59.94 to 23.97!! Urgent

We've been shooting in 24pN on the HVX but do not have a P2 store or any computer that can take the P2 slot so we've just been capturing off an additional HVX through firewire.

The only problem is that the feed over Firewire is 59.94 since its translating the native 23.97 to broadcast spec. So now i need to get back to 23.97 for editing and to save some disk space!

The problem is the DVCProHD FrameConverter in FCP is just flatout not doing anything when i click on it. I think it may because I do not have Cinema Tools installed on this machine. Is this right? Can i install only Cinema tools from the FCS2 disc? Can Compressor handle the frame conversion accurately?

Thanks, i need to know by tomorrow before the shoot is over...

=S=

The frame rate converter is only for converting 59.94 into slow motion 29.97 or 23.98...it does not reverse telecine the footage. Sorry man, nothing you can do here but drop it into a 23.98 sequence and render. The only way to get the NATIVE codec is to shoot onto P2 cards or the Firestore.

SO you are stuck with the film look, 24p, but in a 59.94 stream. Yeah, you are using more space, but it will still work.

You can TRY compressor, but it might take a while, and who knows what the results may be. Test it.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
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crap, i guess i misunderstood what the framerate converter did, doesn't DVCProHD only shoot 59.94 to tape? Do people just use a pulldown off a deck for varicam footage? I'm obviously not familiar with broadcast cameras...but i do love my HVX. Just need my boss to buy the PCM-CIA converter for the MacBookPro.

Anyway, i did a test on with Compressor and it seems to have done everything properly. I got several hours of footage here but it didn't seem to take too long and I'm on an Octo here so it should go pretty fast with a Virtual Cluster

Shameless Plug:
[www.benscottproductions.com]

Thanks Shane...I'll keep an eye out for your show tomorrow night, Andrew Jackson was a bad ass, can;t wait to see more of your work.

>doesn't DVCProHD only shoot 59.94 to tape? Do people just use a pulldown off a deck for varicam footage?

Yes, it does. But the Varicam also flags the footage as 24p or 30p...so when FCP captures it, it removes the proper pulldown. The HVX does not record to tape, thus there are no flags to place. BUT, when it records to the P2 card or Firestore, it flags the footage there, and you can reverse telecine it. But, when you record directly to drive...I don't think it records flags.

But...maybe it does. Compressor does lots of great things.

I use it to upconvert DV to DVCPRO HD....but that takes a WHILE.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

I thought the HVX camera could act as a drive for the P2 cards? You know, so that the P2 cards mounted on your desktop for straight import without digitizing. If they don't that's another thing XDCAM HD has over P2 in workflow
If that isn't the case, I would skip all the nonsense and get one of the Duel PCMCIA to Express 34 converters for a laptop or the PCI to Express 34 for a tower.
Little money, big hassle reduction.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

I too am almost sure that you can use Log & Transfer from a HVX directly and transfer from the camera like a drive and should be able to pull the 24pN footage as native. Is this just wishful thinking?

CHL

Chi-Ho Lee
Film & Television Editor
Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Instructor

Not wishful thinking...you could ALWAYS use the camera to offload P2 cards. Connect it via firewire and put the camera in target mode. Then you can offload the cards.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
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this is a most wonderful solution i was not aware off...I knew you could connect to a harddrive and have it offload in card-sized sections but not that it would act as a mountable drive, once again, thank you Shane...there really needs to be a training title on all the intricacies of P2 and other HD formats, hint hint...

To get into target mode tho, for those of you who care, you have to boot in P2 mode, switch to MCR mode, VTR for P2 essentially, and then hold that switch button for several seconds. The transfer feels slower than out of my PowerBook but it's better than what i was doing before.

I believe that ANDREW brought that to your attention. You need to be thanking him...I was just backing him up and giving more detail.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Well yes, i guess you're right but im just going to thank everyone equally, it'll def make today's shoot a whole lot easier.

Hopefully the PCMCIA adaptor will get approved for purchase after this, luckily i had my own camera with me so we can make this shoot work...

OK, now im running into a major major problem...

Today's workflow is going great with Log and Transfer through the camera, straight to 23.98 no problem. Everything from yesterday went through Compressor beautifully to 23.98.

Except for one clip. I captured using Capture Now through firewire while playing off the card but somehow the stream got messed up or the camera played back poorly. It's a total mess. There's times when the video jumps and stills like a strobe filter and the audio plays like its fast forwarding, while sometimes there are areas of clean audio and video but they are separated by several seconds so i have to manually re-align them based off my best judgement. But even then video doesn't have a proper 2-3 pullldown cadence so it runs slower than the audio.

When I run it through Compressor it doesn't convert it properly the way it did with other clips and is super super jumpy. So i put the 59.94 footage into a 23.98 sequence to see how it will handle it, it does a great job of playing everything smoothly. I did have to slow the footage down a bit to keep audio synch but i can live with a couple dupe frames.

Now the big issue is that the footage plays nicely with the dark green Full render bar on but when i render, it goes back to the super strobe-ish footage i had before! I tried exporting using Compressor so it would do individual frames but i still get the same result. So far i can't find a single way to export this footage that i can see perfectly in FCP before the render, i even exported an image sequence using QuickTime Conversion.

>I captured using Capture Now through firewire while playing off the card

Can I ask WHY you did this? This doesn't make any sense to me. You don't CAPTURE NOW from P2 footage...only IMPORT PANASONIC P2 or LOG AND TRANSFER...it is a data transfer, not a capture like you do from tape. When you put the camera into target mode, the disk should show up on the desktop and you import like you always do.

You captured wrong...that is your issue.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

This is covered in my first post, we captured this way because we had no way to transfer data, only a signal. The "director" was supposed to bring in his PowerBook and I didn't know about Target Mode until this morning.

We captured over 4hours of footage this way and it worked beautifully, i did the conversion to 23.97 in Compressor, and all my footage is just dandy, other than this one clip.

My issue is Final Cut playing the clip perfectly, clicking through frame by frame accurately, and then exporting with audio and video completely off-synch and strobing my video. It seems the export is taking the video from 4-5 seconds back and keeping the audio where it is. It then loses the synch over time. I tried correcting for this in FCP but then when i try to export that, it loses synch, once again.

Interestingly, in my Capture Scatch i found a .mov with -AV after the clip name, that is 640x360 DVCProHD, the same size as the preview window during capture, perhaps its related? Anyway, i ran it through Compressor with Frame Controls on to get something usable. Problem is, its only 8mins of the 33 min clip. I think its from an aborted capture when someone unplugged the extension cord the camera was plugged into....ahhh, what a wonderful shoot

> Interestingly, in my Capture Scatch i found a .mov with -AV after the clip name

Did you format the Scratch Disk drive properly before trying to capture? The #1 cause of this issue is a misformatted, FAT32 (PC-formatted) drive.


www.derekmok.com

Interestingly, in my Capture Scatch i found a
> .mov with -AV after the clip name

Anything with -AV at the end is corrupt. That clip is useless... but you already know that!

Try importing it again. (Ah the joys of a tapeless workflow. You didn't erase that card did you?)

Mark

Has anyone done a comprehensive instructional DVD of this and related import/export workflows with tapeless storage on FCP?? SD, HD. There's a damn fine market for it, IMHO.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:
Invoke your Favorites bin with Command-6 !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Interestingly enough, that corrupt clip was less corrupt than the captured clip. It played back fine so I scaled it up to full raster using Compressor and Frame Controls and it looks just as good as the full res stuff, just slightly noisier. Anyway, it got me enough footage to pass on to the director so its good enough for me.

I was trying to get Shane to make one, I've been using P2 for over a year with no problems and thought i knew enough about it but apparently not. There is def a need for this type of thing...

There is this from Call Box Live and Noah Kadner

[www.callboxlive.com]

Michael Horton
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