I have tried to log and capture and keep getting message "allocating disk space" which goes on forever. Have to reboot. G4,FCP3,1gig ram, plenty of disk space. Any suggestions please?

Rick Banfield

How much free space is on the disk your capturing to and how big is the disk?

Couple other ideas.... check the scratch disk preferences where you specify the minimum amount of allowable free space. Maybe a large number has been entered there. But I would also run disk first aid (from the OS X disk utility program) and see if it reports problems with your drive. You might be headed for even more trouble if there are directory problems. Generally speaking it's not a good idea to use your system drive as a capture disk IMO.

I also learned the hard way that it's wise to keep a copy of Disk Warrior (or something similar) handy. I had a firewire drive with a 95GB project become unreadable after running a backup at 4:00 AM. I really panicked when I learned the backup was also bad. Some tense hours followed until I could get a copy of Disk Warrior the next afternoon. Luckily it repaired the problems...

Disk Warrior is by far the best repair utility in my opinion.

I'd like to cast another vote for Disk Warrior. I had to use it just tonight. I needed to boot up into OS 9.2, and during the boot, it froze. It wouldn't complete a reboot, and eventually just gave me a question mark at startup (can't find a bootable disk). The Mac then said it could not read the drive and wanted to format it. NO WAY! I pop in Disk Warrior and let it rebuild. A little over an hour later I am back up with absolutely no lost data.

Buy Disk Warrior now, even if you don't think you need it.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ted Springer : Buy Disk Warrior now, even if you don't think you need it. -->>>

If FCP is hanging while saying "allocating disk space" then you probably DO need it now ;-)

Jeff Donald especially,Rick Banfield from Aussie here. Couple of things about my "allocatiing disk space" . Everything on disks checked out ok. Have 80 gig main disk half full, 112 gig icecube almost empty.
Complications! I have a pal system, matrox card, and have a Nitemax Ultra a new digital Night Vision system. It is amazing and am using it for my wildlife filming.
I have it connected directly to the Matrox.It is RCA out, they say it is a digital signal but I don't think so. It shows up fine on my log and capture window. Have tried many settings inc project properties time display frames, as I got a message once "waiting for timecode", but still get "allocating disk space" when I go to capture now. Jeff I am thinking of taking Laptop into field to directly capture from this device (after solving this).

Rick Banfield here. I forgot to say I got the Nitemax from the States and it is NTSC ,but I must have some settings right because it shows up so well on the Log and Capture window.
Rick B

I found a solution. I went into aud/vid settings,capture preset, Matrox,edit, and have changed the digitizer and the Compressor settings and seems to be working. Am playing with settings to get best result. Who needs sleep.
Rick B