Agreed, Steve. It's beyond belief that Avid (AXPro; MC; Symph) still do not support 720p/25 or 50 (or 24 for that matter). Since Avid reps first told me that support was 'coming soon' in September 2005, we've had numerous software updates, including full support of HDV2, an annoying cycle of public announcements of intention to support HDV1 by Avid staff on the Avid forums followed by nothing and then full support for DVCProHD 720p (including 25p over 50) but still nothing for HDV1. Now Avid touts Liquid as their solution for HDV1 and 'independent production' (Chrome Xe on the AJA board). That's a development that should be of significant interest to Xpress Pro or Media Composer users.

Anyway, we've given up and switched to FCP for all HDV1/ProHD work and I have to say that there are no significant issues for us capturing 720p/25. We are on a brand new MacPro with 3GB RAM and a RAID array and the HD100 in question has never seen anything except the JVC 'ProHD' branded tape stock. The camera is a very early model. It looks like HDV1 problems with FCP vary a lot and are due to a combination of reasons.

I asked the JVC Pro rep in Sydney, Australia (Peter Farmakis) about this whole issue (in regard to 720p25) just two days ago:

"I thought Apple had sorted the problems with 720p25 digitizing with their 5.1.2 update, but no such luck! Even the latest update (5.1.4) still breaks clips for no apparent reason and takes 5-7 seconds to relock with the data stream and begin digitizing again (including across record "button on/off breaks", even when the user sets FCP to digitize the material as a continuous clip).

I see that JVC in the US have just released new firmware for the HD200/250 which is meant to eliminate -or at least minimise- this problem. They're also supposed to be releasing a similar firmware update for the GY-101/110 very shortly. Can you tell me Peter, do you know if there is going to be a firmware update available for Australian GY-111E owners that will fix this JCV/FCP incompatibility problem?"

Peter replied:

Apple Australia received a camera and deck from us only yesterday and that it will take a few weeks for Luke to conduct thorough tests. End result should be that Luke is able to recommend effective workflows for users of Pro HD and FCP.

We ask you to be patient for the time being and reassure you that Apple Australia and JVC Pro are co operating fully to resolve any compatibility/workflows problems that may exist.

Note: I'm not aware of any software upgrade for the GY-HD111E but have contacted JVC Pro tech support and will advise you accordingly as soon as information comes to hand."


I've only just purchased my GY-111E, under the assumption (because of a JVC-Pro press release) that all the digitizing issues were sorted. Silly me! Love the camera, but the workflow issue sucks and it staggers me that it's still a problem after ProHD has been on the market for 2-years. So, my camera is brand new, has only had 2 tapes in it (both JVC ProHD and I'm running an Intel Mac and th latest update of FCP... and I still have problems. Don't know how you've been so lucky Antony (Michael Wilson).

Anyway... Like all of you other troubled digitizers, I hope JVC and Apple will fix this issue REAL soon. I'd rather offer positive raves about my JVC/FCP experience than tell people, it looks great... if you can figure out how to cut it!

Thanks for the data, Antony. I'd say that's a big "tick" for Tim's theory in every respect!

Yes, I have been saying this as well. Many people blame JVC when it is clearly AVID's fault. They hate HDV I. In regards to HDV 2 though, the 24P/F from the Canon and Sony are still not supported either, so it is not just us who Avid is leaving in the dust.

Hi people.
JVC has released some time ago (2006) a firmware version along with some modifications in the hardware in order to solve the communication problems with FCP, so i don't understand why are you still having that problem.

Regards

If you are referring to the "A" upgrade, it does not address the 24/25 caputre problems.

I'm talking about loss of communication when capturing with FCP.
Even if communication is made during capturing, it might be corrupted and
spread files which are not suitable for editing on FCP.

Regards

I'm sorry I wasn't around to respond to this earlier.

Ben, I want to let you know that 720P25 DOES work with FCP 5.1.2 and newer versions, under the correct conditions. I've explained my "zero tolerance in FCP HDV capture tool theory" in other threads many times, and I stand by my assertion that you should do all you can do to help avoid data interruption in the stream. JVC recently released a firmware update for the HD200/250 that supposedly helps with stream integrity and therefore FCP ingest, and has released similar firmware updates for the BR-HD50U deck in the past.

I have done the exact same thing and it works fine, even on long clips.
My test system:
-v1.08 of the BR-HD50U firmware.
-A HD100U(A) recording at 720P25 and a HD200U (that has not been firmware updated yet) recording at 720P25.
-DVM63 ProHD tape stock
-FCP 5.1.4 running on a 17" iMac 2Ghz with 1GB of RAM.

You need at least v1.06 of the BR-HD50U firmware to bring the deck up to spec for capturing into FCP5.1.2.
That doesn't guarantee success though.
If you want to increase the chances of capturing without dropping frames, then make sure you maintain clean heads with a JVC head cleaner cassette (don't ever use wet style head cleaners) and do not mix tape brands on the heads. For best results use only one brand and model of tape in your camera. I recommend JVC's ProHD stock - which is designed for use in the ProHD cameras. It has worked flawlessly for me.
I have shot A LOT of tape on these cameras over the last year and a half (mostly 720P24, but also some 720P30 and 720P25,) and have captured a large portion of it natively in FCP since October 2006. I can't believe I'm just "lucky." I have used various firewire drives, a Macbook Pro, a Macbook, an iMac17", a G5, and my old G4/400 that has been updated to dual 1.2Ghz. All of these systems have at least 1GB of RAM.
I have used FREE RUN, REC, and REGEN TC modes and all work as expected.
The only time I have had issues is when using "Capture Now," but I generally log my clips and then batch capture. Assuming REGEN TC was used, or I allow enough preroll near TC breaks, I have not had any abnormal issues.

But it does address "issues with certain NLEs." I assume FCP was one of those NLEs that required the (A) upgrade on the original HD100.

Thanks for the kind replies, especially from Tim Dashwood.

The camera we used is brand new, only 3 drum hours when we started filming. I don't know about it's firmware version, but I suspect it to be fairly recent. We used JVC Pro HD tape and Sony Premium DV tapes once we ran out of Pro HD tape. I didn't plan to use the Sony tapes but circumstances left us no choice. Anyway, the problem is the same with either the JVC or Sony tape. We captured with an iMac G5 to an external firewire drive. I know this is an unsupported configuration but FCP does normally warn you if it drops frames during capture, which BTW is my main point: we captured every tape in one go using Capture Now and not once did FCP warn us that there was a problem. It's only when we started reviewing the shots that we noticed that half of our takes were unusable.

I'll try again with a PowerMac G5 with enough internal disk space when I can arrange to use the deck again. Does anybody know the procedure to check its firmware version?

Do you guys get the breaks in SD/DV tapes as well?

The reason I ask is because I captured about 3 tapes today that held 24pa DV footage and each tape broke up into to 12-17 clips. I have never had problems with SD clips before but this is my first time using the advanced pulldown. I am not very advanced :)

Anyhow, I was pretty worried because I have about 8 of these 24pa tapes and I would have to fill each one of those gaps. Confirmations...

Thank god for premiere 2.0. I captured every tape with zero breaks or dropped frames. It worked like a charm.

I am not sure what the deal is but it's pretty obvious that the 24pa DV tapes suffer the same problem as HDV tapes, at least in my scenario. My other projects where I used normal 24p DV worked fine. Very strange because I thought 24p and 24pa DV were the laid on the tape the same way.

The only other issue could be something in my hardware. I use a mac pro and using a usb 2.0 hd as my scratch disk.

I normally capture with AIC but on the last wedding I did, it created a subclip right in the middle of a guest interview. The footage played back fine on the camera, but wouldn't capture properly.

After downloading DVHScap, I was able to capture that segment of footage & trascode it to AIC w/ Mpeg Streamclip.

I was very happy with the results. The clip went into the timeline with no need for rendering. MpegStreamclip did say that there was a timecode break in the footage, (I used "fix timecode breaks" in the edit menu) so perhaps that is why FCP made the break in the footage. Even if the footage is playing back properly, FCP is very sensitive to timecode when capturing.

I've thought about doing everything in DVHScap/Mpeg Streamclip but I really like the subclips that AIC creates, even if it doesn't always subclip correctly. I now have a solid work around for those problem clips.

This makes me much less paranoid about shooting in HDV!