sony f-350
 

Got a couple questions regarding the F-350.

first, I thought it was a 35mbs camera, but someone was trying to tell me it was a 50. which one is it?

second. we are having issues with the deck that was purchased with the camera, the pdw-f70. we can get our laptops to see the deck, and transfer the video to our NLE's (both sony vegas and grass valley Aurora). The problem comes when trying to transfer our video back to a Disc, nothing works.

I don't know enough about the deck to really diagnose the problem, so I was hoping someone would have some pointers.

thanks!

edit--

I should add, I just read the 350 is actually 1440x1080, not 1920, if we are trying to write 1920x1080 files back to the disc, would that cause the error? we did format the disc, so I just assumed the disc could take any format.

how are you transferring the mxf files to the disk?

in my case, I create the files, then copy/paste the clip files only to the XDCAM drive using windows explorer

is the XDCAM disk formatted?

yes, the F350 is 1440x1080 and 35mbits/sec max

sounds like we are trying to make things too complicated than. thanks!

we had the disc in the deck, and in the deck menu selected "format" and it deleted all the clips on the disc. I assumed thats all we needed to do. did we miss something?

ok. got the deck figured out.

now on to the next question.

I mounted the camera to the laptop to try using it as the deck (which will probably happen a lot on the trail) but the laptop won't find the camera. So obviously I can't pull the clips off.

These are windows based laptops, is there software we should have installed? I have clipbrowser for my ex3, but it won't see the camera either.

thanks!

Just so you know, Clip Browser will never see the F350. Clip Browser only works with EX clips.

There are so many things you could be doing wrong, it's hard to troubleshoot it for you. Are you sure the camera is in FAM mode instead of AVC?

Have you consulted the workflow guide for your NLE?
Sony | Micro Site - HD Tapeless Workflow

The 350 is 35mb/s. It's the PDW700 and 800 that are 50mbs.

The image recorded to disc is 1920x1080 AFAIK, the chips are 1440x1080 but with horizontal offset (basically rectangular pixels I think?) to make it into 1920.
The 700 and 800 have "full raster" 1920x1080 chips.

Steve

Doug.

thanks for that link. I will check it out.

Unfortunately, now we are back to square one with the decks. I successfully exported a short clip back to XDCAM, but when I try a longer clip it fails.

this is ending up kinda forced, as we are on a deadline, and that is causing us to not think straight I guess.

tech support with the stations editing NLE wondered if firewire was one way (import only) but that can't be, right?

EDIT.

new development, I can transfer HD downconverted to SD just fine....whats up with that?!

You haven't given enough details for anyone to really help very much. The advice to use Firewire is correct. You have to use Firewire for both AVC and FAM modes.

I know this won't help, but I feel I need to say that it should all be extremely easy. If it is not easy, then you are doing something fundamentally wrong.

Like I said, you are doing someting fundamentally wrong. When you transfer (import) clips you can't convert to SD because you're just moving files from one location to another. There is no transcoding or conversion.

Sounds like you are batch capturing the old fashioned way like you'd do with tape. In that case, you're headed in the wrong direction. Go back to square one and start over by checking Sony's workflow documents or the camera's operation manual.

sorry, I think I am talking too fast to actually explain the situation.

we have three crews, the news crews are using grass valley Aurora, and I am on a different crew using sony vegas.

I import the clips using the exact system that the tutorial shows ("import XDCAM disc") and when I am done editing, I select "export to XDCAM disc". it renders the file, then starts to transfer it to the disc. makes it to about 75% every time and then stops.

however, if I choose export to XDCAM, and change the format to SD, it will transfer just fine.

Sounds like it's a Vegas issue, and I haven't used Vegas for many years.
Maybe a Vegas guy will pipe in with answer.

yeah, i think I am going to call in and see. its killing me!

in theory, shouldnt I be able to render a file (as long as it meets the same specs of the disc) and just drag it onto the disc using the windows explorer?

when I open the disc, I get the files clip, edit, general, sub.

none of them will let me add a file.

the F350's manual makes is sound like the i link firewire cable is for SD only (which corresponds with why it only works when we transfer SD), but the vegas site makes it sound like I can send the HD files to the disc using the cable.

I have a feeling that it stops at 75% because you are exporting more than what fits on the disk, remember that the disk needs a few GB for proxy and other xml content

when you copy and paste with windows explorer, it works fine here providing I name the clips correctly such as C0001.MXF C0002.MXF etc and paste to Clip folder

I never tried copy/paste to the actual camera since I have a PDW-U1 deck and use that instead

the cameras FAM driver needs to be installed on your PC before you have any success and there is no FAM driver for 64bit OS at this stage

this is why I use my deck which works fine with Win7 64bit

also, I think the camera needs the latest firmware update before you can copy/paste back to disk

thanks.

the disc should have plenty of space, it is empty,and I am only trying to send it a 6 minute clip.
am I right in thinking the U1 makes it operate more like the EX workflow? or is there no difference?
I am running a 32bit OS, so that shouldn't be a concern, I will check on the firmware for all the cameras, they are brand new out of the box, but that doesn't mean they have the latest firmware obviously.

the day is done for me, so I will check that out tomorrow. Any answer on HD back to the camera/deck using the iLink?

the U1 is a pleasure, it acts like an external hard disk (connects via USB) and all I ever do is copy/paste to and from

the transfer speed is way faster from U1 than from camera via firewire

I don't use any XDCAM transfer software, way too slow because it also imports all XML garbage and proxy stuff

I only need the clip files, nothing else

Where did you find brand new F350 cameras? They haven't been made for a couple of years.

I use XDCAM Transfer because I prefer that workflow. It offers many advantages over simply copying clips. How do you convert to MOV? Or do you have a plugin that allows MXF files in Final Cut?

I assume that you know that can turn off the automatic loading of Proxies and Thumbnails when you don't want them.

Hi Doug

I don't need to convert anything because Edius supports editing of native MXF files in realtime, even with 4 layers

b-stock I guess. Again, this isn't my gear, I didn't purchase them, I am just helping figure out the workflow, which is giving us all fits because it's not working the way we had hoped. and yes, we are probably missing some really simple step, but thats what we are trying to figure out. right now, we hook up the deck/camera via firewire, import the clips, edit, then export back. the HD export is where we have the problem. I just don't see what we are missing.

Well, then you couldn't use XDCAM Transfer even if you wanted to because it requires full installation of Final Cut Pro, right? So I don't understand your previous comments about CHOOSING not to use XDCAM Transfer. That statement seems misleading to me. It's not a big revalation to announce that you don't use a tool that wouldn't work for you anyway.

There are other people reading these threads who would come to the conclusion XDCAM Transfer is optional. It is not optional for a typical FCP / XDCAM workflow.

So the problem is with export from Vegas to the Disc, which with HD files is stopping at 6mins. What is the error message?

Have you tried a short clip of say just a couple of mins. Another thing to try is just to use the windows explorer to go in to the "Clip" folder of a disc and pull out one of the MXF files. Then try to copy that same file back to the "clip" folder on the disc in the camera, try this with a long clip. If that works it eliminates the camera and connection to the PC as the source of the problem and would point at Vegas. Also try to save an XDCAM MXF out of Vegas to your hard drive, then simply use windows explorer to drag that file from your PC to the "Clip" folder on the camera, it should copy across. Use the C0001.MXF... C0002.MXF clip naming convention to make sure that's not tripping you up. If the camera has up to date firmware then if you set Clip Naming to "Free" in the camera menu the you should be able to give your clips any name.

As others have said it should just work and is normally so simple that you don't have to think about it.

not sure what you mean because XDCAM select is part of Edius but I don't use it because copy/paste with windows explorer is faster

also, the XDCAM transfer tool creates a unique folder per file, I find this amazing, so another reason not to use it

but that is only my preference, so no need to take that serious

B-stock is not the same as "brand new out of the box" -- as you first described them. B-stock is just another name for "used". In fact, Sony was selling B-stock F350's last fall on their BPC Value website that came from CNN.

I know the cameras aren't yours and you're just trying to help these guys out, but statements like "brand new out of the box" just make it harder to pin point the problem. The cameras are probably not brand new. Thus, they may not be set on the default settings anymore, or they could possibly be defective if they have a lot of miles on them already.

"XDCAM Transfer" is a specific stand-alone software program that was created by Sony to import clips from SxS cards and XDCAM optical discs into Final Cut Pro. It only works with Final Cut Pro. It does not work with Edius, Vegas, Avid, etc.

I don't know what importing method your'e unhappy with for Edius, but it is not "XDCAM Transfer".

As I said before, XDCAM Transfer is a great peice of software and it is an integral part of the workflow for Final Cut Pro users. Also, just for the record, XDCAM Transfer does not "create a unique folder per file". It transfers all the clips into a single folder on your HDD that you choose -- while it re-wraps the files from MXF to MOV. The transfer is fast, easy, and does not drag along any XML files or other baggage. After the transfer is done, all you have is a folder with a bunch of MOV files in it and nothing else.

Alister.

Truly appreciate it. I think thats what I missed is that we are renaming the clips. I will check out the menu, make sure the firmware is up to date and give this all a shot today. I am also going to call sony today regarding vegas, because its obviously part of the problem as well.

Doug, you are probably right, in that the default settings could be way off by now. I know the XDCAM is an amazing tool, and should be the easiest thing in the world to use. I just came into it too late in the game to effectively diagnose the problems.

Thanks for all the help!

the Edius tool is called XDCAM Select and it lets me view the entire contents of the disk as thumbnails, I can then select any or all clips and drag them to Edius Clip bin and start editing right away with the proxy files while the full res files are downloading in the background. However, this process downloads more GB than simply copy/paste of actual clip files

so you are right, XDCAM Select is totally different from XDCAM Transfer

Sounds to me like XDCAM Select and XDCAM Transfer perform similar functions, but they ONLY work for their respective NLE counterparts, Edius, and FCP.

-gb-

I'm fairly certain Steve, that it's a 1440 horizontal dimension throughout. The NLE software knows that the 1440 needs to have a pixel aspect ratio of 1.33 to create a 16:9 image in order to match the 1.33 aspect of the pixels on the camera's imager chips.

-gb-