos, and Music
Web site: [c-e-n-t-e-r.com]

Koz,

Thanks for suggestions.
I need to use different clips and not just one large file because of last minute possible changes in clips order.



C-E-N-T-E-R ART PROJECT
Film, Videos, and Music
Web site: [c-e-n-t-e-r.com]

Try doing an audio mixdown. Render > Only > Mixdown. If you change anything afterwards, redo the mixdown.

Are the clips and render files on your system drive? That's a fast track to playback problems and system instability.

Before the presentation, export a full-quality QuickTime movie file and do the presentation from that. You won't regret it.

<<<Before the presentation, export a full-quality QuickTime movie file and do the presentation from that.>>>

See, I'm not making that up. It's nice that you have a billion clips and want to change them at a moment's notice, but if the clips are all over the hard drive, the machine will not be able to collect them into a final output fast enough for a glitch-free show.

Making the Canvas View happy is very, very different than playing the show out to a live television system.

There is an Apple site that has a lot of stuff on stuttering frames, but this is one I wrote:

[www.kozco.com]

Koz

You're dropping frames. Why? Your media is on the same drive as your OS. This is pushing the limits of FCP.

Try these things:

?Export a Reference Movie, reimport into a new timeline.
?Audio Mixdown
?Purchase a cardbus adapter and FireWire drive. Move all media to the FireWire drive.



Kevin Monahan
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Here it is. I don't know why I couldn't find it on a search of the Apple help system.....

[docs.info.apple.com]

Koz