Help! capturing problem with Final Cut

[chefster]

ya we recorded a video , and while sending the vid from the camera to the laptop we get breaks in film..whats up...using final cut express

[DPA]

Are you using a tape deck to capture, firewire to capture, plugging in through USB/Firewire (it pops up as a device), using a SD card, or any other way I haven't listed here?
Are you using FCP or FCE (express or pro). Are your settings correct in Easy Setup. What are your computer's specs like RAM, processor, etc? These things all could affect your capturing.

[chefster]

using the canon zr900 through firewire. FCE 2.33ghz mac pro with 3gb ram putting onto 500gb portable hard drive connected with USB2.0

[DPA]

So, you are capturing SD video. Sorry to ask all of these questions but thy could all affect things. Are you capturing 8 or 10 bit uncompressed video? If you are, your problem is most likely the USB 2.0's fault. USB is far to slow to capture any uncompressed video, let alone HD for that matter. Last question, what type of external drive are you capturing too?

[chefster]

yeah i think you are right about the 2.0 because when I used iMovieHD it worked fine. My iMovie HD is set up to record directly to the inboard harddrive and this must be due to the fact that it's saving directly to my built in hard drive
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ooops were back , still have problem ..tried changing scratch disk to inboard harddrive it did not work

[Willis]

You need a firewire drive ideally for capture and then scratch. trying to capture, scratch and edit on the same disk is pretty much a dead end.

All I can suggest is that you use try using iMovie HD to import, extract the audio, save, then open the project in FCE.

Also reset any of the settings in FCE to see if that clears up any conflicts

Also, if you've got a MacPro, you can buy internal drives pretty cheap now. I have 3x500 drives for editing. 1 for applications, 2 for scratch, 3 for capture. works a dream

[LethalWolfe]

Is what's on the tape one long recording or did you stop and start the camera? If you did stop/start the camera does the computer create new clips at the stop/start points on the tape?


Lethal

[chefster]

Thanks willis the audio extract worked.

[Willis]

No worries...

I've found that way works better when capturing off a camera

[DPA]

I have been editing and captuing on one external drive for years and have barely any problems. I am, however, now hooking up my 1TB lacie and 2 500GB g drives. I am hooking these up to capture and scratch and edit. LethalWolfe made a great point. Capturing a long clip is more "risky" than caturong shorter clips (10 minutes or less).