Are my drives too slow?! WTF?

**Atrain505** · 07-19-2008, 01:37 PM

Advres knows.
Playback settings...you know it looks good you don't need to edit in full quality. Do your final output in full quality obviously.
You can always do an offline and online edit like back in the day. I.e. log your clips. Import them at a low setting. Edit. Then reconnect the media at full setting for a final output. This is how almost all digital editing used to be done.

advres · 07-19-2008, 01:41 PM

^^And it still is for many, many people!

**Whiteroom_Guardian** · 07-21-2008, 12:57 PM

Ok, so I went under the RT and changed it to "Playback Settings", but I can't seem to find a way to adjust those playback settings.

Does it matter that I am on an "Academic" version of FCP? I have heard that its sorta ghetto FCP. True?

And, yes my scratch disk is the external. Should I use the internal drive?

**Whiteroom_Guardian** · 07-21-2008, 03:02 PM

Ok, so even with "playback settings" selected under RT it is still doing the same shit. It will play he title I generated in LiveType totally fine, but as soon as it gets to the concert footage it stops playing the the drive starts to freak out.

What the hell? It seems like changing the RT to "playback settings" does no changes at all. I need to get this done asap cause my client is calling me over and over to see when it will be done!

**Whiteroom_Guardian** · 07-22-2008, 12:36 PM

Well, I followed all the tips in this article:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1165

Still no dice. Guess it HAS to be the external drive.

**f2f** · 07-22-2008, 01:00 PM

why don't you just borrow somebody's firewire drive for a couple of weeks? or, better yet, just buy a firewire enclosure of the size of your current usb drive and just move the drive to it? no need to buy a new drive. just make sure the enclosure is the right size and the right type (sata vs ide). i'm sure the people in the store can exchange the drive for the new enclosure in about 5 minutes.

enclosures run about $50.
http://www.cooldrives.com/firen.html

**Whiteroom_Guardian** · 07-22-2008, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by f2f

why don't you just borrow somebody's firewire drive for a couple of weeks? or, better yet, just buy a firewire enclosure of the size of your current usb drive and just move the drive to it? no need to buy a new drive. just make sure the enclosure is the right size and the right type (sata vs ide). i'm sure the people in the store can exchange the drive for the new enclosure in about 5 minutes.

enclosures run about $50.
http://www.cooldrives.com/firen.html

Hmmm. I was under the impression that a drive built as a USB 2.0 drive is somehow internally different than a drive built for Firewire 800. No? How will putting it in a different enclosure speed up the connection?

advres · 07-22-2008, 01:16 PM

The drive is fast enough if it is 7200 RPM, it is the USB2.0 which slows it down. It can only read/write as fast as the slowest connection. Read up on data transfer rate and you will understand.

advres · 07-22-2008, 01:24 PM

Also, I'm still not buying it that your drive is too slow. Go to the menu bar / sequence / render all and make sure you "checkmark" every different file type. Then go to the timeline and hit command+a (select all) then option+r (render all). This will render everything that your system needs rendered (even things that should be able to be played realtime).

Try this before dissecting your drive or buying another. Ideally, you need a new drive, but something isn't set up right, because this setup should work.

What codec did you bring the footage into FCP with?

**Whiteroom_Guardian** · 07-22-2008, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by advres

Also, I'm still not buying it that your drive is too slow. Go to the menu bar / sequence / render all and make sure you "checkmark" every different file type. Then go to the timeline and hit command+a (select all) then option+r (render all). This will render everything that your system needs rendered (even things that should be able to be played realtime).

Try this before dissecting your drive or buying another. Ideally, you need a new drive, but something isn't set up right, because this setup should work.

What codec did you bring the footage into FCP with?

Ok, so I am doing the render all now. I brought the footage in using the HDV-1080i60 codec. Is that my problem?

**f2f** · 07-22-2008, 01:41 PM

from wikipedia: HDV 1080i uses a recording data rate of 25 Mbit/s (3.125 MB/s)

this tells you that it should be fine for playback from an external usb2.0 hard drive. one could go search for a little switch on the drive that says "1.0-2.0" and see if you haven't been running in usb 1.0 mode, but i am pretty confident if your drive was mounted in 1.0 mode it would've been completely unusable.

to answer your questions: the drives are all the same (type: they can be sata or ide), it's an external controller that is used to make the usb or firewire connection. as advres said, the slow part is the interface/connection, not the drive itself. today's drives are plenty fast to saturate an external connection of most types.

**Whiteroom_Guardian** · 07-22-2008, 01:52 PM

Originally Posted by f2f

from wikipedia: HDV 1080i uses a recording data rate of 25 Mbit/s (3.125 MB/s)

this tells you that it should be fine for playback from an external usb2.0 hard drive. one could go search for a little switch on the drive that says "1.0-2.0" and see if you haven't been running in usb 1.0 mode, but i am pretty confident if your drive was mounted in 1.0 mode it would've been completely unusable.

to answer your questions: the drives are all the same (type: they can be sata or ide), it's an external controller that is used to make the usb or firewire connection. as advres said, the slow part is the interface/connection, not the drive itself. today's drives are plenty fast to saturate an external connection of most types.

Well, there is no switch on the drive. I wish I could better explain whats going on. If I play from the timeline it plays titles just fine, but as soon as it gets to the actual concert footage it stalls....I get the pinwheel, the playhead jumps a few seconds....i get another pinwheel....its jumps again. Repeat. All the while the light on the front of the drive starts flashing like the drive is searching.

Edit to add: Is there another codec I could use that may work better? I meant to shoot the concert in SD, but totally forgot to change my camera settings so its shot in HD. Really unnecessary to shoot in HD when its just getting burned to a regular old DVD anyway.

**Atrain505** · 07-22-2008, 05:45 PM

Like I said before do an online offline.
Import the footage at a low setting...i.e. it will look like shit.
Edit.
Re-insert tape and online everything at full quality.
Then export back to new tape, or burn to DVD or whatever you need to do. You don't need to watch it in perfect resolution while editing do you? It takes time but this will insure you get the product delivered to the client. After the job is completed you can spend the time to figure out where the system is currently failing.

**Whiteroom_Guardian** · 07-23-2008, 11:32 AM

Thanks. I posted over at the Videomaker forums as well. I guess I will have to do what Atrain suggested, although since I am working with live concert footage there really isn't much editing going on. Just trying to take hour-long clips from tape, and cut them into the 6 or 7 individual songs and then export in a usable format for DVD.

**Gerome** · 07-23-2008, 05:10 PM

Maybe your camera has a downconversion feature. On my Sony HC-7, to capture video, I have to go through a connection guide where I tell it I'm connecting to a computer, then the next menu asks if I want the output in HD or SD. Maybe you can re-capture the video on your computer in SD if the video camera has that feature.

**Whiteroom_Guardian** · 07-23-2008, 06:18 PM

Originally Posted by Gerome

Maybe your camera has a downconversion feature. On my Sony HC-7, to capture video, I have to go through a connection guide where I tell it I'm connecting to a computer, then the next menu asks if I want the output in HD or SD. Maybe you can re-capture the video on your computer in SD if the video camera has that feature.

My camera doesn't have that feature. If I want SD I have to set my camera to record in SD from the get go. I was gonna do this originally, but forgot to change my camera settings before the shoot.

Anyway, I started using my internal drive for scratch and all the problems are gone.