Issues with XDCam 720p footage in Final Cut.

Has anyone had any issues using XDCam 720p footage in Final Cut? One of my clients has recently started using this format, and we are experiencing some odd drop frame issues. They have about 10 Final Cut work stations. The rooms range from dual proc G5's at the low end to 12 core Intel monsters at the high end. All have various Kona cards, a mix of Kona 2's, LHe and LHi's. Storage is Editshare over gigE, CalDigit RAID's and Huge SCSI systems. The PPC's are using Leopard and Final Cut 6, the Intels Snow Leopard and FCP 7.

The issues is that with this one codec, XDCAM EX at 720p60, all machines suffer from drop frames. The big fast ones have an occasional drop infrequently, the older slower machines are pretty much unusable. If you uncheck drop frame warnings the video will freeze while the audio continues on. The fast machines will unfreeze, but the AV sync will be out till you stop and start playback again. The older systems just stay frozen until a stop/start cycle.

I have seen a few mentions of this on various forums, but no clear resolutions. A call to AJA tech support, while pleasant, didn't yield any insight.

Any of you experiencing anything similar?

Thanks-
-Vance

Convert the footage to ProRes. Use the MEDIA MANAGER to retain the metadata like timecode and reel number. Try one shot to see how it works.

Personally I haven't had issues with this format...but I converted to ProRes anyway. Less stress on the computer.


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Shane-

Thanks for the reply. Three of us have spent the better part of the last three days trying to isolate this problem, and as of the moment it seems unique to this combination of hardware and software:

A dual core G5 Mac running OSX 10.5.6, FCP 6.0.6 with Quicktime 7.0.9. The machines (3 of them) have Kona II cards and are connected to Editshare storage.

XDCam EX footage at 720p60 displays the problem. 1080i, 1080 30p, 720 30p, 720 24p are all fine. Oh, and SOMETIMES DVCPro HD 720p 60 acts up. With just that one format the Kona output and the UI will freeze after playing for 3 to 5 seconds. Now here comes the truly weird bit. If you wiggle the mouse or tap the keyboard the playback resumes. Stop the input from the mouse or keyboard, and it freezes.

On of my colleagues found a hint on the web that reducing frame rate in the RT settings to half stops the freezes. Playout using print to video is perfect.

I suspect that this is a for real bug, but lets face it none of those parts, either hardware or software, are ever going to see another engineer. So till we can take those systems out onto the loading dock and execute them we will have to live with the half rate playback.

-Vance

Wiggling the mouse helps? Just a stab in the dark, but is something going to sleep? What are your energy saving settings?

Jude, when we accidentally discovered the problem we all had the same "ah HAH" thought that you did and checked the energy saver and screen saver sections. No joy there. But I have to say it caused the three of us to freak out a bit.

Shane, as for transcoding to Prores, while this is probably the best thing to do, the projects that they have cued up for this format are multicam shoots with a switched master and 5 isos. None of us have the guts to tell the producers and editors they will have to factor in days of transcode time. We sort of need this to work native.