Video Playback Slowing Down

Have a Catalyst running on a Theatre Show - "Miss Siagon"
The operators have mentioned that only recently the playback rate has beed slowing down. This show has only a few weeks left to run and it hasn't skipped a beat for 2 years.
Any body any clues on why the frame rate would start dropping. Is there a defragmenting needed to Mac drives?
They tell me they have done nothing and the drive has 40gig left on it.
The system only plays 3 files per show - each fairly long - but were designed specifically, and as I said before have been running faultlessly for 2 years
:confused:

Michael,

A few questions to help clarify...

-What version SW are you running?
-Is the content on a SCSI drive?
- Have you installed anything new? copied new files over? install OS updates? etc.....

It is probably worth cleaning up the content drive to rule it out (called "zeroing").

Move all your content over to another safe storage location as you will be wiping the entire content drive clean. All your files will be lost permanently if not backed up!!!

To zero a content drive:
1. Launch Disk Utility from Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities.
2. Choose the technical description of the content drive on the left pane.
3. Click the Erase tab and the Options button that is active on the Erase tab.
4. Select Zero All Data.
5. Type the name of the drive (in lieu of "Untitled") and click OK.
The zero process can take up to an hour for a 140 GB hard disk. You may be prompted for a username and password following a zero process.


When this is done you can copy all your content back over to the drive, then launch Catalyst and check that the library is set to "look" in the proper location for your content. Re-scan the library and you're done!

Hope this helps:)

Additionally if you machine is 2 years old....when was the last time it was opened up and cleaned out? A dirty Mac can cause performance issues....I have seen it many times.....

also you need to consider the fact that the drive might have failed.

or be close to failing.

Or the scsi cables could have failed or degraded.

Suggest you look into a replacement or backup machine.