External Hard Drive Video Playback Stutter

Question

Level 1

9 points

External Hard Drive Video Playback Stutter

When I try to playback clips from my external hard drive, the video stops but the audio continues and after a second or two the video jumps ahead. This happens when I play back the video anywhere in FCE (viewer, canvas or sequence), or in QT.

I tried copying a clip to my internal hard drive and it played back perfectly fine. I've read that I should not use my internal hard drive for editing and do not want to go that route, although it does solve the problem.

Mac Book Pro, OSx 10.5, 2.83 Ghz processor.
The external drive is a Western Digital MyBook Studio 1Tb, formatted Mac OS Extended (journaled), connected via FireWire 800

Tried with the USB2 connection and the same problem existed.

MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Mar 5, 2009 1:21 PM

Reply

Answer 1

MartinR

Level 7

25,480 points

Mar 5, 2009 2:16 PM in response to mradeline

Try adding your MyBook drive to your Spotlight privacy list. Do that in System Preferences, so Spotlight does not continuously index the drive. This often cures the problem.

Also, if you are using your MyBook as your TimeMachine backup drive, that will interfere with video. You should turn TimeMachine off whenever you are editing video. And it would be preferable to use completely separate drives for TimeMachine and your FCE scratch disk location.

Is the WD MyBook the only device connected via FireWire? Or do you have other devices connected also?

How full is your external hard drive?

Do you have another external FW drive (not another MyBook drive) that you could test with your MBP?

Reply

Answer 2

mradeline Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 6, 2009 12:22 PM in response to MartinR

I added the MyBook drive to Spotlight privacy list; that did not make a difference.

I do not have Time Machine running while editing nor do I use the MyBook for it.

Yes, the MyBook is the only device connected via FireWire.

The external hard drive has 624 GB available.

I do not own another Mac-Formatted external hard drive.

Reply

Answer 3

Mar 6, 2009 1:09 PM in response to mradeline

What video are we talking about?

Is it DV captured by FCE from a Mini-DV TAPE camera or is it something different?

Reply

Answer 4

mradeline Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 6, 2009 1:50 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

I downloaded an MPEG2 off a Sony DV Camera with a hard drive. I did that through imovie. Then I translated those clips to QT using streamclip (as described in another post). Because it plays fine on my internal hard drive, it seems to be an issue with the external hard drive?

Reply

Answer 5

Mar 6, 2009 2:01 PM in response to mradeline

As you are using video from an unusual source anything could be happening.

To check that your HD is working OK you should capture DV, HDV or AVCHD using FCE.

Using any other format or capturing in any other way can lead to problems as FCE was not designed for it.

Reply

Answer 6

mradeline Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 8, 2009 11:38 AM in response to MartinR

Thank you. Trying another external hard drive confirmed that our problem was with the MyBook. We reformatted it and, so far, so good.

Reply