I'm about to make a huge purchase of gear, jumping into the JVC world through the HD110U, the BR-HD50U, and AJA Kona LHe. This will be used on a Mac Pro Intel with FCP 5.1.4 for post-production. I've been reading these forums over the past several weeks and have been very impressed with the issues and responses, so I'm asking what should I know, do, or be prepared for? Is there something before purchase I should be aware of or that I might need to buy?

Some additional questions I can't seem to find answers of:
1. Does the 110U resolve all of the issues from the 100 that users had? (Issues listed in DV Magazines review of the 100)
2. The only monitoring of audio levels on the BR-HD50U is the LEDs in the front of the deck? How do you know things are a specific level? (I'm thinking of puchasing the AM-50 on-screen audio vu meter from Markertek, but still!)
3. Do you need the KA-551U tripod adaptor for the 110U to work with a Vinten 5 tripod?
4. In the BR-HD50U manual it talks about reading from DVCam, but also mentions (on page E-5) that you can record to DVCam tape, but not as DVCam (and that's okay). Would that be in HD or SD? Are the only tapes that master long-format in HD sold by JVC?
5. On the same item, can you use other small format DV tapes to record to other than Sony or JVCs ProHD. Granted, it may shorten the length of the tape because of the information rate, but is that possible?
6. What kind of deck control problems am I going to have between the BR-HD50U and the AJA Konda LHe card and how do I resolve them?

I should add that I've been talking with JVC and Apple. Apple is strongly hinting at an FCP6 coming out at NAB in April, but won't confirm anything (of course). Apple doesn't know why JVC hasn't courted them more or worked with them to get their more recent equipment on the certified equipment list (such as the BR-HD50U or 110U).

Thank you again in advance for you help in advice!

Doug Krejci

Two questions:
1-why are you going to FCP? It is very problemmatic with the JVC. I only hope Apple can fix their issues.

2-why are you getting a Kona card? Even with the kona card, you need terrabytes of fibre channel RAID to capture and store content.

Some users here make it sound like they can get it to work with FCP, even if its not approved. One of the support guys at Apple felt that it should work as well. I guess I assumed I could too. I really don't want to leave Mac or FCP.

As to the storage, I have a 1.5TB Firewire 800 Raid.

I've been using FCP with the HD100 for some time now without any problems. I wasn't even aware of a cerified equipment list. What's that all about?

I have been using FCP with my HD 100 without to many problems.

One thing that people need to get used to is that you have to leave handles on your clips when shooting.

I would consider the purchase of a Firestore as well for your use. This would eliminate any problems with capturing you may have with FCP. You would not have to capture into the Kona card then. You can always use the Kona to do realtime downconverts if needed.

If you do use the Kona card, what format do you want to edit in? I would guess DVCPro HD with the drive that you have.

Dan Weber

Yep, FCP works fine for editing HD100 footage, and the known capture problems (via firewire) might not be a problem the the Kona LHe, using component in, AFAIK. Someone might confirm this.

In fact when recording live, you'll increase your colour space to 4:2:2 from 4:2:0.

Andrew

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/resources/devicelist.php

I'm assuming you'd be better off to use RS-422 for deck control, but you can't use firewire when capturing through a Kona LHe? You have to go analog component in?

Doug,

You are correct in that you digitize analog component with the Kona LH. You can go all digital by using a Convergent Design Box to convert the firwire out of the deck to SDI, and then digitize with the Kona via SDI.

Even better- go with the Decklink HD Studio which will let you digitize the HDMI signal out of the JVC deck giving you an all digital workflow and all the benefits of the Kona LH. You would still use firwire for deck control or RS422.

This is the system that we are going with as JVC just came out with the firmware for the deck that allows it to play nicely with HDMI gear (regarding HDCP).

Hope this helps!

I have 3 HD110's and edit with FCP and have hade no issues since 5.1.3 was released. I also use the Vinten Vision 8 tripods and they do need the KA-551U adaptors, I believe the Vision series are all the same in that respect. I have also used Fuji tape and it works fine. I don't believe HD runs at a different speed than SD, it just encodes differently.

Doug,

You are correct in that you digitize analog component with the Kona LH. You can go all digital by using a Convergent Design Box to convert the firwire out of the deck to SDI, and then digitize with the Kona via SDI.

Even better- go with the Decklink HD Studio which will let you digitize the HDMI signal out of the JVC deck giving you an all digital workflow and all the benefits of the Kona LH. You would still use firwire for deck control or RS422.

This is the system that we are going with as JVC just came out with the firmware for the deck that allows it to play nicely with HDMI gear (regarding HDCP).

Hope this helps!

I would love to stay digital all the way through. The Decklink HD Studio looks great, but with only the HDMI out on the JVC deck and no firewire out of the Decklink HD Studio - do you stay digital by just a simple firewire cable from the Mac to the JVC Deck on the output back to the deck? I don't want to buy a Kona and a Decklink card. Those PCI slots are just to valuable!

Let me know
Thank you!

Doug

I have 3 HD110's and edit with FCP and have hade no issues since 5.1.3 was released. I also use the Vinten Vision 8 tripods and they do need the KA-551U adaptors, I believe the Vision series are all the same in that respect. I have also used Fuji tape and it works fine. I don't believe HD runs at a different speed than SD, it just encodes differently.

So, other than cost, is there any reason that any DV tape couldn't be used for recording HD signals in the JVC 50 or the 110U? I have alot of Sony DVCam large format tapes and Sony DVM-60PRL tapes that I'd like to be able to use in the HD format (mastering).

I would check to see if your firewire 800 is sufficient. Capture of component sdi needs a sustained 250 Mb/sec, I think. As for the firestore, I use firestore on my HD110 without any problems, capturing with Cineform, however, there are many reports in these forums of 4 secs of dropout between clips on the firestore system, when used with FCP.

Standard tapes work fine. That's why it's HDV - HD to standard DV tapes. Now they do have tapes out there that are geared toward HDV at a much higher cost, and although may be superior, I don't think you'll notice too big of a difference.

As someone else mentioned, a Firestore drive may be the way to go. We use em' and they work great - it will save you a ton of capturing time. We have always had firestore drives for our cameras - I couldn't imagine having to capture all those tapes all the time. But if you do get a firestore drive, make sure you purchase a bracket so it attaches to the camera, a power-tap to dc (firestore dc) adapter so you can run it off your IDX or A/B setup and a right angle firewire cable so you don't have that cable sticking too far out the side of the cam. Makes for a nice & fast sweet package.

I would love to stay digital all the way through. The Decklink HD Studio looks great, but with only the HDMI out on the JVC deck and no firewire out of the Decklink HD Studio - do you stay digital by just a simple firewire cable from the Mac to the JVC Deck on the output back to the deck? I don't want to buy a Kona and a Decklink card. Those PCI slots are just to valuable!

Let me know
Thank you!

Doug

You would conform your timeline to HDV and then output back to the deck via firewire. This woulld be the case for the Kona AND the Decklink.

I should say that our workflow does not include mastering back to the deck anymore because there is no more need to have a master unless you are handing something off to a network. We just rebuild the timeline if we need to go revisit the project.

I you do need to hand someting off to a network then they wouldn't accept an HDV master anyway. By having the Kona or the decklink one can hook up a more pro deck and master to that.

If you decide to shoot on firestore then you really don't need a Kona or Decklink. We don't use firestore because they don't have quicktime support for 720p60 yet. Yes you can capture the M2T file but the converters (to quicktime) are not good enough for us.

You would conform your timeline to HDV and then output back to the deck via firewire. This woulld be the case for the Kona AND the Decklink.

I should say that our workflow does not include mastering back to the deck anymore because there is no more need to have a master unless you are handing something off to a network. We just rebuild the timeline if we need to go revisit the project.

I you do need to hand someting off to a network then they wouldn't accept an HDV master anyway. By having the Kona or the decklink one can hook up a more pro deck and master to that.

If you decide to shoot on firestore then you really don't need a Kona or Decklink. We don't use firestore because they don't have quicktime support for 720p60 yet. Yes you can capture the M2T file but the converters (to quicktime) are not good enough for us.


As much as I like the firestore, I've got to have a card to hook up to older decks (UVW-1800 among others). That's where all of my component analog hook-ups are going and why I'd want to keep the JVC BR-HD50U digital all the way.

Has anyone ever had a problem with a firestore from a hard drive perspective? If your data is corrupt, then what happens? I can deal with a bad spot on a tape, but a corrupt hard drive . . .

I hoping to do a firestore down the road a little later and maybe a HD200 when the prices start to come down to earth.

Thanks for the tips - keep them coming,

Doug

You can roll tape and record to the firestore at the same time. Confirm the files when you get back to the studio. If all is good then one can recycle the tape for the next shoot or just keep it for archiving. From what I have read the TC should be mirrored on the firstore.

1. Does the 110U resolve all of the issues from the 100 that users had? (Issues listed in DV Magazines review of the 100)
2. The only monitoring of audio levels on the BR-HD50U is the LEDs in the front of the deck? How do you know things are a specific level? (I'm thinking of puchasing the AM-50 on-screen audio vu meter from Markertek, but still!)
3. In the BR-HD50U manual it talks about reading from DVCam, but also mentions (on page E-5) that you can record to DVCam tape, but not as DVCam (and that's okay). Would that be in HD or SD? Are the only tapes that master long-format in HD sold by JVC?

Thanks,
Doug

The biggest "issues" with the 100 that I read about were probably the split screen, not being able to use the lcd and viewfinder at the same time, and the weight of the camera (being front heavy). I have never experienced the split screen on the 110, JVC added dual use of LCD and Viewfinder while using a pro (IDX or A/B) battery system, which also helps balance it out nicely. Throw the firestore on the back and you've really got a nicely weighted package.

I don't know anything about the HD50's, but we do have 6 of the 110's and we have had no issues with the cameras at all. Not even one that I can recall. It's a good solid package, one I think you'll be happy with.

Doug,

I use the HD100 and FCP and capturing from tape is a NIGHTMARE! Everything else is great. I stopped using my HD100 for a few months until Firestore started supporting 720p24 Quicktime. With the Firestore and 720p24 Quicktime support, this camera is AWESOME!!

I haven't tried capturing from the JVC deck, but if it has similar problems to the camera through firewire I would aviod it.

Capturing component is kind of pointless, unless you are coming straight off the camera without ever going to tape so you get the 4:2:2. Otherwise you already have all the HDV compression and you are just converting it to a larger file size with 4:2:0 color and HDV compression.

I have used my Decklink to capture analog with and the conversion softened the footage slightly. I used DVCProHD codec and it was nice because it is faster for rendering, but that was the only advantage I saw.

My recommendation is get the Firestore and avoid tape with this camera at all cost!!!

I have also tried all the different software for capturing the mpeg stream and converting to a usable codec. They all capture the mpeg great, but none of them convert to a usable codec very well.

The only useable way to capture tapes from this camera is to play them and manually record Quicktime HDV files on the Firestore. This works great! It does create a new file every 11 min, but there is no loss of video. You do lose the last frame of audio for each clip if you go over 11 minutes.

These are great cameras that take beautiful pictures and FCP is great, but capturing is a pain.

Even better- go with the Decklink HD Studio which will let you digitize the HDMI signal out of the JVC deck giving you an all digital workflow and all the benefits of the Kona LH. You would still use firwire for deck control or RS422.

This is the system that we are going with as JVC just came out with the firmware for the deck that allows it to play nicely with HDMI gear (regarding HDCP).

Hope this helps![/QUOTE]


Thanks Justin! I really appreciate this tip. Obviously it would be firewire from the computer back to the JVC 50. What do you do about feeding a monitor? In my case, a PVM-20M2U that would really want a composite signal? From the card? Through the 50? Somewhere else? Do I need a conversion scaling box.

It would be great if there was something that would hookup to that 4:2:2 HDMI output on the decklink HD Studio card to downconvert it.

I look forward to the responses!

Thanks,
Doug

Doug- PVM20 was the last monitor I worked on...

The Decklink HD studio has analog component i/o for hookups.

We use the new JVC DT series monitor which has a DVI-D connection for monitoring. An HDMI to DVI-D cable is used btween the card and the monitor. HDMI and DVI-D are compatible.