Problems capturing hour long tapes.

Hi everyone, I'm a new fcp user, but have been an avid reader of this site for some time.
I am trying to capture a full tape of a play I shot in HDV 720p at 25fps using a jvc GYHD251 camera. I am using the capture now button to do this. Instead of one file, my system is placing up to six or seven files in the brouser. As I placed these on the timeline there is up to 5 seconds of footage missing from the end of 1 file to the start of the next. The play was shot in one run,with no timecode breaks. I have adjusted the capture now limit to 65 minutes,but same thing is happening. I use a jvc BR-HD50 deck via firewire direct to my Mac using (Easy setup HDV-720p25) My system is dual core 2x266Ghz with 4 GB of ram. I'm running fcp 5.1.4 and a G-teck 1TB external drive. I have read the manuals from back to front, and I'm none the wiser. Thankyou in advance for any help you my be able to offer.

Everyone is horrified that you are:

Trying to capture an hour-long tape at one go.

Using Capture Now.

Are probably trying to save your work on a PC formatted drive, which will give you the segments instread of one file.


Make sure your media drives are formatted Mac OS Extended--not journaled.

Break up the tape into ten or fifteen minutes jumps.

By all means use fully controlled and logged capture instead of Capture Now. If you use Capture Now and you have to go back later and re-capture something, you could be very sad.

Koz

This is the nature of HDV. Every time you turn off the camera, it breaks the GOP stream and starts another clip. And when FCP needs to capture after a break, it needs 5 seconds of pre-roll to get the tape up to speed.


You need to plan your shooting to accomodate for this. Or capture without timecode...but that is dangerous.


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<<<This is the nature of HDV. >>>

Even when you back the tape up and go from the last scene? I would have thought that the machine would always go to an even number of temporal frames and stop there.

I understand that if you turned the camera off while it was recording you'd be hosed, but not by pressing stop.

Koz

there's a button on the HDV log and capture window / clip settings tab:

"Create New Clip on Start/Stop"

have a go with that turned off.


nick

>>the play was shot in one run,with no timecode breaks <<

So you didn't button off at all during the play? Cause that's a different matter.

Thank you all for the responses, as Jude suggested I didn't button off at all during the play. It was shot in one continuous run, I am out in the field today and unable to check journalling issue, but will check later. Why is everyone horrified that I captured an hour long tape like this, it clearly states in the manual that this is ok? Sorry for my ignorance, but how do I go about checking the journalling issue?

<<<Sorry for my ignorance, but how do I go about checking the journalling issue?>>>

Select the drive on the desktop and press Apple-I. This will bring up an information panel and buried in there will be the information about the format of the drive. Journalling is a safety and protective service that should be on your System Drive to help in drive difficulty, but, in general, should not be on your data drives because it slows them down. This is based on a computer system that is running right on the edge of falling over face-first into the mud. On a normal, healthy system, I don't think it makes the slightest difference.

<<<Why is everyone horrified that I captured an hour long tape like this>>>

As a historical thing, capture problems tend to multiply as the length of the capture goes up. Again, in a normal, healthy system, you might get away with it, but if anything goes wrong at 59:58:00:00, you just torched an hour capture.

I think I'm officially missing part of the discussion now, so I'll sit in the corner and drink my Genmai-Cha and watch.

Koz

Koz - gold. What is Genmai-Chai? Hah!

And for what its worth all my drives are formatted Extended AND journalled. No issues here. But that's an interesting point to bring up at my next ProTools meeting, where drive speed is a HUGE and constant issue...

AussieDave - 1 hour capture CAN be OK if your system is stable and up to it. If you're having issues, I would join the throng and recommend a break every 10-15 minutes. Rewind a bit and sync up in the mix, and you'll be fine.

HDV is a finicky (sp?) beast - learn the workarounds in situations like this and you'll be fine - trust me

The more aussies the better I reckon....

Defintely time for a beer me thinks....

I take powdered matcha before genmai-cha.
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ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!