Deck control and time code issues

[Sean McHenry]

Is anyone able to control this camera as a deck via firewire? We are unable to control the camera as a deck via Avid Xpress ProHD 5.20 software. Is it controllable via FCP or Vegas? We don't use those but are curious if anyone has control.

Also, we have the BR-HD50 companion deck ad are unable to get 1394 or RS/422 control of the deck from Avid.

Anyone using both of these with Avid software?

Thanks,

Sean McHenry

[Jiri Bakala]

Hi Sean,

I am getting the deck next weekend and I will attempt to control it with RS422 from Avid (Mac, AXP 4.6). We will be able to compare notes at that point.

[Sean McHenry]

Hello Jiri,
our experience is, and sorry for telling you this, the deck is not able to be controlled via either 422 or 1394 from Avid. At least not for us.

Interestingly, I just tried deck control of the BR-HD50 deck and it seems to work fine with Vegas in 720p30 mode.

More later.

Sean

[Jiri Bakala]

That's weird. Did you try to discuss this on the Avid forum? Any responses there?

[Sean McHenry]

Been in contact via the forums there as well as JVC. It's supposedly not on the supported devices Avid list but, they announced support so I am confused by the whole thing.

The Chief Engineer here just forwarded me this link on the same issues.
http://www.dmnforums.com/cgi-bin/dis...0927155255.htm

It looks like I am going to have to learn how to edit in Vegas now.

Sean

[Jiri Bakala]

Anyone from JVC care to respond?

[Panos Bournias]

I have the BR HD 50 and seems to work fine with the Avid 5,20 for capture. The project that i work with is 720p 30 frames. When exporting to HDV devise from the Avid connects also fine with the system but the final export to tape has many drops and is not possible to use it for a finished project.
I use it, for now, to double check the color correction problems, as no preview to monitor is allowed from the Avid.
Does anyone has a suggestion on this? I tried all the possibilities with tapes. During the exporting time the preview looks fine and when i play back the tape, in footage of 3min dur. i get in average 3-4 major drop outs, really really bad....

[Jiri Bakala]

Are you using Mojo? I guess not, because you would have monitor out. What you are describing sounds like settings. Again, have you posted the issues at the Avid board? There are people there who will work you through settings to help you make things work.

http://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/42/ShowForum.aspx

[Sean McHenry]

Panos issue with drop outs sound much more like a hard drive issue to me. If you are using a single hard drive for your HDV footage, you are likely unable to get the video/audio off your hard drive fast enough for smooth video playback. I assume you have rendered this footage and you are still seeing dropout issues.

If hard drive speed and throughput are not the issues, I don't know what it could be. Every PC is different in what folks do to them and the software they add to them.

This is all OT by the way but check things like turn off your networking when attempting to output, kill anything that is running in the background you don't need to make the video.

I am interested in that Panos is able to control his deck in Xpress ProHD 5.20. Others are unable to do this.

Sean

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Sean McHenry

Is anyone able to control this camera as a deck via firewire?

WHY do you want to control your deck? Capture and entire tape using Scene Detect (assuming Avid has it). Then delete what you don't want. If Avid doesn't have SD, it's far faster to log and delete from disk than it is shuttling tape.

And, far better for your video's safety!

You can't insert or assemble edit HDV -- only crash assemble -- so you don't need deck control for Export.

I suspect that since there's no need for deck control these days, Avid didn't bother. Usually, starting an HDV capture starts the deck playing.

[Jiri Bakala]

You HAVE to be able to control your decks. One example is going offline-online. Recapturing footage that was deleted, etc. Steve, how do you export to tape with specific TC start point without controlling the deck?

To add another point, Avid Express Pro systems are very much marketed as offline and/or digitizing systems for their bigger brothers Media Composer, Symphony and Nitris systems, and therefore, the need for accurate TC is very much in the forefront and will be for some years to come. Not everyone will go to P2 card-type of a system rightaway. Also, there are those who go back to film and that cannot be done without TC of some kind.

[Steve Mullen]

[QUOTE=Jiri Bakala]Steve, how do you export to tape with specific TC start point without controlling the deck?

Why do you care where video starts on a tape? Place a blank tape in the deck and export. Done.

TC was needed in the "old days" when you wanted to add material to tape at a specific point. You CAN NOT add MPEG-2 to another segment of MPEG-2. Since you can't do it, what's TC going to be used for?

TC was also used to INSERT material in a segment of video:

1) You can NOT do this with MPEG-2.

2) You can NOT do this with a FEEDER deck, which this clearly is. (Nor with any feeder DV deck.)

"Recapturing footage that was deleted, etc."

Now why would you delete material? With Terabytes of storage so cheap, and 720p24 using so little space, it's silly to "save space" by deleting anything you MIGHT use.

Use RAID 1 and you can't lose your source by a disk crash.

IMHO folks need to stop thinking like HDV is Beta SP. It's not. It's not Telecined film either.

Video is a file of data. You can't put two Word documents together by dropping one on another. You must open both and copy and paste one onto the other and then Save. Same with MPEG-2.

You don't print a document so you can later re-scan it. You back it up.

"Also, there are those who go back to film and that cannot be done without TC of some kind."

Hollywood is going to DI -- the output from the computer goes to directly to film. You don't need to "go back to film" as it's an insane waste of time and money. Simply send the Timeline Frames on a FireWire disk to ANY film lab. They'll get you the film you need.

I'd much rather Avid focused on the future -- like 24p -- than try to replicate the past by worrying about 422 deck control to make HDV seems like SP. By this time next year, who will even have tape to put into a deck? :)

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Why do you care where video starts on a tape? Place a blank tape in the deck and export. Done.

You don't truly mean that, do you?

[Jiri Bakala]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Why do you care where video starts on a tape? Place a blank tape in the deck and export. Done.

One word: broadcast

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

You can NOT do this with a FEEDER deck, which this clearly is. (Nor with any feeder DV deck.)

Actually, we do it with DV decks all the time.

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Now why would you delete material? With Terabytes of storage so cheap, and 720p24 using so little space, it's silly to "save space" by deleting anything you MIGHT use.

Offline-online. It's not 'saving' space by deleting, if anything it's saving space by not capturing everything full rez. I.e.: I am editing a Discovery series, currently I have three one-hour films on my system, each on average compiled out of some 30+ hrs of original footage. Storage is cheap but there is no reason to capture everything uncompressed, particularily, since I am only OFFLINING. Avid XP is not (in this case) the producer's choice for onlining, since they are doing colour correction and some effects in Media Composer. Hence, the footage will have to be redigitized into their system.

Also, these days when people shoot HD but deliver in SD, very often the broadcaster wants to flexibility to conform to HD later. Therefore they need an EDL/project file/time code.[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

I'd much rather Avid focused on the future -- like 24p -- than try to replicate the past by worrying about 422 deck control to make HDV seems like SP.

They are focusing on 24p, we are continuously being told...

[Steve Mullen]

[QUOTE=Jiri Bakala]"One word: broadcast"

You are not going to send an HDV tape off for broadcast! You are going to use HDCAM or DVCPRO HD. So it's a total non-issue with an HDV deck.


"Actually, we do it with DV decks all the time."

No you do not! An INSERT edit can only be performed on a DVCAM EDIT deck unless you want to risk a glitch at the out-point. You're talking about an ASSEMBLE edit which not an INSERT edit. These can be peformed on a DVCAM FEEDER deck.

In any case -- NEITHER can be done with MPEG-2 on ANY deck in the world. There is no such deck made -- so why are you claiming something that doesn't exist should be supported by Avid?


"If anything it's saving space by not capturing everything full rez."

1) HDV is full rez and it takes only 9GB PER HOUR.

2) You can delete what you don't want. Simply delete after you capture a tape. You only need 10GB of free tape for one whole hour. Even if you needed to capture 30 tapes, I can buy a disk for $100 that will hold that much HDV. There is simply no need to "save space" with HDV. Spend $500 and you can edit 5 programs.

"Storage is cheap but there is no reason to capture everything uncompressed, particularily, since I am only OFFLINING."

If you are capturing via FireWire -- which the person was trying to do -- then you are capturing HDV. HDV is not uncompressed. Why are you bringing uncompressed into a FireWire capture issue?

"Also, these days when people shoot HD but deliver in SD, very often the broadcaster wants to flexibility to conform to HD later. Therefore they need an EDL/project file/time code."

You edit in HDV and then make an SD version, not the other way around.

I'm not saying you don't do what you do, but that's not what this person was trying to do. Nor, frankly, what most HDV editors would do.