Sound file sounds choppy when placed on my FCP 7 timeline

Hi guys and girls I have a question that if someone can solve for me I will be forever great full. I have a stock early 2008 2.8 quad core desk top mac pro with 16 gig of ram. I edit with FCP 7 and have been for some time. I shoot my video with a Sony Pmwex1r. When I was filming in SD on my sony and editing on my mac all was fine, until i started filming in HD. let me explain. I film in HD, ingest it into the computer, then Log and transfer it into FCP 7. When I start working on my project and add a sound file (a complete song) at times the song will play back very choppy (not all the time). To fix this i sometimes have to shut down FCP7 then reopen it, if that don't work I then have to shut the computer down then re open it. I did some research and some have suggested to make sure that the audio file matches what FCP7 uses. I get my music from iTunes and the audio file that ITunes uses is not what FCP7 likes. I converted the audio file in ITunes to the File that FCP likes and still I have the same problem. The only thing that seemed to change when I converted the audio file to a FCP format was that I didn't have to render it. Keeping in mind that this only happens to me when editing in HD. It is driving me nuts, completely slowing down my editing. Any ideas?

I'm betting that iTunes file (depending on what version of iTunes you're running) is MPEG-3 or something. Convert it to AIFF, 48kHz, 16-bit, NOT with iTunes (Apple lossless or AAC), and you'll be fine. iTunes doesn't convert to a FCP 7 friendly format (AIFF).

I'd use STP or Audacity (freeware, very good).

Also, songs purchased from the iTunes store, that have digital rights management (DRM) embedded, will not play properly in FCP 7.

Thank you BenB for such a fast response. I have tried converting the file to a more FCP 7 friendly audio format BUT I tryed to convert in ITunes. Later on today I will give it a shot with Audacity as you suggested and see what happens. I will keep you posted.



Thank you Michael

Curious, what exactly are you converting it to in iTunes?

I think I converted it to a aiff in iTunes.

Quicktime 7 Pro is just as good for audio conversion for FCP 7

That iTunes AIFF should work fine, unless there is DRM in the file.

well I thought the problem was gone. I converted the song from iTunes in QT7 to a AIFF format and things worked fine for a few days. I add two additional songs to my FCP7 track and no problem, until I added the third song. After converting it to AIFF in QT7 dropped it on the time line and when I play it baby sometimes its fine sometimes its choppy. I don't understand.



MIKE

Just worked on my project for an hour and it worked fine…. Its crazy it comes and goes….

What drive are you running your Libraries off of, and what is the duration of the timeline you're editing?

FCP is on a 500gb drive and my FCP project is on a separate drive with all my render files and such. my time line duration is about 1 hr and a half.



Mike

How are these drives connected to your Mac?

Both of these drives are internal drives. Both are stock drivers that came with the computer. The 500 gb drive has all my applications on it ( i never save or edit anything on this drive) the other drive is a 1tb drive that I work off of.



Mike

1st, I'd verify that on each of these two drives, they both have at least 15% of their total capacity left as free space.

2nd, I'd delete all FCPX render files (File menu) for all Libraries, all Cache files. Turn off background rendering, and try that. Manually render if necessary.

Just to see what happens.

ill try and let you know…. thanks

Do you guys know where to get any good sweet 16 video effects?



Mike

What is a sweet 16 video effect?

LOL… a sweet 16 wipe or sweet 16 transition, or sweet sixteen animation .

I'm sweet 49, but that won't help you much.

Haven't dealt with them for quite a while, but, if my ageing memory doesn't completely fail me, Digital Juice had stuff like that.
www.digitaljuice.com

Forget about. They don't offer single downloads any more, but you have to get a subscription with those guys. :dry: