Sudden inability to capture 24p in Liquid!

[Steve Mullen]

I had no problems capturing 24p as directed by Stephen's great video.

Suddenly, I went to capture more 24p and the stream is said to be "invalid." The deck control works fine and the TC is correct.

Avid's response is that "we never claimed 24p would work 100%" so finding that it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't is to be expected.

The stream is valid as I can capture in iMovieHD.

It's like Liquid is no longer "auto sensing" the file contents and instead checking it against some expected settings and rejecting it. Until now, the great thing about Liquid is it uses the stream to determine what the format is.

Any ideas?

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Any ideas?

Something must have changed. What's different between now and when it did work? Double Check your deck settings in the Liquid control panel.

BTW: It still works fine here on the current 7.1 Service Pack and has consistently worked since the 7.0 release.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

Something must have changed. What's different between now and when it did work? Double Check your deck settings in the Liquid control panel.

There are no Control Panel settings for 1394 input. Maybe I'm missing something. Could you do me a big favor and let me know your settings.

My Logging Tool headings are the same as yours.

Both DV and HDV are similar in that the captured data goes directly to the disk file. No codec is used. 30p comes in fine and 24p does not.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

There are no Control Panel settings for 1394 input. Maybe I'm missing something. Could you do me a big favor and let me know your settings.

My Logging Tool headings are the same as yours.

Both DV and HDV are similar in that the captured data goes directly to the disk file. No codec is used. 30p comes in fine and 24p does not.

Try
Control Panel>Site>System Settings>Input/Output>Video Output IEEE1394>MPEG Output Format.

Is this setting set to ProHD30?

Also, If it was working before and it doesn't now then something changed since it did work. What was that? The latest version of the software is 7.10 Build 3494. SP1 (3581). are you on the service pack version (which I am). This shouldn't matter as much but if something was deleted along the way you should probably reinstall the service pack from Avid just to make sure all of the dll's are in place.

[Stephen Knapp]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

Try
Control Panel>Site>System Settings>Input/Output>Video Output IEEE1394>MPEG Output Format.

Is this setting set to ProHD30?

Steve N. I've been trying to follow this since I'm starting to look at Avid Liquid instead of PPro, and this has me a little worried. I hope you don't mind if I ask a question about the "path" you spelled out in Control Panel. The second step, "site." Is that something created when you install Avid, or is it something I would have in my system from something else? I don't find it in my Control Panel right now, but I don't have Avid either (unless you count some old Pinnacle stuff).

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Stephen Knapp

Steve N. I've been trying to follow this since I'm starting to look at Avid Liquid instead of PPro, and this has me a little worried. I hope you don't mind if I ask a question about the "path" you spelled out in Control Panel. The second step, "site." Is that something created when you install Avid, or is it something I would have in my system from something else? I don't find it in my Control Panel right now, but I don't have Avid either (unless you count some old Pinnacle stuff).

Steve K,

The "control panel" is the settings within the Liquid environment. I'm referring to those settings and not the Windows control panel. If/when you get your Liquid setup let me know and I can possibly work you through the process on a project here locally.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

Try
Control Panel>Site>System Settings>Input/Output>Video Output IEEE1394>MPEG Output Format.

Is this setting set to ProHD30?

Yes.

--------------

System Settings: Inputs/Outputs: Video Input > IEEE 1394 > Selected Device > "Microsoft AV/C Tape Subuniy Device 25Mbps/60 (MPEG)"

IF ANYTHING MIGHT BE WRONG THIS WOULD BE IT.

System Settings: Inputs/Outputs: Video Output > IEEE 1394 > Selected Device > "Microsoft AV/C Tape Subuniy Device 25Mbps/60 (MPEG)"

AND

MPEG Output Format: ProHD/30


System Settings: Inputs/Outputs: Audio Inputs > IEEE 1394 > "Mute if not in PLAY" >>> Off

-------------------

Player Settings: Connections tab: "JVC Devices" all set to" Liquid IEEE 1394" except Comm. Port. which is IEEE 1394.

-----------------

There is nothing under the Codec Presets under the Native Transfer (M2V)

As soon as I move from the 24p segment on my tape to the 30p segment, the video appears and the Stream-info readout is correct.

Then when I rewind to the 24p segment and click Play, the video disappears and the Stream-info readout says "no valid signal."

But the signal records by iMovieHD.

Note it's the same camcorder, same cabling, same tape, simply two different segments.

By the way, the TimeCode displays perfectly so the 24p is coming via 1394.



-

[Stephen L. Noe]

Have you reinstalled the service pack?


What is different and triggered the change?

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

Have you reinstalled the service pack?


What is different and triggered the change?

Nothing! I had captured a bunch of 24p clips that. like yours, had many sync points. Also captured 30p and the last thing clips, some 4:3 and 16:9 DV.

Decided that I wanted better clips so I delete the old 24p and 30p clips. Yes -- I directly deleted them from the Capture folder, but got no complaint from 7.1 about them going missing.

As I said, I've got 24p and 30p on the same tape. Had no problems capturing, even using In/Out points -- the 30p. Rewound to the SAME 24p material I had captured before, and now no capture. Only Timecode.

Then installed 7.1 SP1. Made no difference.

Avid's keeps reminding me that 24p is not officially supported because -- and I talked to the Germany team -- the FireWire support for 24p and 24F may noy be solid yet. They were not the least surprised that it wasn't 100% reliable.

Do the settings I've posted match yours?

And, what extention does an M2T file need to be so it can be imported into Liquid?

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Decided that I wanted better clips so I delete the old 24p and 30p clips. Yes -- I directly deleted them from the Capture folder, but got no complaint from 7.1 about them going missing.

That's the red flag. You can not delete media from within windows. Instead you must delete the media from within Liquid. It runs a database in order to keep track of the media. You've may have (most likely) corrupted the database and a reinstall of the service pack will not fix that.

Welcome to your Liquid learning curve.

Now, go into Liquid's media tab and look at the reels on the left hand side. Now highlight the reel in question and press the delete key. Your reel will be deleted and you can start over with the same reel name if you wish. Liquid's media management is a hard thing to grasp for people who are not aware that it runs a database. Also If I'm reading right, you have mixed formats on the same tape?

There is a Liquid "power" class over in your neck of the woods in November. I will be there as an instructor and would like to meet you. Can you make it to Charlotte in November (1 through 4th)?

[John Mitchell]

Stephen - in traditional Avid products you never have to delete your source clips (even if you delete your media outside of the application) the media database automatically senses a change in the media directory and updates it database file.

Is there any way to get Liquid to refresh its database without deleting your source clips?

PS - it is not surprising that Steve did things the way he did - it's generally how FCP and PPro users tend to delete their media (whereas longtime Avid users would almost always use their Media Management tool)

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

That's the red flag. You can not delete media from within windows. Instead you must delete the media from within Liquid. It runs a database in order to keep track of the media. You've may have (most likely) corrupted the database and a reinstall of the service pack will not fix that.

I deleted both 24p and 30p clips -- so if doing so corrupted the database, it seems odd that 30p still works but 24p does not. But, it IS the only weird thing I did. I sure hope there is a way to reset the database without a reinstal! Or, do I need to reinstall?

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by John Mitchell

Stephen - in traditional Avid products you never have to delete your source clips (even if you delete your media outside of the application) the media database automatically senses a change in the media directory and updates it database file.

Is there any way to get Liquid to refresh its database without deleting your source clips?

PS - it is not surprising that Steve did things the way he did - it's generally how FCP and PPro users tend to delete their media (whereas longtime Avid users would almost always use their Media Management tool)

That's exactly the way it works BUT you must perform media management within the Liquid environment. Deleting files in Windows is a no no.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

I deleted both 24p and 30p clips -- so if doing so corrupted the database, it seems odd that 30p still works but 24p does not. But, it IS the only weird thing I did. I sure hope there is a way to reset the database without a reinstal! Or, do I need to reinstall?

Before you go to the trouble, I think you should create a new project and then make an attempt at it while using a different reel name. If it doesn't work then just reinstall. You don't loose anything with a reinstall Steve other than the service packs. The media and render files as well as CG elements will remain in tact even with a complete reinstall.

[John Mitchell]

Stephen can you clarify whether there is any way in Liquid to re-build a corrupt database outside of deleting the source clips or starting a new project? Perhaps like other Avid products you can delete the media database file and it will automatically rebuild it with correct links?