Re: CLIPS STOPPAGE

Ken

I just got finished recording a program using a Sony premium tape with my Canon GL2. When I tried to download the footage into FCP, the footage stopped every other second. The error message read..."Locating timecode break...". I then tried to download it into iMovie. The footage would run, then stop intermittently, and then automatically continue. Each time it stops, it is dropping frames. I played the footage back on the camera and viewed it as I played it. There were no irregularities. Why am I having problems and what should I do? Thanks.

First make sure that there aren't actually any timecode breaks; when viewing playback on the camcorder, does the timecode ever reset to zero? If so, you'll need to set FCP's Device control to Non-Controllable Device" and use Capture Now. Or dub the tape to a new DV tape and then log and capture the new tape.

If there are no timecode breaks, it may be due to the fact you're trying to capture from a Canon device. Canon's rather loose adherence to the Firewire standard can often cause problems when capturing in FCP. First set FCP's device control to Firewire Basic and see if that works. If that doesn't fix the issue, it could be due to sharing the Firewire bus (if you're capturing to an external FW drive). Try capturing to another internal drive, or create a second Firewire bus in your Mac by adding a PCMCIA FW card (some laptops) or PCI Firewire card (G4, G5, MacPro). If you have a Mac that isn't expandable (iMac, eMac, MacMini and some laptops), try capturing to your boot drive and then move the captured files to the external drive before editing. Or try daisy chaining the camcorder through the FW drive to your Mac. Or use a non Canon device for capturing.

-DH