Issue with stuttering after recording directly to drive

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wyattm22

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  • Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2021 5:07 am
  • Real Name: Wyatt Miller

Issue with stuttering after recording directly to drive

PostTue Jul 13, 2021 3:33 pm

I'm constantly in and out of the video editor role and am pretty behind in a lot of technicals. I use Premiere Pro primarily and have put the editor hat back on recently when I accepted a job from a friend who needed an edit.

He just got a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 6K Pro camera the other week and the first thing he shot with it was this music video I'm editing. He didn't do any camera tests before-hand and recorded directly into a LaCie hard-drive from the camera.

Today I sat down with the director and started proxying the footage with him. He took a peek at the footage on his laptop and assumed the stuttering was due to the fact he was trying to pull selects from the 4K footage directly. I'm sure that was a part of the problem -- but after we brought the footage onto my more than capable rig and rendering some clips, there were still stutters that wouldn't leave.

Parts of clips would be completely fine, then all of a sudden, 3 minutes in, stutters. Some clips have no stutters at all, while others are riddled with it. I exported low-res sections of clips to make sure it wasn't my computer having trouble processing the clip and in the exports, the stutters would happen in the exact same spots for the same durations. I've tried multiple different codecs for proxies, and the timeline FPS is all correct.

Identical stutters when testing clips in DaVinci Resolve.

Exported clips on three machines and the stutters were consistent in all of them.



I want to know if there's any troubleshooting I can do on my end that I have overlooked or just don't know about to see if the footage is at all salvageable.

Right now, the troubleshooting I've done makes me believe these stutters are baked into the footage. They seemingly happen at random but sometimes I've noticed that they happen with camera moves or jerks. I suspect that since he recorded directly from camera to drive, these stutters are happening due to an unreliable connection on the harddrive on the MICRO B USB connection that causes partial disconnection upon movement of the camera rig. Then again, I don't feel 1000% confident in that verdict, which brings me to posting here!

Any help or insights are very much appreciated.
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Terry Mundy

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  • Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2021 1:47 am
  • Real Name: Terry Mundy

Re: Issue with stuttering after recording directly to drive

PostTue Jul 20, 2021 2:08 am

Hi Wyattm22,

I've been there and know what you're dealing with. It's frustrating to say the least.

These days lots of editors use solid state drives but not everyone can rush out and buy one. So here are some ideas from an all spinning drive user at one time. It's easier if I describe my system.

C:\ System drive and where Blackmagic and Premiere is installed
D:\ Cache for Premiere while editing
E:\ Clips drive
F:\ Copy of Clips drive *if doing A/B roll using the same clip
G:\ Pictures for background and miscellaneous files
Z:\ I re-letter any computer I touch so the CD/DVD/Blueray Disc is always drive Z: in case a removable drive gets plugged in the drive letters would be sequential

Perform a speed test on all drives to get a since of their speed. Do this from time to time because as the drive fills up the speed changes.

Try this and post your results. I look forward to see if it helps.

Terry

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