Edit to Tape Craziness!

Not sure where to start on this but spent the entire day yesterday trying to roll-off a 30 minute show to tape with constant crashes. The entire project was built as an 8-bit uncompressed 4:2:2 project yet when I went to edit to tape it told me that some of the media was not formatted properly or something like that and I needed to nest the sequence into another new sequence. Well I copied the sequence into a new time line and gave it another shot. Got about 7 minutes in and it crashed out telling me there were dropped frames and a few other issues which I can't remember at the moment. Message said to also close some sequences and check my drive speed. Tried again and still crashed at about the same time. A colleague of mine recommended I create a quicktime movie of the 30 minute show and re-import into FCP. This caused the same crash, same messages. What I than did was copy the quicktime movie I created from my Raid 5 storage system to my system hard drive. This worked fine for one roll-off, crashed during the credits on the next one but I was able insert edit the end of the show and on the last 30 minute roll-off it crashed at the start but when I tried it again it worked all the way through. I'm lost as to what is going on but need to figure this out quickly. I'm sure I left out a bunch of important info so fire away and help me figure this out please!!! System is a MacPRo 2x3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon/8GB RM running 10.6.2, FCP 6. Storage is an 8.0TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 eSATA. I've been able to play the 30 minute show without any problems until it's time to edit to tape.

Unfortunately, Final Cut Pro gave you bad advice. Nesting doesn't decrease the load to the system; it increases the load.

Is the QuickTime movie of the whole show self-contained? If not, make it so and try again.

If it already is, then you probably have something else wrong with your system. How full are your drives? 8TB is a lot, but if you've already filled it to 7.8TB full, then you'll have problems just like what you're seeing now.

You also need to list your FCP Audio/Video Settings, plus the settings you used in your timeline and the QuickTime export.


www.derekmok.com

Yes it was a self-contained QT, uncompressed 8-bit export.

A/V Settings are,

Sequence Preset: Uncompressed 8-bit NTSC 48 kHz
Capture Preset: AJA Io; YPbPr Betacam 8-bit NYSC US 48 kHz
Device Control: AJA Io RS-422 NTSC
Video Playback: ProIO-NTSC US Component YPbPr Betacam 525 - 8-bit 422 (720x486)
Audio Playback: ProIO Out

Timeline Settings,

Compressor: Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2
Pixel Aspect: NTSC CCIR 601

Hope I covered everything.

Make sure you have the latest drivers for the AJA IO. If everything works fine when you play, but NOT when you edit to tape, that seems to point at the AJA. Uninstall the drivers, install the latest (if you have the latest, reinstall them, they might have gotten corrupt).

Then try.

I concur that Nesting was bad advice. Exporting a self contained QT file is a good way, but you shouldn't have to do that.


www.shanerosseditor.com

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Thanks guys. I'll give the drivers a shot. I do have the latest ones installed but you never know. I agree as well, I shouldn't have to do make a movie to lay the show to tape. Here's the kicker, I just got word that the show needs to revised already before going to air! I love spending15 hours trying to do something simple only to find out it was for naught!

Come to think of it I did have some problems with my AJA Io over the past two days. On one occasion the colors were way off almost as if a cable was disconnected and yesterday I look over at my NTSC monitor and there isn't a signal present. Both were resolved with a restart of the AJA Io. Man this could really blow.

I have an AJA IO as you and twice I have had serious problems with it that were solved by reinstalling the IO drivers. They can become corrupted for no apparent reason.

So strip the IO stuff all out and reinstall.

I used the AJA uninstaller program today and reinstalled the AJA Io drivers. I noticed after restarting FCP that a lot of AJA settings were gone from the previous set-up. A lot of settings I would never use, especially the Japan settings. I'll test it on Monday when I have to roll the show to tape again. Stay tuned!!!!

Well reinstalling the drivers didn't help. The tech guy over at OWC told me to try connecting using the FW800 connections instead but I still keep getting the same crash during playback now as well as edit to tape. I'm lost. How do you post error messages here?

Just wanted to update what's been going on. I was sent a replacement unit, it worked great for one day and than I was back to the same crashing issues the following day. I recently discovered that my black burst generator maybe craping out on me, still need to test it BUT could that be what's making the Qx2 failing?