Hi,
I realized quickly after purchasing a drobo that I couldn’t use it to capture dv standard def video footage for Final Cut–it dropped frames. I thought the solution was to capture using a Lace firewire drive and then copying over the media to the drobo–essentially using the drobo only as back up. Several times now I have found that the media file (standard def dv footage) copied to the drobo was compromised in the copying process. When viewed on the lacie as a quicktime file it plays fine, looks fine. But when played from the drobo, and when brought into a final cut bin, some frames have been lost. This is freaking me out. How can I trust the drobo as a back up device, if the media that is backed up gets damaged in the process? I have never had this problem when copying media files from one normal firewire drive to another.
has anyone else had this experience? I used disc utility on the drobo, and everythign was fine, no repairs needed…
Thanks,
Nora
How are you copying files from the Lacie Firewire drive to the Drobo?
If you have the Drobo connected via Firewire - use USB instead.
That’ll help determine whether it’s some kind of bus conflict (which can be the case if real-time DV output is enabled and you’re using a Firewire connection again).
Additional background (applies to capture and playback, but not strict data copying):
DV (and HDV) capture requires a constant real-time stream of data. Since it’s only 25 Mbps (~3.2 MB/sec) rate, you’re well within Drobo’s sustained data rate on any interface. However, latency is the killer factor, and most Firewire storage devices will burst instead of trickle the data. The burst will “clog the pipe” and cause latency, resulting in dropped frames.
Imagine, for example, you’re having a telephone conversation. While over the course of the conversation, your total “talk” time may be the same, the situation plays out differently whether one person talks constantly for 10 minutes straight versus if the two people go 5 rounds of 2-minute exchanges.