New Capture Problem with FCP, QT and my Mac ... Help!
 

I have a dual-core intel 2.66 Mac Pro, running leopard and the latest version of OS, FCP and QT Pro.

I went to capture footage today from my Canon HV20 (using an SD tape) and ran into all sorts of problems. Please see attached photo for the issue. For some reason, the video is capturing with a confetti-like degradation that freezes my FCP. Also, tried a Sony Video Walkman deck and the same thing occurred.

And I tried just capturing a "new movie" using QT Pro and had the same result? Any ideas? Bad capture/pci card suddenly? It's a Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT.

Any help would be appreciated!

you've got either -

1. a head clog on the playback machines caused by the tape shedding

2. a head clog during recording, in which case you are stuck

run a head cleaner thru one of your machines once or twice, and verify you have cleaned the machine by playing back a known good tape.then try again.

if the blocks still look exactly the same, the tape is recorded bad. if the blocks change, the tape is shedding during playback. its possible if you play the tape thru a half dozen times, you'll knock off all the loose material and then finally get a clean pass. don't forget to clean EVERY machine the tape is in because it will clog them all up until its stopped shedding. wouldn't happen to be a consumer sony tape would it ? because I've been thru this.

If the capture process is causing FCP to freeze up then it seems more like a hardware issue, because dropouts on tape would have nothing to do with hardware stability. Try connecting directly to a FW port on the Mac first - try using a different cable just to make sure there isn't an issue with that.

Make sure the problem isn't with the camera; If you have another Mini-DV deck or, another DV camera that would be a good way to start troubleshooting where the problem starts; intermittent communication between FCP and the camera/deck would certainly make things freeze up and become unstable.

Try those and report your results.

Thanks for the replies. I just took out my two capture cards and installed them again in different slots and now it works. I have no idea what that means as they were not loose and were working last week. Definitely a hardware issue and not tape or camera.

I think my computer is cursed:( I have had Macs for 10+ years and this is the only one that has had any sort of issues. Might sell it and get a new one just to be safe as this is the latest in a string of weird problems.

Thanks.

Jae,

Make sure you've properly setup the PCI slots on your machine to match the speeds the cards you're using require.

In the Core Services is a utility called the "Expansion Slot Utility". Read up on this tool and make sure you properly configure your slot speeds. This is probably why moving the cards changed how the system performed.

Hey, great advice as I had never seen that particular utility before and it turns out I was not on the right setting for my graphics card set-up so I hope this fixed the problem. Thanks!