too much...

Hello,
I am a new fcp user (i have fcp studio 2 academic). Trying to figure this all out.

I used a canon hg10 set to "hxp" (15 mb/s) to record 20 minutes of video...
After attempting to log & transfer the entire clip a few times with no success, I was able to get it onto my hard drive (iomega 500 GB USB) in 5 small chunks.

My Problem: frames are dropping & I now see that I used a much higher setting (hxp) than was necessary.

My Question: is there a way to "shrink" the video after capture so it can be edited more easily?
I really just need to put it on the web.

sequence settings say:
Frame Size: 1920 x 1080 HDTV 1080i (16:9)
pixel aspect ratio: HD(1440/10080)
Compressor: Apple ProRes 422

I'll be glad to provide any other info if necessary.
Thank you.
rw

What are the system specs and You can not use USB drives to capture to.

i'm on a macbook pro 2.6 Ghz intel core 2 duo
4 GB 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM

i was able to capture to the iomega via USB- should i get a new external HD with firwire?

thanks.

Check the data on using USB drives in the FAQ Wiki. There is good information about the problems using USB connected drives and drives not formatted for MacOS X.

Personally, I use an Express 34 card and two SATA external drives in a case for capture and editing chores on my MacBook Pro 2.33 Ghz. I have learned not to trust Firewire drives all that much. (again, a personal observation)

What John said-- and that EXpress34 solution is really neat, especially if you're shooting on a Sony EX which uses exactly that card footprint.

You have two issues- the pipe and the the drive format.

Check the data for your hard drive in Disk Utility-- it shows up at the bottom of the window when you select the drive.

The drive might be formatted FAT32-- for Windows/Dos, which limits file size to 2GB. This might be why "small chunks" seem to work, dunno.

If so, reformat the drive (it erases ALL existing data, so archive as needed to another drive) as MacOS HFS Extended.

The other issue is the USB pipe. USB in any flavor is a packet-driven protocol which doesn't support streaming time-based media very well. That's why FireWire was invented, along with the earlier SDI, and other pipes like SATA, Fiber Channel, UltraWide SCSI, etc.

You may need a FireWire drive or SATA drive for best effect. I use FireWire for almost all DV/DVCAM work, and SATA RAID for anything richer.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:

Apply your default audio transition instantly
with Command-Option - T !

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Now available at KeyGuide Central.
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Thank you all for responding.
I have a lot to learn I see.

One thing- Loren I don't see the disk utility "at the bottom of the window" that you refer to.
(to be clear, I selected the external drive in the finder, and at bottom it says "8 items, 393.89 GB available"

EDIT: i have found the disk utility, and it is indeed formatted MS DOS Fat 32.
Time for a new drive after reading the FAQ!

Again, thank you.

Ray Woishek

> I have found the disk utility, and it is indeed formatted MS DOS Fat 32.
> Time for a new drive after reading the FAQ!

Hold up. First check the drive to see if it has a FireWire port -- many drives have more than one kind of interface. If it does, then simply use Disk Utility to reformat the drive to Mac OS Extended. No need to buy another one if that's the case.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks derekmok,
unfortunately, no firewire port... should have read the forums first!
rw

USB is no good for sustained transfer rates needed for video. you need at the very least FW400 (DV) and FW800 for larger pixel aspect ratios (DVCPro-HD 720p, etc).

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

It is possible to squeeze DV through USB, but not adviseable, and you stand a very good chance for dropping frames.

The limit for FAT32 is 4 gigs. It's quite an old format and NTFS was created PCs to handle files larger than 4 gigs. But you're on a Mac and HFS+ (mac os extended) is what we use.



www.strypesinpost.com

Thank you all for your help with this issue.
I ended up purchasing a G-technologies "G drive Q, 1TB" which uses firewire 800. It did not work out of the box as advertised, but after sending it back and waiting, waiting, it has been returned and works wonderfully.
Thanks again.
RW

Great. Just double check that the drive is formatted to OS extended (HFS+). You can check that by selecting the drive icon and pressing apple I. If it isn't, format it to OS extended with disk utilities.



www.strypesinpost.com