frames dropping on record back to tape from PC

[irobertson 0]

I have recently upgraded my video camera to a PC1000 and am trying to export my edited video from PC back to the camera via firewire. The edit package is Liquid Edition.

During the process I randomly experience either temporary loss of video, or sound or both, but the log back to tape completes with the errors.

I did not experience this on my previous camera (PC110) and would welcome any suggestions as to what may be happening and how to resolve.

Many thanks in advance for your suggestions.

[Zoter 0]

1)Silly suggestion...maybe , but is the camcorder compatible with your project settings ?
ie is it a PAL ( since you are UK) camcorder and are the project settings of your editing suite set up as PAL?

I have seen what you are describing when trying to export an NTSC project to a PAL camcorder....

2) I recently had very bad problems exporting to and from camcorders....couldnt figure it out....I replaced my HD and everything was fixed just like that.....consider the state of your hardware...does it still work fine with that project on your old camcorder as well...?

I would suggest trying to export your project back to some'elses' camcorder first and then work the fault back to the PC/software...

[irobertson 0]

Thanks for the pointers, it shoud be a total PAL setup, but good to check. I need to dig back out my old camera (as have donated it to DZ for playback), good one to check.
I havn't defragged the disk in a while so could try that as well.

[bob.dino 1]

Quote

I havn't defragged the disk in a while so could try that as well.

Disk defrag sounds like a good idea.

[DSE 5]

Disk defrag is a bad idea if you already have video files on the system. Disk defrag for video/large block files is rarely a necessity anyway.

What I'd be looking at is whether the drives are in PIO or DMA mode, look in your System Properties/IDE controllers to find out. Drives should always be in DMA mode when possible.
Also, if you have lots of small files on the disk, then a defrag will help initially, but you'll run into other problems later on. it's a good idea to capture to a second drive anyway.
Drive an IDE, SATA, Firewire, or SCSI system?
Is it sharing any system resources such as fans, sound cards, video card, or controller device? USB? You want to not be sharing any of those resources with your IDE controller.
Also, if you have video sharing a resource with 1394 bus, that too can cause problems depending on how overlay is managed.
Myriad reasons, I have an FAQ on the subject at
http://www.vasst.com/?v=training/VegasFAQnew.htm that might be of some additional help. Look at the Capture FAQ as it goes very deeply into why frames can be dropped during capture.
HTH

[bob.dino 1]

Quote

Disk defrag is a bad idea if you already have video files on the system.

Why?

[DSE 5]

Because it's quite possible to corrupt the headers on the files.
If you have a RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration, this is particularly important to not do, with single drives, it's not as big an issue. Avid tech support won't even talk to you if you've defragged in the middle of a project.
Defragging in today's world is more myth than reality. It does decrease seek times, but doesn't benefit large block files that video generates. If you've not captured video yet, then there is no risk of corrupting headers. Additionally, since vid files are so large, defragging takes a longer time than for smaller files, with a low cost/time benefit to long defrag sessions.
Another issue I failed to mention earlier that can cause dropped frames, is if you've got disk compression enabled. Be *sure* it's disabled on any drive accessing or writing video files.