FCP Dropping Frames at DVinfo.net

Nick Royer · December 9th, 2007, 10:53 AM

I shoot with an XL2 and import onto FCP, with the scratch disk being an eSATA Hard Drive. When I send it directly to the hard drive it drops a frame about every ten minutes and stops importing. If I go directly to the internal hard drive, it does not have this problem.

Can I set FCP to send the data to the Hard Drive and to ignore dropped frames? Also, will this affect the video quality significantly?

Edward Carlson · December 9th, 2007, 11:19 AM

There is an option to ignore dropped frames while importing. Go to Final Cut Pro > User Preferences... In the General tab there is a check box that says "Abort capture on dropped frames." I'm not sure what this would do to the captures video though. I have never heard that capturing to an external drive would cause problems. You might want to check the speed of the drive, if it's too slow maybe it can't write the video fast enough.

Aric Mannion · December 9th, 2007, 06:26 PM

Are you capturing footage? If that's what you mean by importing, then you don't want to allow dropped frames. Or your final edit will have missing frames and look jerky.
People used to have this problem because of a glitch with spotlight, you can search for that in this forum.

Nick Royer · December 9th, 2007, 11:32 PM

The hard drive is a LaCie 500BG one with eSATA but that's not the problem cause I had a WD FireWire 400 drive before that and it had the same issue. This has been like this in FCS 1&2 regardless of what camera (XL2 or Xi). I also believe it happened on my old iMac G5 as well.

Edward Carlson · December 10th, 2007, 01:55 PM

Yeah, that sounds like a Spotlight problem. Go download Spotless and disable Spotlight on your external drive.

December 9th, 2007, 10:53 AM	#1
Nick Royer Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Omaha, Nebraska Posts: 133	FCP Dropping Frames I shoot with an XL2 and import onto FCP, with the scratch disk being an eSATA Hard Drive. When I send it directly to the hard drive it drops a frame about every ten minutes and stops importing. If I go directly to the internal hard drive, it does not have this problem. Can I set FCP to send the data to the Hard Drive and to ignore dropped frames? Also, will this affect the video quality significantly? __________________ Sincerely, Nick Royer

December 9th, 2007, 11:32 PM	#4
Nick Royer Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Omaha, Nebraska Posts: 133	The hard drive is a LaCie 500BG one with eSATA but that's not the problem cause I had a WD FireWire 400 drive before that and it had the same issue. This has been like this in FCS 1&2 regardless of what camera (XL2 or Xi). I also believe it happened on my old iMac G5 as well. __________________ Sincerely, Nick Royer

December 9th, 2007, 11:19 AM	#2
Edward Carlson Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: North Hollywood, CA, United States Posts: 807	There is an option to ignore dropped frames while importing. Go to Final Cut Pro > User Preferences... In the General tab there is a check box that says "Abort capture on dropped frames." I'm not sure what this would do to the captures video though. I have never heard that capturing to an external drive would cause problems. You might want to check the speed of the drive, if it's too slow maybe it can't write the video fast enough.

December 9th, 2007, 06:26 PM	#3
Aric Mannion Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 616	Are you capturing footage? If that's what you mean by importing, then you don't want to allow dropped frames. Or your final edit will have missing frames and look jerky. People used to have this problem because of a glitch with spotlight, you can search for that in this forum.

December 10th, 2007, 01:55 PM	#5
Edward Carlson Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: North Hollywood, CA, United States Posts: 807	Yeah, that sounds like a Spotlight problem. Go download Spotless and disable Spotlight on your external drive.