Firewire drive HDV troubleshoot at DVinfo.net

Zev Suissa · April 4th, 2005, 05:14 PM

So, Im using a firewire 400 with my powerbook G4, 1 ghz processor, 1GB RAM. Im editing HDV footage from a Sony fx1, and the firewire drive continually freezes and crashes. It's a Fantom drive - which has given me problems before.

Are there better brands of drives? Or is it the HDV footage that's too big? If the drive is being tempermental, am I in danger of losing the captured footage?

Steven Gotz · April 4th, 2005, 05:18 PM

I borrowed a Fantom firewire drive recently with lots of M2T and Cineform AVI already on it, and it worked remarkably well, much to my surprise. I am inclined to test how many layers of video it will handle before something hits a bottleneck.

I think you either have a bad drive or a problem with your firewire port.

Dylan Pank · April 5th, 2005, 04:52 AM

<<<-- Originally posted by Zev Suissa : So, Im using a firewire 400 with my powerbook G4, 1 ghz processor, 1GB RAM. Im editing HDV footage from a Sony fx1, and the firewire drive continually freezes and crashes. It's a Fantom drive - which has given me problems before.

Are there better brands of drives? Or is it the HDV footage that's too big? If the drive is being tempermental, am I in danger of losing the captured footage? -->>>

what software are you musing to edit the footage?if it's iMovie or FCE-HD, rememeber that these programmes transcode HDVinto the AppleIntermediateCodec which is 4-5 times larger than the original HDV and may start to test the bandwidth of standard FireWire, especially if you're trying to do realtime effects with more than one image stream.

Zev Suissa · April 5th, 2005, 02:48 PM

Yes Dylan, FCE-HD. But I haven't even started with effects yet - this is on the normal playback of the rough cut. I already put the video playback quality on low... and frames are still dropping. In adddition to dropped frames, the firewire freezes and I have to reboot the computer.

Any ideas?

Jeff Mack · April 14th, 2005, 03:54 PM

You might check into the compatability of your cam and the firewire card. There are some cam's, my old GL2 would do the same thing when I plugged into a bus used by an external drive at the same time. Try unplugging the external drive and capture to internal hard drive and then connect the external and move the file to it.

I am assuming your setup, sorry.

Jeff

April 4th, 2005, 05:14 PM	#1
Zev Suissa Tourist Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 3	Firewire drive HDV troubleshoot So, Im using a firewire 400 with my powerbook G4, 1 ghz processor, 1GB RAM. Im editing HDV footage from a Sony fx1, and the firewire drive continually freezes and crashes. It's a Fantom drive - which has given me problems before. Are there better brands of drives? Or is it the HDV footage that's too big? If the drive is being tempermental, am I in danger of losing the captured footage?

April 4th, 2005, 05:18 PM	#2
Steven Gotz Trustee Join Date: May 2002 Location: Clermont, FL Posts: 1,520	I borrowed a Fantom firewire drive recently with lots of M2T and Cineform AVI already on it, and it worked remarkably well, much to my surprise. I am inclined to test how many layers of video it will handle before something hits a bottleneck. I think you either have a bad drive or a problem with your firewire port. __________________ Steven Gotz http://www.stevengotz.com

April 5th, 2005, 04:52 AM	#3
Dylan Pank Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Portsmouth, UK Posts: 611	Re: Firewire drive HDV troubleshoot <<<-- Originally posted by Zev Suissa : So, Im using a firewire 400 with my powerbook G4, 1 ghz processor, 1GB RAM. Im editing HDV footage from a Sony fx1, and the firewire drive continually freezes and crashes. It's a Fantom drive - which has given me problems before. Are there better brands of drives? Or is it the HDV footage that's too big? If the drive is being tempermental, am I in danger of losing the captured footage? -->>> what software are you musing to edit the footage?if it's iMovie or FCE-HD, rememeber that these programmes transcode HDVinto the AppleIntermediateCodec which is 4-5 times larger than the original HDV and may start to test the bandwidth of standard FireWire, especially if you're trying to do realtime effects with more than one image stream.

April 14th, 2005, 03:54 PM	#5
Jeff Mack Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: McKinney, TX Posts: 195	firewire trouble You might check into the compatability of your cam and the firewire card. There are some cam's, my old GL2 would do the same thing when I plugged into a bus used by an external drive at the same time. Try unplugging the external drive and capture to internal hard drive and then connect the external and move the file to it. I am assuming your setup, sorry. Jeff

April 5th, 2005, 02:48 PM	#4
Zev Suissa Tourist Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 3	Yes Dylan, FCE-HD. But I haven't even started with effects yet - this is on the normal playback of the rough cut. I already put the video playback quality on low... and frames are still dropping. In adddition to dropped frames, the firewire freezes and I have to reboot the computer. Any ideas?