Making a tape

Okay, I searched before I posted, sorry if I missed this discussion.

It's been so long since I did this....

I'm trying to make a tape of my masterpiece. I have a DSR-11 hooked up to my MacPro via a firewire cable. The video is playing just fine, but the audio sounds horrible (it's not really audio so much as screeching sounds).

Here's my configuration. I have a fire wire cable running into the deck. The deck is set to DV on input select. I have an RCA and an S-Video running into a monitor from the outputs of the deck. The video plays fine, but the audio is not good.

In FCP, I have External Video set to play All Frames. Video Playback is Apple Firewire NTSC (720 x 480). Audio Playback is Firewire DV (at one point, I tried -- Video Follows Audio).

I have tried a different fire wire cable and that's not the issue. My deck plays other tapes just fine, so it's not the outputs on the deck to the monitor or the monitor.

Any ideas?

I had a DSR 11 that had a sony head cleaning tape played through it, after this it would capture images fine but make the most crikey-awful noise a lot like you describe. So i would be keen to know also what the issue is.....

Do you have MP3 or audio from a music CD by chance in the sequence?

-Noah

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Noah's suggestion is worth looking into, though the problem sounds more serious than an MP3, which would cause dropouts in playback but not screeching.

I'd first isolate the issue. Disconnect the deck and change your FCP playback settings to None (Video) and Built-In Audio (Audio). Play the sound. Does it play okay? What are your audio Sequence Settings? How hot is the audio mixed, what are the meters reading? What are the audio settings on your clips? Is the audio rendered with Mixdown?


www.derekmok.com

No. The audio was all either recorded as a voice-over or generated with Soundtrack pro.

The audio is playing fine on the computer. That's not the issue. The issue is that I can't play the audio onto a tape.

> The audio was all either recorded as a voice-over or generated with Soundtrack pro.

Sample rate? Bit rate? Gotta give specifics for anybody to help you.


www.derekmok.com

Okay, this is weird. I opened up the systems settings to check where everything was set. I didn't change anything. And now, it's playing back fine.

I have glitches like this as well. If I view my work via Canvas or Digital Cinema Desktop Preview, through computer to an amp and speakers, all is fine. When I send External Video through firewire NTSC to my little Sony digital 8 camera that I use as a converter, video into my PVM14L monitor and audio into the same amp, the picture is fine but the audio is unlistenable garbage - scratchy and choppy. If I listen through my PVM speaker instead, or just listen through the camera's little speaker, it's still garbage. Something about the firewire path it would seem. It started happening a couple of months ago and hasn't stopped, but I hardly ever try it any more.

Obviously, my Sony camera may be the weak link, and I haven't yet tried an alternative, but the reports in this thread sound awfully familiar. My audio is the same as always, either camera mic sound or music at 48 KHz, 16 bit, etc. Video is just fine wherever I send it.

I know a "me too" post doesn't help solve it, but maybe someone will see a pattern.

Scott

i have intermittent issues doing log and transfer from P2 media where the log and transfer window wont play back audio. its there, you just cant hear it. then all of the sudden it just starts working again...

I had this issue before (bad audio from DSR-11), and I'm sorry that I can't quite remember what the fix was. But I think it involved a quick trip to my Easy Setups menu and re-selecting DV NTSC as the preset, then possibly restarting FCP. I had been editing other formats (DVCProHD) and it was like FCP got confused; resetting everything to the proper DV settings did the trick. Like it needed a virtual whack on the casing.

HTH,
JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

I think that must have been the fix, because, after I went into the easy setups menu, it went away.

I am happy to report, a little late, that re-establishing my Easy Setup solved my bad audio/good video through firewire problem also. All I had to do was click "Setup" in the Easy Setup I already had established, didn't have to set something else/reset or anything like that. I'm surprised that this is the first time (that I'm aware of) that this problem was raised, and so many chimed in with their own experiences with it, as if it just arose for the first time. I am on 5.14, if that's of any use.

This would qualify as one of those Arcane Answers to something that has not yet been "frequently asked."

Scott