Stutter on pretty basic show

Hi -


I have a pretty basic show (short) that went through a few weird permutations to get here, and now is stuttering. Actually, worse than stuttering - it's playing one long frame per cut.

I think they shot it SD, but then did their main cut on an Avid Liquid. Then they re-digitized and re-assembled the whole show in FCP on another machine. Also output a QT as a ref.

The gave me the whole show on a relatively low tech external (a 500gig, fast USB WD My Book) with lots of headroom left.

I checked the clips & sequences - everything is 29.97, 720x480, DV/DVCPro NTSC, CCIR 601.

All my other shows (on FW & main drive) play fine. Recently did clean install /prior-to. He says his show played fine on another Mac tower.

What am I missing here? It seems so random, and I don't see anything obviously wrong...?

Thanks for reading!!

First things first: USB. Kaboom. Can't use it. Switch to a FireWire drive.


www.derekmok.com

Well, a not so wild guess (though this late at night for me, I hope I can write well enough to be clearly understood)...

Quote
Jewel
All my other shows (on FW & main drive) play fine. Recently did clean install /prior-to.

He says his show played fine on another Mac tower.

What am I missing here? It seems so random, and I don't see anything obviously wrong...?

USB drives (USB connections) are not good, at all, for use with video.

It's very likely that when the show played fine on another Mac that it was playing off of an internal (SATA) drive or a FireWire-based external drive.

The obvious thing is the USB drive connection. Of course, something else could be causing the issue.

FYI, those "My Book" enclosures are very crappy, i.e., cheaply made and with no cooling fan. Even the models with FireWire ports are crap.


-Dave

P.S. - Ah, I was too slow to respond... Derek beat me to the punch...

Exactly what I thought - but everyone keeps telling me that "fast USB" is different.

So - not different? Just want to make sure I wasn't going nuts. (Still might be, but maybe not re: USB.)

I used to get the G drives, but I heard they're less stable now, and that another brand of external is more stable - I'm thinking my client probably has funds for one 500gig external FW.

Some USB seem to manage ok enough but others just can't cope at all. I have a client who keeps buying WD USB passports to run individual projects off and a couple of them actually work fine. Several others stutter and slow and take ages to reference things.

Even when the casing and branding is exactly the same, some drives behave differently to others. I guess the internals are variable. How to tell if it's a useable one? Can't, until you plug it in and run it. I do not recommend USB drives for video.

> I used to get the G drives, but I heard they're less stable now

They are compared with five or six years ago. But still leagues above Western Digital.

> and that another brand of external is more stable - I'm thinking my client probably has funds
> for one 500gig external FW.

Seriously, Western Digital is the worst kind your client could have gotten. In my own experience, even Maxtors last longer. And FireWire drives are quite cheap now. Look at OWC:

[www.otherworldcomputing.com]

Or my mainstay, Promax:

[www.promax.com]

[www.promax.com]


www.derekmok.com

> everyone keeps telling me that "fast USB" is different.

Do those "everyones" edit on a regular basis? I don't know any experienced editor who would recommend a USB drive. Some of us might try to work with them if we had absolutely no choice, but we'd never say, save the $40 and get a USB-only drive.

Neither USB1 nor USB2 cuts the mustard often enough to be a sensible solution. Troubleshooting is about eliminating variables, and that's a big one.


www.derekmok.com