Dropped frame error message. what to do?

Also, I'm editing to a hard drive via USB and not firewire. Ccould this be part of the problem?

Bingo. USB is not suitable for video editing. Firewire is the way to go here.

Shane

Shane's probably sleeping right now, so I'll jump in, if you don't mind.

USB is not a streaming protocol. Firewire is a streaming protocol. That means that data from a USB port will send bursts of data, rather than stream. The time periods between the bursts, however short, can cause the dropped frames warning.

Until you replace the USB enclosure with a firewire enclosure, you could disable the dropped frames warning in User Preferences (under the Final Cut Pro menu). Un-check the "Warn about dropped frames on playback" box (or whatever the exact wording is). That won't fix the underlying problem, only mask it. In fact, it could cause audio-video sync problems. But at least you wouldn't be annoyed by those warnings, and that might be enough to keep you editing, rather than stopping to restart the Timeline.

Do not un-check the other two warning boxes (for capturing and for Edit to Tape).

Your Profile doesn't say what type of Mac you have. If you have a MacPro or a G5, you could install additional hard drives inside the computer to handle your media files instead of the external enclosure. That might be less expensive.

In fact, you might be able to remove the hard drive inside that USB enclosure and install the drive inside your computer, depending on the type of drive and the type of computer you have. If you have a laptop or an iMac, that wouldn't work.

FWIW. YMMV.

One more point:

If you disable the "Warn about dropped frames during playback", then you can set the Timeline to Unlimited RT and lower Playback Video Quality and Playback Frame Rate.

Then Final Cut will playback at lower quality and frame rate, intentionally dropping frames to maintain real-time playback, and not stop to warn you about the dropped frames.

Sure it can. Try this:

Go to the aja.com website, and in Support, go to the Kona 3 section and download Aja Kona System Test. Install that and run the default test with the maximum file size and the video format you are using. Report back with the test results for Read & Write.

Then we'll see.

Those are some pretty low numbers. Not low enough to directly cause dropped frames on DV material, but they might be indicators of a problem.

Tell us about your FW drive. Make & model? Capacity in GB? How full in GB?

Also, tell us about your Mac. What model? How large in GB is the internal boot drive? How full in GB is it? Any other hard drives in it? (If it's an iMac or a laptop, that does not apply.) More details are better.

What version of Final Cut? What version of the OS? What version of QuickTime?

Please answer all these questions so we don't slow the troubleshooting process down. Thank you.

That's good. Thank you.

You first need to free up a lot more space on your boot drive. That might be the reason you're dropping frames. Can you off load about 50 to 60 GB?

Most hard drives begin to slow when more than 50 to 60 percent full.

That statement communicates the point, but to be more accurate, when the read-write heads inside hard drives are writing-reading to-from the outer tracks on the platters, they are exposed to more surface area than when writing & reading from the inner tracks. The result is that, generally speaking, the throughput, in MB/sec, on the innermost tracks is about half what it is on the outer tracks.

So, when writing or reading from the middle tracks, there is a point at which the throughput begins to decrease noticeably. Usually, that point is at about 50 to 60 percent of the way between the outermost and innermost tracks.

So, in real life, it isn't always a question of how full the drive is, but where on the platters the data needs to be written to or read from that determines the drive's throughput for that file.

Then there's another matter that happens as the drive fills up. In real life, the drive doesn't usually fill linearly, but rather, new files are written, then some files are deleted, then new files are written, etc.

So, when you go to write (save) a new media file, at a certain point in time there might not be enough contiguous room anywhere on the disk to write the entire file in one piece. It has to be broken up into more than one piece, all over the platters. When files are broken up a lot, it can then result in lower than normal throughput when the files are then read as you play them back.

That's because the heads need to do a lot of extra seeking on the platters for the various pieces of the file. That can also result in dropped frames if it's severe enough. Mac OS X tries to keep files on the platter in as few pieces as possible, even moving bits of data after a file has been saved. But it does happen.

When it's the boot drive, then something else comes into play. The OS sometimes needs to write files to disk rather than to RAM. If the disk is full and fragmented, then that process takes longer, and can also result in dropped frames, if it's severe enough.

So, offload a bunch of files, then test the boot drive with Kona System Test and see how it's performing. Then try Final Cut again and see it there's any improvement. There might be, but there might not be. We're troubleshooting here, which means we're trying to find what doesn't fix it in order to discover what does what.

Capiche?