it would seem to logical to say if the transcoded files are smooth you can rest assured your camera and/or CF Card are not the issue in this case...

i would do a little more troubleshooting before reporting anything to your client, there were some good suggestions before from Keith, a few posts back..

it does seem unfortunately that the issue lies with both your and your clients system in being able to play the files in realtime..

That's a classic description of what happens when you have IS switched on when the camera is on a tripod & you do any panning. The IS system senses movement & desperately tries to mitigate the effect which works up to a point & then breaks down & desperately tries again until the movement exceeds the ability of the IS system to correct.

That is simply not true. Native H.264 files straight off a 5DII card play fine on any modern Mac using QuickTime & I doubt that video off a 7D will be any different.

I just checked with my wife's 3-year old 2.16GHz white MacBook & that has no problem playing files copied straight off a 5DII CF card. I understand that Windows machines often struggle playing these native files although apparently using vlc as your player it is possible to obtain smooth playback if you tweak the settings to reduce the playback quality a little (PQ reduction is almost imperceptibly I have been told). 5D Mark II (7D) video playback | PHOTOGRAPHY WITHIN

Nigel, are you talking about playback off the OS or in the NLE? My laptop (PC based core2duo) was used for onset playback of 5D files and it did fine. BUT try to drop that into an NLE and playback and it was a NO GO.

If we are talking about the fact that Derek cannot playback the footage even from just the OS, then something is certainly wrong. I wonder if it's this way when the file is copied to the local HD if that's the case.

Nor should you. As I noted in another post 5DII native files play fine on a 3-year old 2.16GHz C2D MacBook so provided that your MBP has better specifications than that system you should be OK.

Transcoding times on my 18-month old 2.8GHz Mac Pro are OK as files are converted in around real time. It's less time-consuming than ingesting HDV tapes.

wouldnt it be pretty related to how much RAM there is and not just processors?

or maybe the quicktime version?

This just keeps getting more interesting. Nigel, I agree with you... I thought I would have no problem with a 2.6GHz dual-core MBP running the latest version of Quicktime to at least view the files. This does not work, whether I play back from the card, or from the file copied to my drive. It also does not work even when I transcode using compressor to ProRes. (although it did correct the stutter slightly doing this)
My client reported that when they did a transcode (I don't know what they used yet) they were able to view it normally.

There has to be a simple answer....

Hey Derek,

I've missed a few days of discussion and hopefully I am not recovering anything that has been stated (I tried to read everything).

1. My CF card is a Sandisk Extreme III and IV. I have had great results with the 30MB/s (III) and the 45MB/s (IV). Although now all are 60MB/s, the 45MB/s was UDMA labeled. Your card isn't your problem.

2. You may see some stutter in your shots when shooting 30p and 1/30th shutter. I did this on occasion with my XL2 and other video gear for wedding videos if it was a still shot for extra light. Movement would show stutter.

3. It's true that it's really hard to play/edit H.264 on a computer, but my early 2008 MBP 2.6GHz with 4GB ram can play it. My quad-core G5 can't. I haven't tried editing the material until after I converted to ProRes.

4. What is your hard drive speed? I've asked everyone this off the bat and no one looks into it. My MBP was upgraded to a 7200rmp drive—not the 5400rpm. If the drive is a low speed, it won't keep up with the video.

Can you host a zip of a clip from the camera we can download and look at within our own systems? If I see a problem on the clip with my own proven workflow, then it was a problem with the card or the camera writing to the card. If there isn't a problem, the we can narrow it down for you.

Hi, David
Thanks for your reply. I do have a 7200rpm drive, so that's not the issue. I did shoot some new content yesterday with 60th second shutter, but the stutter still exists in playback.

I will try to get a clip uploaded.... to make things even more complicated (or, maybe this helps narrow it down?) I'm currently ingesting some EX files, and upon playback they're stuttering too! I haven't seen this before with EX files on this computer. I have a lot to ingest, so I can't really delve into it until I'm done. It does appear to only do this in full-frame playback, but the 7D files were doing it in any frame size.

It also does not explain why my client was also seeing the stuttering, even if my problem is based with my MBP.

I appreciate your input, and I'll try to get something uploaded as soon as I get my other clips ingested. I don't have a vimeo account, what is the best way to upload something here?

Yes, I did mean simple playback in QuickTime which was what I thought what was being described. After all if you just want to play the files then why would you drop them into Final Cut if you are not going to edit them. I don't have FCP on anything other than a octo-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro & on these systems the native 5DII files can be used directly in FCP for simple assembly edits & trimming without problems. For any more complex manipulation then transcoding to ProRes prior to editing is quick & simple.

Looking at CPU Utilisation when playing my sample native 5DII video file in QuickTime X it uses about 90% (of one core of the 2.8GHz octocore) & when laying the same file in FCP6 it uses 130% so I would guess that any modern Mac would have no problems with either playing the file in QuickTime Player or Final Cut.

Ah ok... I generally dropped my files into the NLE since we were looking at the waveforms and histograms. Playing it back off the OS should be no trouble whatsoever, PC or Mac.

And if Derek can't play back XDCamEX files, then there are computer related issues. That stuff is marginally more difficult than HDV. A modern Mac or PC should be able to play 3-4 streams of it easily.

Derek, what's your memory and CPU utilization when trying to play back the XDCam and 7D files? Is it off the charts?

Hi, Perrone
ironically, thanks to Nigel's post, I looked at CPU utilization in my activity monitor. (hadn't though to do that before) I'm running 130-150% while just attempting to view 7D files in Quicktime. I don't recall seeing what the memory requirement was, but nothing else was open except Firefox.

I have a 2.6GHz dual core MBP, with 4 GB ram. I did notice that my drive capacity is over 90%..... something which could certainly cause some hiccups. I need to offload some material and free up some drive space. However, this does not solve why my client was experiencing the exact same thing.... but I am waiting to hear back about exact processor speed, memory and app versions involved with their systems.
I'm traveling for the next couple of days...... but hope to have more soon. Maybe I'm zeroing in on something here?

are you shooting in 24fps or 30? I think 24 studders more.

Shooting in 30p, but this has nothing to do with the typical frame rate 'stutter' seen in 24p and to a lesser extent in 30p. That is normal.
This is more of a 3 to 5 frame drop randomly where moving objects will suddenly skip forward an alarming amount. I'm really believing this is a computer playback issue now, but have to figure out why, and more importantly why it has occurred on several different platforms.

at least I'm relatively confident now it's not my camera, and it's not being recorded this way, which is a huge relief.

nothing like a good mystery!