FireWire HD, 1GHz TiBook & FCP3 Pain!!!

[Simon Plissi]

Which has given me a heart attack.

My set up is fairly straight forward:
1GHz TiBook w/SuperDrive
1Gig Ram
1 Lacie 200Gig D2 FireWire HD
1 Canon XL1

I bought the HD a while ago for editing but just got round to capturing some footage from my XL1, or I should say "attempted to capture."

Since the TiBook only has one FW port I of course have to connect the camera to the hard drive's second FW port. From all I've read, and from all I've been told this should work fine. FireWire is plenty fast enough to capture DV this way. Yet when I go to capture the video stutters, digital glitches everywhere and broken up looking video.

When I play footage the back it looks like it's been speed up, broken up and glitches again. I know the tape and footage is ok as I can capture to the internal HD ok.

I think the HD is fine as I've been using it for general back up, as well as some DVD burning from the drive without any problems. And when I captured there was still loads of space, only 1Gig was in use at the time.

My set-up must be quite common. Don't you have something similar Ken? Surely I would have heard if capturing to and external FW HD via the drive itself caused problems. But no.

Anybody have any ideas before I break down and cry?

Thanks.

[Bud Kuenzli]

I've captured plenty to a 1 gig TiBook so it can be done...but the drive does need to be a good one...preferrably a 7200 rpm drive, and for good measure optimize it with Speed Disk or wipe it first; if it is trying to lay down video on a "dirty" drive it will fail for sure. If your drive specs are 5400 rpm it may not be fast enough, but try optimizing and see if that helps.

[Ken Tanaka]

Hi Simon,
I normally capture to my desktop Mac and occasionally do rough edits on my 1G TiBook (same as yours) with a FW drive. I'm sure the speed of your drive is fine.

I have, however, encountered something similar to your remarks: "...the video stutters, digital glitches everywhere and broken up looking video. My situation was somewhat different and was on a desktop, not my TiBook. But it sounds like a close relative to yours. I was never able to determine the cause with certainty; it ultimately just disappeared with equipment changes and Mac OS updates.

See this thread for more info. Perhaps you'll find a solution in there.

[Simon Plissi]

Bud
The drive should be fast enough. It's 7200 rpm and almost empty, less than 2Gigs in use out of 200. Plus the built-in RAM cache.

I can capture to the internal drive which has far more data, and I suspect fragmentation, and is a great deal slower, 4200 rpm I believe for the 1GHz TiBooks.

What brand is your external FW drive?


Ken
The only relevant part which might pertain to me in the thread you linked to is the last post about cable quality.

My cable connecting my XL1 to the FW HD is the thin skinny variety. But aren't all 4 to 6 pin FW cables like this? I've been using the cable without problems for years when connected to my B&W G3. And even now I can capture to my internal drive even when the camera is still connected to the FW drive!

Any other TiBook owners with the same Lacie D2 drive as I? Any problems?

Or can anyone suggest anything else?

I'm still in shock that this set-up doesn't work.

Thanks

[Allan Michaud]

Hello simon
This is no help but i have same problem, I can import from XL1 into my Imac 60gb int HD but my 120gb ext HD is not having it, I get the same broken footage as you. I am using a Maxtor diamond max plus 9 120gb ata/133hdd, apprently its a fast one but I have not been able to find out how fast. back at the shop we tried several other HD's cables and Mac's without success but when we tried a small 1 ccd sony camera both int/ext HD's took the footage just fine. the shop was at a loss to explain, needless to say I am not impressed. It must be some kind of speed issue, out of interest have you tried a different camera to your ext HD?
please drop me a line if you find out what is causing this.
Sorry Ken I just posted a new thread without searching properly
so most of this reply is just repeating what I sent to the site a few mins ago.
Getting wet up a tree for next 3 weeks so no way to reply after tomorrow.
regards
allanmichaud@hotmail.com

[Simon Plissi]

Hi Allan,

It's the XL1. I went round a friends house to test with his 120GB Lacie (mine is 200), my XL1 and his iMac and I had the same problems. We then connected his XM2 to mine and his HD and it captured fine. We also tried various other combinations but it always came down the XL1.

According to Lacie some cameras take over the FireWire bus not allowing other devices to work at their full capacity at the same time. This is news to me. I've been using my XL1 for years and never heard of this before, or for that matter any capture problems such as this. But now I start looking for them I find others such as yourself. The XL1 has always been used in promotional shots with the TiBook to show off what you can do with FCP, sure you can capture ok to the internal drive but that's hardly advisable.

And think of the future problems. You can capture to the internal drive and move it off to the external and work form there, but what happens when you want to put back onto tape? You can't go from the external drive to the XL1 as you probably experience the same problems as capturing. (I've yet to test this.) So that just leaves having to buy a FW cardbus adapter for my TiBook. Yet more expense! You have an iMac you say? You can't of course do this, but don't you have a second FW port on your iMac? I can't remember if this will cause any problems with the XL1 connected, since these are shared FW connectors. I've got to try this on my B&W G3.

So, I've answers but no solutions I'm afraid. At least you know it's not the equipment at fault, a minor consolation, but a pain nevertheless to try and find a workable solution.

Anybody recommend a good cardbus FW card for my TiBook?

[Alfred Tomaszewski]

could it be that your xl1 has broken or misaligned playback heads (i know this is the problem with my Gl1). if i capture with it the picture is glitchy and i get audio dropouts, but if i capture with any other camera then it works.

[Jeff Price]

According to Maxtor it is strictly a Canon problem with how they implemented the firewire standard. So, capturing to an external device can be dodgy - even on a PC. Some hard drives might work, many won't.

When I was editing on a PC laptop I eventually went the route of a PCMCIA firewire card to capture with and then it managed to move to the external drive (GL1). On the other hand, my GL1 would never work that way with my iMac. I have always had to capture to the internal drive and copy the files to the external for editing (this has improved some under 10.2.6).

So, what to do? You can try the PCMCIA card, just make sure you can return it if it doesn't do what you want it to do (allow capture).

Otherwise you might need to capture to the internal drive and move to the external for editing.

You can defragment the drive. I use Diskwarrior. It boots into 9 then optimizes and defragments the disk. The new version is native to OS X but doesn't defragment.

[Simon Plissi]

Alfred -
I doubt it's a problem with the heads as I can capture fine to my internal drive.

Jeff -
The drive is empty and problem free, checked with DiskWarrior.

Indeed, it has to be the Canon. As I mentioned earlier, sure I can capture to the internal then move it to the external, but what happens when I want to put it back onto tape? Move the finished piece back to the internal again? That's going to be a real pain.

PCMCIA looks like to only route. Unfortunately it's really hard to return goods in the UK once used. So I've no idea how to test it out first.

Still asking for recommendations on PCMCIA FW cards. Anyone?

Thanks.

[Jeff Price]

Simon,

My recommendation for DiskWarrior was for your TiBook since you mentioned it might be really fragmented. I don't think it will help your external capture any but it might give you a cleaner capture if you capture to your internal drive.

Oddly enough, the Maxtor PCMCIA card worked for capturing for me. I put the HD on the PCMCIA card and hooked the camera to the internal fw port. This was on a Dell though and I don't know how compatible the card is in OSX.

[Jeff Donald]

Simon, I wonder if it could be the age of your XL1. I can capture with my XL1 to either drive with few problems (occasional dropped frame). I have no problems with my XL1s. However, my XL1 is rather new, I only purchased it a year ago, it was probably one of the last ones produced. Have you talked with Canon about any of these issues?

[Jeff Farris]

I had the same problem and eventually gave up and capture to my internal and then copy to the external. That works.

I am reasonably certain it is a Canon issue. My Sony works fine daisy-chained, the Canon refuses. I also had the same issue with a Canon ZR-50 before it morphed into a PDX-10.

[Michael Martin]

Hi
I had the exact same problem with a Canon ZR40 with a Lacie 160 firewire drive. Dropped frames, drive locking up the computer, etc. It's on dual 867 g4 with 2 firewire ports. No matter which order I put them or if I hook the zr40 through the drive I still had problems. I don't think the card would help your situation.
If I unplugged one or the other it worked fine and I can move files back and forth provided that only one of the firewire products are plugged in at the time.

I contacted Canon and finally got a superviser who said -
"Support here at Canon ITS. I have read through your request, and
unfortunately, we do not support the issue you are having with the
firewire. I understand that this doesn't help you"

so I just tried a sony dcr trv 19, and i've had zero problems.

[Timothy Eno]

I to have had problems ( Dropped frames during capture ) with a Canon camera and external HD, Went with a sony cam and have yet to have the same issue.

I forgot to list my system config:
PB G 4 667
512 ram
IBM external drive
Past: Canon ZR10
Current: Sony PDX10