FCP 5.1.2 min config for HDV - Yikes!

[Chris Leong]

Well, sawtooth, really. With a Sonnet 1GHz CPU upgrade, 1.75GB RAM 100MHz bus, OS19.4.8, QT7.1.3, FCP 5.1.2, La Cie d2 Extreme 500GB drives on FW800 connections via an SIIG 1394b PCI card.

Worked fine for years from DV/DVX SD. Just loaded 30 hours of HDV no problem, views fine in Viewer. 1080i60, Sony M10u input via FFW400, dropped frame alert on, logged everything without a hitch.

Now I'm trying to cut and all I get isis dropped fromes galore. Very frustrating.
So...
yes, you can assume I know what I'm doing. Junked the prefs 3 times, reinstalled OSX, FCP, etc. they're all clean. User prefs set to min, system prefs set way down there as well, no monitoring, no mirroring, 2 channels of audio, RT off, everything set to variable or minimums, even the gamma set to approx.
No use.

So...
Sonnet encore duet double 1.8GHz on the CPU?"
Single 1.8 or better G5?
Or do I have to go dual G4 now?
Yes, I'd like to go from PCI to PCIe and maybe go Kona later on, since I do like the DVCPro HD codec. Thing is, I get paid at the end of this job, and I need to get to the end of it one way or antother.

Anybody been this route before?

Got anything in the LA area that's afforadble but good enough to get the job done?

Thanks!
Cheers
Chris

[William Hohauser]

Wow, that's problem.

First of all, a CPU upgrade may not upgrade all of the computer that you need for HDV. It's possible that other vital components are not up to speed but I would first think about the drives.

The following suggestions assume that the capture was OK and the dropped frames don't originate from there.

Take a clip and transfer it to an internal drive. Import it in your project and see if that drops frames as well. If it doesn't, test a few more clips and if all is working then you'll need to install some internal drives for this job.

If you still experience dropped frames, open a standard DV project, import a few HDV clips, drop them on a DV timeline and render. If these do not drop frames then we can almost be safe in assuming that your system is not HDV friendly. This might be a wrong assumption but you are working with an older G4 computer that came out way before HDV.

A more powerful CPU upgrade might fix the problem but it's possible that the data choke is elsewhere on the motherboard and therefore not upgradable. Good luck.