Capture problems with FCP
 

Once again my attempts to capture my footage have failed. I have a MBP and use FCP. I connect my XH A1s using a 6-pin to 6-pin firewire cable. Neither my laptop nor my camcorder has a 4-pin port. Now, whenever I tried to capture HD footage I had to use Apple Intermediate Codec, since all the other configurations couldn't recognize the XH A1s or if it did, and I started capturing, FCP would crash. However i shot the footage, either 24f or 60f, the same thing would happen. The thing is that I can't use Batch Capture, which is one of the essentials to organize the vast amount of shots and dailies that I have to capture and edit for my student film. A week ago I shot a friend of mine playing some songs on the piano. This time I did it in DV, 24F. I changed the setting in FCP to DV NTSC, connected the XH A1s, and pressed Log and Capture. The new window would emerge with all the controls to log and capture my clips. But whenever I press 'Capture Now' the black window would pop up and at the bottom of it it says Waiting for Timecode, Make sure that your camcorder is in VTR mode. My camera is in VTR mode. It's in DV playback mode. I tried different configurations with the capture mode, such as, the DV NTSC anamorphic or the DV NTSC 24F, and still the same thing happens. I should mention that through the Log and Capture Window in FCP i can control the camera, play, pause, forward, backward, the whole shebang. So here I am with all my tapes filled with footage that I can't get. Does anybody have any suggestions? Is there another way to capture footage on my Mac and then import in FCP and edit?

Oh and this is my first post here so...greetings y'all. Amazing and informative forum.

Hi Manos,


What are the specs of your computer? What version of FCP? What OS version?

For what might be a quick fix use Disk Utility to repair you permissions, then use an app like Preference Manager for Final Cut Studio - Trash Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro Preferences - Restore and backup to trash Final Cut Pro's preferences. Shut the computer down, and when you reboot hold down the p, r command and option keys until you hear two startup bongs.

Plug in your camera, turn it on, start FCP, when prompted, if you have a tape shot in HDV in the camera, choose the HDV preset. Everything should 'just work'. If you have a tape in the camera you shot in SD, choose the DV/NTSC preset. Again, it should just work.

If you still have crashing I'd suggest starting with a clean slate. Mirror your MBP to a completely empty external drive. (A back up app like SuperDuper Redirect is free to use.) Then boot up off the external drive (hold down C when you start up and choose the external drive to start from when given the option.) Then pop in your OS disc and do a fresh install of Leopard or Snow Leopard to your MBP's internal drive. Update to the most recent versions using Software Update. Then re-install Final Cut Pro, again using Software Update to get up to the newest version. Reboot off the MPB's internal drive and follow the instructions above for capturing.

Let us know...

If you are using FCP 5 and have upgraded to Snow Leopard then your stuffed as FCP will not now recognize the A1. Options are to capture via imovie or upgrade to FCS 3.

Jon

The specs of my MBP are: 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB 667Mhz DDR2 SDRAM. The version of my FCP is 5.0.2 and my MAC OS X is 10.5.8. Joel i've tried exactly what you said. Now my FCP won't crash but the capture screen remains black saying that it's waiting for the Timecode and then after a while it says that there is no video and prompts me to the Log and Capture screen. Could the firewire cable play some part in this? Thanks for the input here guys.

Seems that FCP 5 had some HDV quirks:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA23119?viewlocale=en_US

Wish I could get you on FCP 7.

Manos I really reckon your problem comes from FCP 5 and your OS, can you capture in iMovie?