FCP pretends to digitize, but no files are recorded to disk

I'm having this problem repeatedly:

I'm digitizing HDV via the Sony HDV deck in to a G5 Quad using the most current release of FCP. I'm just using Capture Now to ingest all the media. I name the reel and the description, and hit play and capture now, and the separate window pops up and it goes through all the motions like it's digitizing - but when it's done, there are no clips in the bin and no files have been saved to disk.

I usually just restart, run disk utility, trash FCP prefs, and the problem doesn't recur for a few days. As a possible side note, I have not been able to boot this computer from my DiskWarrior disk...

I've got about 4Tb of footage to digitize in the next month and I've lost several days worth of time to this (usually not noticing the files aren't there until a day's worth of tapes are in.)

Has anyone had an experience like this? Anyone know of a fix?

<<<the problem doesn't recur for a few days.>>>

You left out some really important parts.

Are you planning on putting many T-Bytes of work on an internal drive?

Didn't think so. That means you probably have many FireWire drives chained together to get the storage high enough. That--or any similar setup--may not work too well for capture or play back.

You seem to have an unstable system. Typically, unless the machine is actually broken, it's a problem with things connected to the machine.

Can you perform a clean start from the OSX install CD? Can you do a Disk Check and Repair Permissions and do they both succeed?

Do you have a drive connected anywhere which is over 90% full?

If you're using FireWire for capture *and* you have FireWire drives, one of them should be on its own FireWire card added to the Mac. All the FireWire connections on a Mac are really the same and are wired to one chipset. You should not be doing video service on two or more native connections at the same time or conflicts could occur.

Koz

Thanks for the response - here's some more details:

We are digitizing to 6 or so Firewire drives. Several of the drives are indeed overfull because our new drives haven't arrived yet - so that may certainly be the problem.

I was actually thinking about wiping the computer and reinstalling everything.

-I'll follow up once I've tried this.

-AH

Before you do that.. What happens when using Capture Now is that FCP thinks you are setting up to capture the entire tape and thus thinks you need X amount of space to do that. If you don't have the space then you may get the results you are getting currently. In other words, you may need more hard drives.

Michael Horton
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There's 400Gb free on the drive we're digitizing to... when it runs out of space, it tends to just abort capturing the current clip - the fact that it actually says "capturing" while it's not seems to indicate a bigger issue.

-AH

<<<I was actually thinking about wiping the computer and reinstalling everything. >>>

If that makes you feel better--but it won't help.

OSX is a UNIX type operating system. UNIX doesn't know what a hard drive is. It thinks all hard drives are extensions of memory. Having a full or damaged disk is the same as dripping acid onto one of the memory sticks in the motherboard.

Any full drive connected to the system under any circumstances will cause trouble.

You need empty drives and a FireWire card to separate the drives from the tape machine.

You can put in more than one card to help with multiple drives. Daisy-Chaining is Not Cool in live video.

Koz

You check the settings on the deck? iLink turned off? You trashed preferences and tried again?

Michael Horton
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I'm going to presume that the problem is just that the drives are overfull. Everything else about the setup has served me fine over 2 years and 3 major projects. I'll post if the problem comes up again after I've cleared out space.

-AH