Trouble with log and capture

I'm using a Canon GL1 with FCP HD 4.5 and when I try to log and capture it stops and I get the warning "Dropped frames were dteected during the last capture attempt," at about eight minutes into the clip. My firewire is going fom cam to computer, and I have a G-Raid 2 drive plugged into the Mac.

I'm on a 17" MacBook Pro with 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 4 GB of Memory.

I tried capture now and also setting in and out points and capturing, but it stops either way.

imaginaryfriend,

First off I assume this is a USB drive seeing as how the Mac Book Pro only has 1 FW port on it, and your using that one for the cannon.
Make sure you are plugged into the USB on the Left hand side closes to the power plug. It seems to work better for most, I have seen people have problems with the others.
Also another thing, and this will sound strange but its worked for me. On that drive if you can find anything to trash no matter what it is a simple text file will do. Trash something off that drive and then try capturing. I have a mac mini I use for transfer. It drops frames I go trash something off the capture drive and it works fine the very next time. Its dropped frames several times in a row, and the something I go trash something, it works fine. Anyway.

Hope it helps.

Actually the MacBook Pro has two Firewire ports. One 800 and one 400. I am connecting my G-Raid 2 drive with the 800 and my camera directly into the computer with 400.

The MBP does have 400 and 800 firewire ports, but only one firewire bus. You might want to consider getting a firewire card for your Express 34 slot. This will give you a second firewire bus.

--ken

Hmm. I guess I'm confused. A MacBook Pro out of the box can't log and capture mini DV? My old eMac worked like a charm. Why do I need another firewire bus just to capture video? Did the eMac have more than one firewire bus? Can I dump stuff of my HD and then use that as a temp scratch disc in the meantime?

Capture Presets, have you tried firewire basic?

--ken

Just tried it and it freezes up about 8 minutes in. Can you recommend a brand of firewire card? I'm assuming you mean an 800, right?

I find it strange that it keeps freezing at 8 minutes. How full is your RAID? What version of QT are you running?

--ken

Have you ever successfully use this combination of equipment. Final cut studio didn't go Intel Mac compatble until version 5.1. So you should at least be using FCP 5.1 - 5.1.4. From what you've described i would be amazed that FCP would launch under rosetta, let alone log and capture?

Cheers

Not sure I've logged and captured, but FCP 4.5 works on this machine. From what Ken is saying that isn't the issue. If you ask me, Apple is really being lame when updating FCP by not making it compatible. It gives you a warning when starting, but then when you press the esc key it works fine and I haven't had any problems editing. Pretty ridiculous that pressing the escape key makes it work.

I bought a Fire Wire Express Card 34 and plugged my drive into that and my Cam into the computer. It still freezes about 6 minutes into log and capture.

Let's take this back from the start. Some interesting points have been made during this thread.

First and above all, it is true that FCP 4.5 is not fully compatible with Intel Macs. That's why Apple offered a very cheap upgrade path to FCP5 when the Intel Macs were introduced. I agree with you that if you get a warning that this version of FCP isn't compatible with your computer, they should not allow you to open it anyway by just pressing the esc key. Hey, they should not even allow you to to install it from the start. This is ridiculous.

But let's assume that it does work for you, then what other options do we have ? Let's eliminate some possible causes.

1. Your tape.

You say the problem occurs everytime at about 6 to 8 minutes. First clean your GL1 heads, then insert a different tape than the one you are using and try to capture from this tape. If the same problem occurs then at least we are sure that the cause is not to be found on the tape itself (ANY tapes can have drops).

2. Your camera

Canon GL1 and GL2 cams have an unconventional way to send time-code over FireWire, which is known to give occasional problems capturing to any NLE. Try this: in the L&C window set your Device Control to "non-controllable device". Then start your tape from the GL1 and use Capture Now to start capturing.

- If the tape captures without any freezes now, then the problem is with your GL1. You will be able to capture from your GL1 using your current setup, but you will never be able to accurately log clips or to accurately recapture your footage. If this is not important for you then you can use this method. If this IS important, capture from a non-Canon device with FCP4.5 or get FCP6. FCP6 has been adapted to better deal with this Canon issue.

- If the capture still freezes in non-controllable mode, then do a final test: try capturing to iMovie instead of FCP.

- If capturing to iMovie works, this indicates that your GL1 connection is good, but your FCP version really does not work with your computer for capturing and you will have to upgrade FCP to be able to capture footage with your Intel computer. To be honest: you have spent good money on a wonderful laptop and good external drives, so why not also give your system the software it deserves?

- If capturing to iMovie does not work either: get any other non-Canon deck or camera and capture from this device.

Best wishes,

Ronny

First of all thanks for everyone's help with this and for the board in general. It has been a great help over the years. Thanks Ken!

As far as this issue goes, I upgraded my FCP and with the new Firewire card everything seems ok now.

I do think it's a bit ridiculous in regards to the GL1 and FCP having compatibility problems. This isn't exactly a new camera, so I can't imagine why Apple has taken this long to address this issue, if that has also been a problem for others.

From the very start (8 years ago) Canons camera were non standard. Their audio was a non standard audio sample rate and their Firewire implementation was also non standard. Apple bent over backwards to try and accommodate Canon. Apple even had to put in special setting to try and keep Can audio from going out of sync. The XL1 could never capture to a Firewire hard drive, you had to capture to an internal first and then drag it to your media drive.

In this case I would say that the problem was with Canon and not Apple.

My 2 cents.

--ken

I am happy you got your system working now.

I agree with Ken that this is not an Apple problem. Canon makes excellent cameras but their non-standard audio and FireWire protocols have always had a bad reputation with any editing system. This problem comes from the first days of FiWi techonlogy and AFAIK it has something to do with patents.

As Canon is an established player in the pro market I am glad Apple has made these efforts to accomodate for their whacky protocol anyway. But if FCP were to be adapted to any weird format that comes around these days we would be upgrading every week (-:

Best wishes,

Ronny