[MacDV] Problem exporting to tape--iMovie4

[John Collins]

Gregg-- thanks for the response. I am currently working thru PCI FW 
card  (forgotten what it is) and I think I have already tried the 
internal FW ports but will retry and try some of your other 
suggestions-- will get back on it.

John
On Sep 16, 2004, at 12:50 PM, Gregg Gorrie wrote:

> on 9/16/04 11:04 AM, John Collins at johnccollins at comcast.net wrote:
>
>> Karl & Bernard--thanks for your responses-- now there are 3 of us with
>> similar problems exporting the finished iMovie back to tape. It sounds
>> like our problems are similar but different.
>>
>> My end product as I export to tape looks like a jigsaw puzzle for a 6
>> year-old--that is, big chunks that have interlocking edges(as seen in
>> the LCD). When I actually play that tape back it almost looks OK but 
>> it
>> isn't. It shifts and shimmys as it plays.
>
> Have been following this thread a little bit and have some 
> observations. I
> had exactly what you described above (the "jigsaw puzzle" video on 
> output) a
> number of years ago when I first jumped into the DV fray. This was 
> with an
> older Umax clone (604e) using a third party Firewire card (Orange 
> Micro). To
> get things working I eventually had to upgrade my computer with a 
> G4/400
> daughter card and finally found the culprit was the sluggish Orange 
> Micro
> Firewire card, so replaced that with a VST card and all was good - 
> sort of.
> I got the "blocky" video when I tried to upgrade to FCP3, but iMovie 2 
> and
> FCP2 still work for me on OS9. All my research pointed to a limitation 
> of
> the bus speed and bus timing issues (this old clone has a bus speed of 
> 45Mhz
> - slowwww) as being the main culprits.
>
> All that being said, I find it unbelievable that the three of you are 
> having
> similar problems with the machines you now have (don't have the 
> original
> posts anymore, but I seem to recall at least G4/G5 machines with 1GHZ+
> cpu's, one even a DP!). Even the old B&W G3/400's with native FW 
> support
> eliminated this problem for most people.
>
> I don't recall seeing this in the original posts, but what are you 
> recording
> you're video to/from - internal HDs or external FW drives? I know 
> there have
> been issues in the past with some setups when you try to import/export 
> DV
> between the camera and a FW hard drive. Some users found that using 
> separate
> FW ports helped; others mentioned that the problem was solved when they
> daisy chained the camera through the FW hard drive's second port. Disk
> fragmentation can also be an issue, particularly if you're streaming 
> to/from
> the same drive your OS/Apps are on. Hopefully your using a separate 
> drive
> (or at least partition) for your DV.
>
>> In watching this list and studying video--I hear references to
>> "stuttering" and drop-outs, but I am not sure what these really look
>> like. Is that what I have? The problem has to be in the computer--tho
>> everything seems OK.
>
> Stuttering and dropouts are a little different. When I use FCP3 with 
> OSX on
> my old beast, I get this ... the video and audio stops/starts 
> intermittently
> (the audio sounds like sounds like someone stuttering) and eventually 
> the
> two go out of sync. This is most likely because my machine's CPU just 
> can't
> keep up with the task at hand, although this issue can also happen 
> with a
> hard drive that is too slow.
>>
>> Are there any suggestions of what I could try in respect to the
>> computer?
>>
>> John in Tucson
>
> While I agree that it does sound like a hardware issue, it is possible 
> that
> there may be a software problem with iMovie export as there are now at 
> least
> three of you having similar problems.
>
> Maybe you could post more details (ie what drive you are 
> recording/playing
> video from) etc.
>
> Also, you're using fairly recent Apple hardware and Apple software. I 
> would
> try to put the ball back in their court - maybe take the machine back 
> to the
> vendor you purchased it from to see if they can help.
>
> Hope this post helps in some way.
>
> -- 
> Gregg
>
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