Dropped frames... Why, how, what to do?

[Tom Van]

I got a call from a director I've been working with asking about dropped frames he's been getting on a RED Dragon shoot. This has never happened to me so I wasn't sure how to answer but it got me curious...

Why do dropped frames occur?

How can you avoid it?

What can you do about footage that has dropped frames?

of course any input is greatly appreciated.

 

[Robert Berger]

Never ever had dropped frames on any scarlet or Epic ore Dragon!!! Only when i had my Red One with the first Red harddiskdrives........
You did not get any warnongs and did you checked the original footage or did he got it on the all ready procest files??
The only thing i think can give dropped frames if your ssd card is not good connected in the camera! But you get a warning!!! Look at the original files first.

 

[Adrian Weinbrecht]

Hi Tom

is he getting dropped frames on the raw footage or the transcodes ?

We've never had it on raw footage but have had it on Transcodes (Pro Res) we got the transcodes done again and they were fine.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

I had a DRAGON drop from 24fps to 12fps during a shoot. What I saw was that my genlock went from green to red. I hit stop, the genlock went green, I started recording again, and everything seemed to be fine. No idea why it went all wonky that one time.