Problems with Color

[Jerrod Cordell]

So I'm doing color correction on my iMac, and all seems to be doing okay, but when I import it back into Final Cut, I can only play back a little bit of the video and I get this message.

"One or more frames were dropped during playback

If this occurs frequently, try:
-Turning off "unlimited RT".
-Lowering your compression data rate.
-Closing open sequences.
-Lowering the preference for real-time audio tracks.
-Increasing the speed of your system and/or disk drives and/or network connection."

Then in red letters it says

"RT Extreme has determined these dropped frames were caused by slow disks. Please try:
-Increasing the speed of your disks.
-Decreasing the number of RT layers.
-Limiting your RT bandwidth in User Preferences."

First of all, I have no idea how to increase the speed of my disks and the clip is only in one layer. It's only doing this with the clips from Color. So if anyone can help me out, let me know.

[Henry Dale]

This doesn't happen normally because when you play back simple cuts, the video data is stored in a continuous stream on the hard disk's surface, and the read heads don't have to move very far keep up with the demand.

I guess Color has caused data to be stored non-contiguously on your hard drive -- ie your edit now involves a lot of data from different physical areas of your hard drive, and the drives heads cannot keep up with the speed and volume of access requests when FCP attempts to render your colorised video on the fly. Eventually it gives up trying and gives you the error message you describe.

You could buy a much faster disk array, which may solve the problem, but for a near instant result, export the sequence to a separate file. FCP will be able to do it in its own time, and you will end up with a watchable sequence.

[Jerrod Cordell]

Originally Posted by Henry Dale

This doesn't happen normally because when you play back simple cuts, the video data is stored in a continuous stream on the hard disk's surface, and the read heads don't have to move very far keep up with the demand.

I guess Color has caused data to be stored non-contiguously on your hard drive -- ie your edit now involves a lot of data from different physical areas of your hard drive, and the drives heads cannot keep up with the speed and volume of access requests when FCP attempts to render your colorised video on the fly. Eventually it gives up trying and gives you the error message you describe.

You could buy a much faster disk array, which may solve the problem, but for a near instant result, export the sequence to a separate file. FCP will be able to do it in its own time, and you will end up with a watchable sequence.

All right, I'll try that. Thanks.

[Nate Weaver]

Color likely rendered your work to uncompressed, which chances are you are not equipped for with your disks.

In the setting panel of Color, you can control what codec Color renders to. Set it to ProRes...I'm guessing it says uncompressed right now. Do that, then rerender your project.