Dropped Frames/Stuttering with HM100 footage

Hi,

I'm new to this forum, first time posting so I apologize if I don't post this in the correct way,

but I purchased a GY-HM100u from JVC about a month ago, and have since started shooting my next feature on it (1080 24p .MOV format) the footage plays back great in the Quicktime program, but on the FCP timeline it stutter, and gives me a dropped frames warning. I've tried unchecking the "report dropped frames" box as some of the websites I've visited has suggested, however the media is too choppy to efficiently work with. I did an out-of-the-box test the day I got it, and from what I recall, the footage played back smoothly.

I'm on OSX 10.4.11
4 GB Ram
FCP 6.0.4
the sequence settings are set to what final cut set it to when I dropped the first shot into the timeline:
1920x1080
square pixels
23.98 fps
XDCAM EX 1080 24p (35mbps) codec

Any help would be awesome! I was told you guys are the best for these questions!
thanks,
Jory Federighi, www.fedfilm.com

Where is the media stored, how full is the drive and how fast is the connection and what machine are you running off?



www.strypesinpost.com

the media is stored on a terabyte external HD, there is still 250 gig remaining, it's a USB 2.0
I'm not sure if I know what you mean when you ask "what machine I'm running off?" Final cut is running through the internal hard drive. 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Try moving one clip over to your internal hard drive and see if you still get dropped frames.



www.strypesinpost.com

No change, still the same choppiness, Thanks for the advice thus far! I really appreciate it!

In FCP, what is your timeline set to? Is the render bar orange/green/red? or is it grey?



www.strypesinpost.com

Note that to edit footage from Panasonic's ProHD cameras without transcoding, your timeline needs to be set to HDV, not XDCAM. ProHD is just Panasonic's marketing term for HDV.

If you're transcoding everything to XDCAM on purpose, then you'll want to render everything. I'm quite confident you won't get real-time playback otherwise.

The timeline has no render bars, grey. and what do you mean what is my timeline set to?
I apologize, I've been working with FCP for a few years now, but I'm not quite the master yet.
HM100 .mov footage should be working seamlessly with FCP should it not?

This is a JVC GY-HM100u, which I believe shoots in an XDCAM EX codec? to my knowledge, my timeline is set up properly.

Oh, heck if I know. I did a little googling, and Panasonic seems infuriatingly tight-lipped about just what they're recording on that little camera. Their marketing fluff all declares that it's "native Final Cut Pro!" but that, of course, is not a meaningful collection of words. The only technical stuff I found says it's 35 megabit full-raster MPEG-2, which is reminiscent of XDCAM, but who knows.

Panasonic, what happened? You guys used to be cool.

Anyway, if you're getting dropped frames, then either your disks or your CPUs are too slow. If you really did just pull those files right off the camera and drop them into a timeline, then they're insanely compressed, and your computer simply may not be up to decoding and playing them back in real time.

Are Panasonic and JVC the same thing? I mean that sincerely, I may not know. but this is a JVC HM100u

And no, I'm copying my files to my external hard drive, and THEN moving them into FCP, just has the company itself instructs, and several video tutorials I've watched. It works perfectly with 720p footage, but 1080 is giving me a hard time.

>HM100 .mov footage should be working seamlessly with FCP should it not?

It depends on what you mean by "seamlessly". I hate cutting long GOP, it feels like cutting off a USB drive.

>This is a JVC GY-HM100u, which I believe shoots in an XDCAM EX codec?

To be honest, I haven't a clue. When it came out, someone mentioned HDV, then there are mentions of Mpeg2 (which is basically both HDV and XDCAM EX), but the bitrate is 35 and 19 and 19 isn't XDCAM EX.



www.strypesinpost.com

Quote

Are Panasonic and JVC the same thing?

Oh, dammit. I'm sorry, it's been a long day and my brain's not fully working. Every time I said "Panasonic" here, please substitute "JVC." Cause that's totally what I meant, even though I repeatedly failed to type it.

And to give you a blunt answer to your question: You're never going to get seamless interaction with GOP-compressed footage. It's simply not possible with existing computers. Maybe if our computers were ten times faster, it'd be impossible to tell the difference between GOP-, I-frame and uncompressed. But we're not there yet.

Here's a quick rundown of my workflow, if it helps:

And yes, it is an XDCAM codec, 35mbps, I've quadrouple checked.

I copy the Quicktime files off the camera's SDHC card, onto the external hard drive. drag the copied files into the FCP bin, and down to the timeline, which prompts me to change the sequence settings to match the media, which I do. The media appears on the timeline with no apparent problems, no render required. (A workflow that works beautifully with 720p footage) but then it's drops frames on playback with 1080 footage, very choppy.

Then yup. Sounds like you're asking your edit system to do more than it's capable of doing. It's either your drives or your CPUs, I bet.

I hope my workflow rundown post explains my meaning of "seamlessly", I apologize! and It's okay, long days will do that to ya!

They were.

Quote
http://wapedia.mobi/en/JVC
and since 1953, JVC has been owned by Matsushita (Panasonic Co.), who held a majority stake in the company until August 2007.

I haven't tried cutting long GOP on your machine, but long GOP formats tend to be more taxing on the CPU. But let's go through the usual troubleshooting procedures:

- Make sure you have at least 20% drive space free (ignore the USB drive for now)
- trash FCP preferences
- Run the AJA speed test on your machine to see if it's a drive throughput issue



www.strypesinpost.com

20 % free drive space on the media drive? or my internal?
and consider the preference files trashed. no luck there. =/
pardon my incredibly novice questions here but, how to I perform the AJA test?

Quote
http://broadcastengineering.com/products/hm100-hm700-0210/
When FCP is installed, its MPEG-2 codec supports the reading of MOV files by other OS X applications, including Cinema Tools, Final Cut Express and iMovie 09 ? plus the import, with transcoding to DN?HD, by Avid's Media Composer.

Macs, without FCP installed, require the addition of an XDCAM EX decoder, either the free Perian XDCAM component or XD Decode from Calibrated Software. Once installed, MOV files can be read by Adobe applications.

To be honest, I'm confused myself. 35Mb/s is XDCAM EX. 19 MB/s isn't. When it came out, I read somewhere and someone mentioned HDV, then along the lines, Mpeg2 and XDCAM was mentioned, along with marketing fluff. Full raster 1080 at 35Mb/s is suspiciously XDCAM EX.



www.strypesinpost.com

system test.

[www.aja.com]



www.strypesinpost.com

Oh god no, my worst fears are confirmed, we're all confused. I'm shooting in 35 mbps, and the camera doesn't have a 19 mbps option I just checked.

still no reasons why this isn't playing back properly... my, my, the frustration!

Well, that's the confusing thing about the whole mess. Originally JVC (see, I got the name right this time) was selling the "ProHD" name as a particular flavor of HDV. If I remember right, it was 720p24 ? totally standard HDV variant ? and their ProHD cameras included non-format-related things like XLR jacks and stuff. It was literally nothing more than a brand name for their particular trim level of HDV cameras.

But now, according to my brief googling, they're trying to sell this other 35 Mbps MPEG-2 format as "ProHD" as well ? only it may or may not be XDCAM under the hood. I really haven't the foggiest idea what's up with that.

Quote

still no reasons why this isn't playing back properly

Well ? all due respect, it's totally obvious why it's not playing back properly. Final Cut has told you why it's not playing back properly. Either your disks or your CPUs are too slow. Since you're dealing with an extremely low-data-rate format, it's almost certainly your CPUs.

Just what kind of edit system do you have there, anyway?

2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
4 GB Ram
and OSX 10.4.11
(is this the info you're looking for?)

from a grasshopper to a dojo master.. what's the remedy?

Holy cats. Yeah, that's on the very edge of the low end.

Remedy? Buy a new Mac? Ow. Ow. Stop hitting me.

Transcode everything to ProRes.

Haha, someday, but I'm not made of the green stuff!

and okay I'll give it a try

ProRes brought me no fortune... should I throw in the towel? and just start shooting everything 720 p ?

Well, I'm sure you did a lot of exhaustive workflow testing in those three minutes ?

Haha, well I've been at this for three weeks, I've tried many many a workflow testing... but I suppose after you've tried your hardest.. keep trying!

the tough thing is that I'm right in the middle of a feature, and I'd really like to not have to start shooting everything 720... again, I'll keep trying!

By transcode, do you mean change the sequence settings?

That'll work, though you'll have to render everything. Make sure your render cache is on your framestore, not your system disk, but I'm sure you knew that already.

Yes, that I knew, thank you! and when I switched to ProRes in sequence settings I only got a pale green render bar, not the red one? which means the full render, obviously.. Oh dear... final Cut was such a simpler place without you, JVC..