Capturing 24p into FCP

[Bill Doyle]

I have an A1 and just picked up the HV20 for B-roll and as a deck. In an existing 1080p24 timeline I have, I tried using the HV20 with batch capture and get an annoyingly large number of "Unable to Locate Timecode" messages; sometimes I have to hit "Continue" four times before the clip is logged. With my A1, I could walk away during the capture process- now I have to babysit the whole thing. Quite a pain when you're trying to log 50 clips!

These tapes are from an A1 and I won't be trying the HV20-shot tapes until tonight. Is there a setting I'm missing? Is anyone else having difficulty batch capturing?

Thanks,

Bill Doyle

[Elmer Lang]

Sounds like your capture setup could be improved.

Do you have HDV Firewire Basic as your Device Control Preset? That's the best way to capture in FCP with the HV20.

best,
elmer

[James Miller]

Bill, Capture a few seconds of footage using capture now, then reveal that clip in the finder and open in quicktime. Get info within quicktime and have a look at the details.

I have a XHA1 and wanted to use my HV20 as a VTR/B Camera. On my first tests even though my settings in FCP for HDV 25p had remained unchanged, importing XHA1 25p footage using the HV20 captured it in 'HDV 1080i50' .

The same tape captured in FCP using the XHA1 showed HDV 1080p25.

Quit FCP and trash the prefs in the library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data/ -'Final Cut Pro 5.0 Prefs' - 'Final Cut Pro Prof Cache' - 'Final Cut Pro Obj Cache'.

Re-lunched FCP and tried using the HV20 again as a VTR, now the format shows correctly as HDV 1080p25, problem solved.

Give it a try, James

[Brandon Svec]

Bill, I have had that same problem with batch capture in FCP about time code errors. I shot very clean- i.e. I never rewound or reviewed anything on the tape just went from shot to shot.. Has anyone else tried batch captures with HV20 in FCP? I had no trouble with a full capture, but the FCP logging feature seems very useful if it would work.

[Rob Robinson]

Originally Posted by Brandon Svec

Bill, I have had that same problem with batch capture in FCP about time code errors. I shot very clean- i.e. I never rewound or reviewed anything on the tape just went from shot to shot.. Has anyone else tried batch captures with HV20 in FCP? I had no trouble with a full capture, but the FCP logging feature seems very useful if it would work.

"Striping" the tape first usually solves these types of problems. Just put a lens cap on with a blank tape and hit the record button and come back after an hour. You'll have a tape with timecode preset with no gaps and no more of these issues...

[Brandon Svec]

Originally Posted by Rob Robinson

"Striping" the tape first usually solves these types of problems. Just put a lens cap on with a blank tape and hit the record button and come back after an hour. You'll have a tape with timecode preset with no gaps and no more of these issues...

Thanks for the tip. I will be trying that.

[Kaku Ito]

Originally Posted by Brandon Svec

Bill, I have had that same problem with batch capture in FCP about time code errors. I shot very clean- i.e. I never rewound or reviewed anything on the tape just went from shot to shot.. Has anyone else tried batch captures with HV20 in FCP? I had no trouble with a full capture, but the FCP logging feature seems very useful if it would work.

Not sure if this would be the solution but I noticed that the new preset after Apple supported New Sony HDV cam then the preset comes with Sony HDV
Capture setting instead of HDV Firewre Basic NDF. I made the capture preset back to HDV Firewire Basic NDF and gave little more preroll like 6 seconds and got rid of the time code not found erros.
And HV20 would only work with capturing at 1080/60i this moment.

[Bill Doyle]

Thanks Guys,

I'm going to start experimenting, but since I've captured it already (although it was a slow, painful process), I've got to first get back to editing to complete the project.

Now I've got to get a handle on this conversion stuff (since the HV20 24p stuff is in a 60i stream) so I can avoid all this rendering while I mix with my A1- I'll search the boards and post if I don't get it.

Thanks again,

Bill

[Kaku Ito]

Bill, did you see this thread about 24P on FCP with HV20?

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=92043

[Bill Doyle]

Kaku,

Thanks. I did read that post, but I'm going to actually have to try it to see if it makes sense. I've never used Cinema Tools and sometimes I think all this cadence, reverse telecine, transcode to AIC stuff is going to make my head explode.

Other than the need to render HV20 24p stuff in a 1080p24 timeline, does the reverse pulldown footage actually look different? In other words, is it worth all these steps?

Any idea if FCP Studio 2, with its open timeline, will eliminate the need to do all of this?

Bill

[Maury McEvoy]

Withdrawn: On furthur examination, the rendering did NOT produce the proper cadence.

[Kaku Ito]

Originally Posted by Bill Doyle

Kaku,

Thanks. I did read that post, but I'm going to actually have to try it to see if it makes sense. I've never used Cinema Tools and sometimes I think all this cadence, reverse telecine, transcode to AIC stuff is going to make my head explode.

Other than the need to render HV20 24p stuff in a 1080p24 timeline, does the reverse pulldown footage actually look different? In other words, is it worth all these steps?

Any idea if FCP Studio 2, with its open timeline, will eliminate the need to do all of this?

Bill

Bill, I wasn't much familiar with Cinema Tools before since all I was doing was 60i, but I wanted to do 24P experiment, and after finding out the way, it wasn't so hard. Try follow the step and ask me any questions.