Hard to say what's causing the dropped frames, but it's usually just a matter of isolating the problem by attacking it first from a software setup and possible installation weaknesses, or hardware... which isn't as easy to look into. But if you aren't working on a cleanly installed system, that's likely the problem. Has to be clean, and fairly recent. At the school I teach at part time, there are 75 workstations, and we can play ProRes back from single internal satas all day long... BUT... each of these systems is totally reinstalled from the ground up every semester.... NOt working in really long form projects however... But it's where I'd start the troubleshooting. Pick a system, wipe it's hard drive, and reinstall it all cleanly over a totally updated system setup... Might be all that needs to be done. If the system wasn't cleanly installed when it went from an earlier version of FCS or FCP to Studio 2, or say, went from Tiger to Leopard or Panther to Tiger, it's time for a reinstall on that system.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer
Author: "Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4" Click
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