Major Dropped Frame Issue!

I had my first shoot with the BMC today and 2 hours of shooting was unusable and had to be re-shot. Maybe this has been addressed in another thread but here goes.

I installed all the BMC software on my 15" MacBook RD. Connected the camera and opened Ultrascope. Everything seems to work perfectly. BUT... WHen playing back the footage at lunch it was 5 seconds out of sync and dropping about every 5th frame. Panic ensues. I disconnected everything, backed up the corrupt footage, re-formatted the Crucial M4 256 and Started over. With nothing attached it was perfect. Re connected to Ultrascope and shot another test. Same problem. So we re-shot everything this afternoon un-tethered and it is fine.

Love the footage!

Now Ultrascope wont even launch. It can't configure the capture device.
Should I un-install all DaVinci software and re-install?
Are there known Thunderbolt issues?
Anyone else had this problem?

[Kristian Lam]

Hi,

What frame rate were you shooting at?

Hi Kristian,
Thanks for the quick reply.
24p.
When the Ultrascope was working there was a slight delay on the laptop monitor window, but nowhere near the full 5 sec. delay that was recorded.
Is there a certain procedure for using Ultrascope (Connecting first/last etc.)?
Can unplugging TB cable or switching lenses cause problems?
Can the cable itself be the problem?

[Kristian Lam]

Oh, and what version of software are you running?

1.2

This is precisely the difference between 30p and 24p: 1 every 5 frames. Looks like a software issue. Probably Ulttascope is misconfigured or something like that

Ultrascope doesn't loop back to the camera, does it?

[Kristian Lam]

Ultrascope doesn't loop back to the camera, does it?

No it doesn't. Let me check this one out.

[Kristian Lam]

Do you have any other Thunderbolt devices attached?

What SSD cards are you using? That could have something to do with it if they're not fast enough.

Oh, you weren't using SSD?

We've experienced this yesterday using a Crucial 512 M4 SSD and the camera connected to Ultrascope / Media Express. The capture from ME is fine, the ProRes file from the camera is useless - continuos dropped frames. We thought it was the SSD, but the untethered ProRes shots are OK.

I was recording to Crucial M4 256 in camera. I could not get Media Express to see the camera then or since. Ultrascope is also no longer seeing the camera.

I did have a Lacie portable TB drive attached to the 2nd TB port on the laptop.

Untethered the camera is awesome. I shot for a music video last night with my cheap 18-55 Canon kit lens and my Canon 50mm 1.4 with practicals and 2 light panels. Prores, asa1600 @ f4.8. Looks fantastic!
I'll have some clips posted soon.

The issue is the SSD... That Crucial M4 has to be a certain updated firmware to get around this. If you look a little deeper in here, you will find another thread on which SSDs are certified and which are not. The M4 is not certified for RAW capture with its original firmware. I have this SSD but haven't used it yet since I haven't been able to figure out how to update this firmware on a mac. If you figure it out, shed some light on how to go about this process...

CB

Strange thing is that we didn't capture RAW, but ProRes... tethered it's useless; untethered everything is fine...

Same here. ProRes recording, not RAW. I'm thinking I need to re-install BMD software and make sure I'm not daisy chaining anything.

2.5k hooked up to the Ultrascope via thunderbolt 13" MACbook Pro. and it started dropping frames. Great feature except for the unusable footage. We disconnected to shoot broll and everything was fine. Freeze.

2.5k hooked up to the Ultrascope via thunderbolt 13" MACbook Pro. and it started dropping frames. Great feature except for the unusable footage. We disconnected to shoot broll and everything was fine. Freeze.

update******** Blackmagic tech support said it only works with 17" macbook pro. Do not record if you are connected to the computer. Again great feature ... except for unusable footage