FCP users: import problem
 

Hi!
I feel like I'm missing something, but don't know what it could be. When I go to import 1080p24 footage I set my sequence up for 1080p24 and my clip capture for the same. I can control the cam through FCP so I know its communicating, but then if I hit capture now, nothing happens. And when I set ins and outs and hit capture clip, it creates an offline clip which I can't batch capture. Very odd. Has this happened to anyone?
Thanks!

dual 1.8 G5 ppc
1.5 gig ram
FCP 5.1.4

Steve,

This is happened to pretty much everyone who captures in
this way. It is one of the idiocyracies (sp), of HDV capture.
There are 'way more qualified people to answer you question,
but I suggest you do a search, there is alot of discussion
about it.

All the best,

David

Press play on the camera.

what I've tried so far
 

Thanks for the suggestions. Now I can't even get FCP to recognize the camera. Here's what I've tried:
trashing QT receipts
dvcpro1080i setup
shutting down attaching camera then restarting
switching playback mode in camera to HDV

I'm not finding a solution yet. I know someone here knows what's going on. I'm just going to be patient and wait. Thanks.

Mine has been working perfectly. I capture with the 1080p24 easy setup. HDV capture setting. At first I couldn't find the camera but I clicked on refresh av devices and all was well. Camera needs to be plugged in before activating capture mode.

Huh. Yeah, that's exactly the way I've been doing it. I don't know what's wrong with it. Maybe I'll go buy a new cable. Its the one I've been using since I got my XL-1 in 2001. I'll get a new cable and post if that helped or not.

It could be the cable. Since you could control the camera originally but not capture, that sort of implies a cable problem, maybe.

If you shot in HDV, 24F, your camera playback needs to be in HDV, not SD, so you might double check that. The HDV 1080p24 Easy Setup should adjust your capture settings properly too. Then you need to get the sequence settings right, but that shouldn't affect capture. If I've used a DVCAM deck in between Canon capturing, I also have to always go to the View menu and say refresh AV devices. My sequence settings are HD 1440X1080, same for pixel aspect ration, and the anamorphic 16X9 box unchecked (even though the image is 16:9). Compressor is also HDV1080p24, but if I want to see a still image on the NTSC monitor, I can change that to SD, which doesn't affect anything I'm editing. You can't play it on the monitor but can see a still frame, which is handy for color correction.

I think I got it
 

So, I think the problem was that before hooking it up to my G5, I was watching the footage on TV and I had the "HD downconvert" setting on. Even though this is grayed out when the firewire is in I think it has a negative effect. Just like not having HDV selected as the playback mode. I hope this helps anyone with the same problem.

P.S. Thanks for all the awesome presents, they're great.

A possible clue to the solution?
 

I've had the same problems in FCP, batch capturing didn't work at all. So I just settled down with capturing whole tapes in one go (and why are they also in one file?) and just cut from there.

However I'm working on this project right now and because of some quality issue, I decided to go back to Premiere Pro 1.5 to recapture the specific clips needed for my project. (I'm converting from HDV-DV in the camera)

Remarkably, in that software THE SAME issues popped up: TC unresponsive and stubborn and simply not capturing at all.
In Premiere Pro however, you're able to choose a specific model in the Firewire settings. So, instead of Canon Standard, I chose Canon XM-2.

Since then, the capturing has been a lot more responsive and obedient (allthough there were still issues left).
Is it possible within FCP to choose for a specific camera model too? That would maybe solve a lot of the capturing issues I've been reading here.

What version of Final Cut are you using? Because I don't even have a 108024p easy setup option. And the update site keeps saying my serial number is invalid... which is BS.

The 24p and other easy setups came with the upgrade that allowed you to get 5.1.2 (I think that's the right number). They had the $49 Universal upgrade thing going on for about a year. You have to have that first. Then you can go online and get the upgrade to that, which has everything you need. I don't know if the $49 thing is still in effect or not, but if you haven't done that, you really need to, especially if you're doing HDV and 24p.

Thanks for the info.

I've found the 5.1.4 on the apple site, but it keeps saying my serial number is invalid... Is there some specific way you have to enter it, or do they not let academic versions update? I was under the impression that you couldn't buy an upgrade for a later version if you have the academic license, I thought you would still be able to update it.

The problem is you have to buy the Universal upgrade. There's a form to download, and you have to send in some of your old discs and they mail you back some new ones. Then you reinstall. THEN you do the dowload that gives you 1080p24 capability. I don't know about the acadamic discount package. If you call the Apple web store they can help you out. I got hold of a very knowledgeable guy there one time. As I recall there's a phone number on the site someplace. It's probably hard to find because the site is so iPhoneish now.

Likewise
 

I recently purchased an A1 & shot some footage on it yesterday. The camera is set to 1080i/60i with the down convert turned off (per manual instructions).

When I opened the project in FCP, I did the Easy Setup for HDV.

The capture was glitchy. I would capture "Clip" and half the time I would get a timecode error message. I would just try it again and usually it would begin capture.

No matter what I did, I only got video with no audio.

I tried all the settings on the camera & in FCP that I could to no avail.

I tried to customize my capture preferences too, but the HDV preferences are locked and the Edit & Duplicate buttons are greyed out.

And not only no audio, but the video shows up unrendered on the timeline.

Any ideas?