[kerisabe]

Anyone have any idea? Cause everytime I want to do this, 1 sec after it started it will say that the frame rate is dropping on the last attempt.

[edavis]

I'll need to do some research when I get home tonight, but are you sure that you are configured with your capture device correctly? I remember a "quick setup" type function, where you can set the type of device you are attempting to capture from. Perhaps you have something mis-defined in that setup screen????

[edavis]

OK, I'm home now.

Go to the Final Cut Express HD menu bar item and pull down to "Easy Setup".

Make sure that you have chosen the correct type of camera.

Hope that helps...

[sonicularulus]

i only experienced this before and it s mainly because i shot in regular 60i, but i was attempting to capture at 24p...
once again, its just in the capture settings...
in the capture window, go to capture settings and make usre its set to the right setting (i have mine on dv ntsc)

[kerisabe]

Originally Posted by sonicularulus

i only experienced this before and it s mainly because i shot in regular 60i, but i was attempting to capture at 24p...
once again, its just in the capture settings...
in the capture window, go to capture settings and make usre its set to the right setting (i have mine on dv ntsc)

I have mine on dv ntsc too.. same thing. But it doesnt want to capture. I can ff or rw, stop, pause, basically control the camera through the Final Cut software but when the time comes to capture, it wouldnt want to ..

[kerisabe]

To the experts out there,

I think this might be the problem. I just checked the hardware requirenment on the Final Cut Express HD 3.5 website, here: http://images.apple.com/finalcutexpr....5_qualdev.pdf

My MiniDV camcorder is not lister there, mine is the Sony model No. DCR-PC115E

Does the model number really matters? Actually when I hook up the firewire cable to the laptop, I can see/control the camera/video from the software, but when using the CAPTURE, it started then stop right away saying that the software detected a decrease in frame rate in the previous capture attempt. IM CONFUSED!!

[iMOTOR]

Did you stripe the tape with timecode before shooting your footage?

No?

Striping a tape with timecode is a necessary procedure before you start shooting.
It is as simple as placing a brand new tape in your camera, (I usually stick a lens cap on and unplug the mic during this) and hit record, let it record the entire tape without any breaks. This makes sure the timecode stays regular from beginning to end.

SMPTE timecode is a reference your camera produces to tell Final Cut how to time the each frame in the timeline and keep audio in sync.

This could be your problem.

Hope it helps.

[kerisabe]

So how do you do this?? Sorry for the newb question.

[iMOTOR]

Originally Posted by kerisabe

So how do you do this?? Sorry for the newb question.

First, a brief description of timecode, professionally known as SMPTE Timecode.

Timecode is something that will look like this:

00:24:36:08

Sometimes your camera will display timecode in the viewfinder. The timeline in Final Cut Ex will make its own timecode so to speak.

At the beginning of your roll of tape, the timecode should be 00:00:00:00, the end of your roll may look like 00:28:00:00.

Your camera will attach timecode to every cm of tape that it records onto.
Timecode is like the numbers on a stopwatch running as you shoot footage.

Final Cut uses this timecode as reference to time the frames of video and sync the audio.

Usually, you will start your camera, shoot maybe 5 or 10 min. of footage, stop, then continue shooting another 5 or 10 min.

When you stop recording in the camera, the timecode will stop. It will resume again when you start recording more footage, but this were your break in timecode can take place.

Broken timecode is often the cause of dropped frames.

To prevent this, when you put a new tape in, you want to initially record from the beginning of the tape to the end of the tape without stopping. Once you do this, the tape will have no breaks in timecode and you rewind and shoot normally. You will stripe the tape once, then you can shoot over it as many times as you want.

I prefer to place a lens cap on the camera and unplug the mic before striping a tape so that
the last clip I put on the tape won't have a picture or sound following it.

This procedure won't fix the footage you already have because it would record over it, but if necessary, I believe some post production studios have ways of repairing broken timecode.

Hope this helps.