Dropped Frames

[Dusty Johnson]

My XL2 has always worked great until i recently took it back out after about a month of it sitting in its case.

I used my head cleaning tape before putting another tape in.

I filmed some stuff but now when i try to capture it into FCP it will capture for a few seconds then it will stutter and finally stop capture displaying a message that says

Dropped frames were detected in the last capture. Could not continue (or something close to that)

I tried a bunch of other different brand tapes that i had stuff already recorded on: same thing. Used the head cleaning tape a couple more times: same thing. I tried recording new stuff on new tapes: same thing.

What's also wierd is that the capture doesnt always stop in the same spot. It might capture 5-10 seconds more footage than the previous capture did, but still ends up displaying the "dropped frames" message.

Do I have to send the thing in? =/


God Bless.

[Tony Nguyen]

I don't know if this can be the same problem as mine but I recently had problems too with massive dropped frames. The problem: internal firewire card on my PC. It was a cheap $10 card i got from ebay. Repaced it with a card that had a dv 4-pin input. Now I get ZERO dropped frames.

Don't know if you have the same problem. Try capturing the tape on a different camera and see if you get the same results.

[Ryan Mueller]

I would agree! It sounds like a problem with the NLE system. If you were having a problem with timecode breaks, then I would be inclined to say the camera was at fault, but dropped frames sounds like hardware other than the camera. Have you tried swapping out the firewire cable? Just a thought.

[Ryan Chaney]

I think this simple fix might do the trick for you:

When Apple recently released OSX 10.4.9 they changed something "under the hood" that broke capture with versions of Final Cut Pro earlier than FCP 5. Long story short, the solution is to go into the Spotlight preference pane, click the Privacy tab, then add your Capture Scratch folder(s) to the list. Doing so will prevent Spotlight indexing of your footage while you're capturing it, which is what was causing your problem with dropped frames. =)

Of course, if you're using a newer version of FCP or an older version of Mac OSX then I don't know what to tell 'ya... Good luck!

[Jack Barker]

Originally Posted by Ryan Chaney

When Apple recently released OSX 10.4.9 they changed something "under the hood" that broke capture with versions of Final Cut Pro earlier than FCP 5. Long story short, the solution is to go into the Spotlight preference pane, click the Privacy tab, then add your Capture Scratch folder(s) to the list. Doing so will prevent Spotlight indexing of your footage while you're capturing it, which is what was causing your problem with dropped frames.

Wow! I think Apple deserve a smack for doing that. They've got so many people working on the iPhone, that their QC/QA is going to hell in a hand-basket.

[Dusty Johnson]

Originally Posted by Ryan Chaney

I think this simple fix might do the trick for you:

When Apple recently released OSX 10.4.9 they changed something "under the hood" that broke capture with versions of Final Cut Pro earlier than FCP 5. Long story short, the solution is to go into the Spotlight preference pane, click the Privacy tab, then add your Capture Scratch folder(s) to the list. Doing so will prevent Spotlight indexing of your footage while you're capturing it, which is what was causing your problem with dropped frames. =)

Of course, if you're using a newer version of FCP or an older version of Mac OSX then I don't know what to tell 'ya... Good luck!

I forgot to reply to this, I'm sorry.
Ryan, this solved my problem, thank you very very much.