scrambled screen

ok my fcp station has some self esteem issues.
When I am printing to tape, the first 40 minutes or so are fine, then suddenly the NTSC monitor gets all pixelated and scrambled. You can still hear the audio. The image on the computer monitor looks fine, the timeline doesn't pause. It happens at different times (40 minutes in, 60 minutes in etc) and it happens with all projects.


the image below (link) is not mine, but it's a perfect example of what it looks like.

[farm1.static.flickr.com]


FCPStudio6
G5 Dual2.5
OSX.5

Alex Rodriguez - Arod

"when injustice becomes law, rebellion becomes duty"

Render everything and do an Audio Mixdown, and use Edit to Tape instead. If that doesn't work, export the timeline to a full-quality self-contained movie file first and do the export that way. Also, make sure there aren't any Energy Saver or Sleep options turned on, and no unnecessary FireWire or USB peripherals.


www.derekmok.com

Hi Mok -
I don't think that exporting a self contained will help with this particular issue. I am not have a dropped frames or freeze issue - but I'll still do it (the show is 1H 45mins) ouch!

I always render everything before print to video, I've also tried just playing the Timeline and the same thing happens -

energy saver options are set to "never" as usual
there are no other FW or USB components connected
there is an external drive connected via SATA to an internal SeriTek SATA card that has external connectors out the back - this has always worked flawlessly.
I will still do the export self contained and see

-----phok!!!!! deadline!!!!! urrgtgggggg!!! - ok now i feel a little better :-/

plus - exporting a self contain is going around the problem not fixing it

Please don't call people by just their last names. It sounds awfully rude even if you're not meaning to. It's like a drill sergeant spitting out the names of new recruits.

> I don't think that exporting a self contained will help with this particular issue.
> plus - exporting a self contain is going around the problem not fixing it

Have you tried yet? You might want to wait until you've actually applied our suggestions before dismissing them.

Troubleshooting is a step-by-step process. If the above method works, for example, then a) you've got your show on tape, and b) you've ruled out corrupt media, because corrupt media would cause the exported movie file to be damaged as well.

There are other things to narrow down the issue (eg. dumping FCP preferences, trying to output another project to tape to see if it's a project issue, dumping render files to rule out render-file corruption, disconnecting media in case it's a clip-media connection issue, recapturing in case the original file is damaged), but all of them take much more time commitment to do, and you always work backwards from the least disruptive method.


www.derekmok.com

haha - that's what I'm used to at work because there's like 3 people with the same name- didn't mean to offend you-

I didn't dismiss the suggestions. I will export to tape to finish this project, so right now I don't mind going around the problem.

here's what I've done so far

-trash prefs
-tried different projects - this tells me it's not a file corruption issue since the problem is consistant in other projects with different media
I will post other things i will try later -

I have a feeling it's a hardware issue. After I quit FCP and try to relaunch it gets really really slow (5 minutes to launch) and the OS in general is sluggish.

thanks Derek for the help - if you have any other ideas keep them coming

> After I quit FCP and try to relaunch it gets really really slow (5 minutes to launch) and the OS in
> general is sluggish.

That tells you something. Is any drive connected to the system (regardless of whether it's being used for the edit) filling up beyond 90 per cent? That's a big no-no.


www.derekmok.com

all 4 drives (two in the G5) two external have lots of head room ( at least 60gb free)

60GB out of...?


www.derekmok.com

60GB on a 500GB hard drive is starting to get dangerous. If you get below 50GB you'll risk the drive failing. System slow downs, things hiccuping, bad playback - these are all signs.

>After I quit FCP and try to relaunch it gets really really slow (5 minutes to launch) and
>the OS in general is sluggish.

What stuff are you running in the background, how much RAM do you have? What version of FCP/OS/QT are you running? Any other funky signs that things aren't as they seem (eg. beach balling, system freezes, system hangs)?

Also, could it be deck related? what type of deck is it? is the tape head dirty, have you tried swapping tapes?



www.strypesinpost.com

ok this is what I have

macHD: capacity 250GB 57Free
ExternlDriv1 750 171
ExternlDriv2 720 230

I had a third drive that was 250GB and only 37GB free, but the problem persists.

I left the computer on overnight just sitting there no Apps running or anything and the thing is just overall slow, hangy and takes a while to launch any app.

Deck: the G5 is connected to a camera via FW which is connected to a DVD recorder via RCA - this set up has worked for 4 years without issues.

4GB of ram
FCP6.0.4
OSx.5.4 (latest everything - QT-FCP-OS)

beach balling like crazy, system freezes

System freezes, you say... do a quick check through the crash logs to see if anything is amiss.

Anything on daisychain? Any USB devices? Depending on how neat you are with installing softwares, plug-ins and stuff, you may be looking towards a fresh reinstallation of the OS.



www.strypesinpost.com

OK -

here is the fix - I changed the camera (using as deck for last 3 years without issues) that was connected to the G5 to the front FireWire port and that seem to have fixed it.

how can I test a FW port to see if it's bad?
what could have caused this?

thanks

Thats a weird fix. One would have to assume the FW port in the back is bad. I believe the port in the front is FW400 only and the back is FW800/400

But thanks for telling us the cure

Michael Horton
-------------------

ok, didn't really fix it....I don't see the scrambled screen anymore, now I get dropped frames, audio glitches and my ntsc monitor goes black for a second then comes back.

I am about to do a clean install os OSX and FCP S2 - Even though I just updated to OSX.5 about 5 months ago....(not a clean install, but an update install) - is there a big difference between the clean install and the update install?

also, could it be the camera, even though it's a "dumb device just transporting data through FireWire.

any ideas before I spend the rest of the night Installing all this software

> is there a big difference between the clean install and the update install?

Can't really remember which I did. I thought when you order a new OS, they'll swap the discs for you? But rewiping the boot drive (with a back up) every half a year to a year or so is a very good practice.



www.strypesinpost.com