Capturing HDV w/naughty timecode - The Horror

Hello FCP gurus and gods/goddesses.



I really need your help. Over the last few days I have been searching the internet (haystack) to find an answer (needle). I found similar problems, but no solutions.

This is my story...

I shot some very satisfying footage with the Canon XL-H1a set to HDV 720/1080 24f. This is my first time using this camera and the HDV format in general.

So I set out to capture with the following system:
Final Cut Pro 5.0
Mac OSX 10.4.11
Macbook Pro 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1 GB 667 Mhz RAM
FireWire Bus 800 mb/sec
Hard Drive: FUJITSU MHW2120BH 112 gb (speed 1.5 gigabit/ACHI ver1.10 supported)
Graphics Card: ATY,RadeonX1600 VRAM (Total):128 MB

VTR deck = Canon XL-H1a set to HDV 720/1080 24f (via Firewire)


This being a very simple project, without a lot of footage to edit, I just set my
Final Cut Pro 5.0 to use Easy Setup HDV 1080i60f.

The screen shot showing the specs of my first try was using "Easy Setup" are seen below:





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The Log&Capture window showed "VTR OK". I hit play and the CAPTURE NOW tab. The result was the screen below for the entire run of the tape:




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I stopped the playback, and rejoiced at seeing that the system correctly created the clips based on camera start/stops. Except... then I realized that for a good part of the tape, no clips whatsoever appeared in the bin.

So... OK, the camera was having a problem and there was timecode breaks. So I switched my strategy to: Simplify the capture of footage with timecode of suspect integrity. And I reset my preferences thusly:




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I used the camera's vtr controls directly to get to the place on the tape where the missed footage was located, confirmed that there was indeed a TC break there, and advanced into the tape 6-7 seconds after the tc restarted. Then I repeated the capture process using log&capture with easy setup.

The result?
Out of 20 minutes of missing footage, 2 seconds were captured, but nothing else. BTW when playing this 2 second clip all that is seen is a black screen. For awhile the "WAITING FOR DATA FROM DEVICE" notice was replaced with something like "Searching for MEDIA information". I wish I could recall the exact wording, but try as I may to recreate the conditions when the test in the capture window changed to that wording, it has not appeared again.

So... Obviously I must forget the machine control and just do a quick&dirty capture. I change the easy setup to "NON-CONTROLLABLE DEVICE" and pathetically try to re-open the log&capture window. Instead I get this:



And that's IT.

Good grief. This means that FCP does not work with HDV unless it can control the deck? I'm sorry, but I do not understand how something as simple as just "capture now" can be so elusive to the brilliant minds at Apple. To wit: why can my c.1994 VHS deck record whatever gets plugged into it, but not my state-of-the-2005-art editing system?


I went back to machine control and all the system can capture is a second or two here and there. The timecode breaks do appear to be on the same place of the tape each time, so it's not dirty deck heads, it's on the tape. I think it's pretty clear I won't get any help from the camera/deck and I should focus on finding a way to capture an HDV tape without machine control into FCP5.

There must be something I am missing here. I know I am far from using the latest technology, but there has got to be an answer besides "buy all new stuff". I mean, there must be a more creative solution than that, right?

Please please can someone help.

If you're capturing off a Canon deck/camera, you could try switching to the HDV firewire basic. That or toggling between HDV firewire. State of the art Canon HDV can be a bit finicky over firewire.

>why can my c.1994 VHS deck record whatever gets plugged into it, but not my state-of-the-
>2005-art editing system?

Not sure what kind of comparison you're trying to do here, but if you were to run component/SDI outs from your camera/deck into a capture card, I'd bet my pants it'll capture whatever you can play out from that device. You're trying to capture a temporally compressed stream at a fixed 15 frame GOP length via a computer interface without losing a generation.

>The timecode breaks do appear to be on the same place of the tape each time

How often do the timecode breaks happen? If it's too frequent, you could try giving it a run through QT Pro.



www.strypesinpost.com

Quote
strypes
How often do the timecode breaks happen?

To clarify myself, watching the tc readout on the camera screen during playback, the tc is always present, except for one actual timecode break, as in, the last take ended and then there is a few seconds of blue before the next take starts.

But as far as Final Cut Pro sees it, the timecode problems exist from the very start of the tape to about 3 minutes in. At that point it picks up for awhile, then after the actual visible break, there is a 30 minute section during which FCP can't detect any timecode anywhere at all. Then the last 15 minutes of the tape are fine.


I guess I could just take the damn tapes to a dub house and get a clone made with timecode all the way through and use that to capture from, right? But this problem seems fixable if I just knew how.

Quote
strypes
If you're capturing off a Canon deck/camera, you could try switching to the HDV firewire basic. That or toggling between HDV firewire. State of the art Canon HDV can be a bit finicky over firewire.

Yes, I did try FW basic. Nothing was different.

Quote
strypes
Not sure what kind of comparison you're trying to do here, but if you were to run component/SDI outs from your camera/deck into a capture card, I'd bet my pants it'll capture whatever you can play out from that device. You're trying to capture a temporally compressed stream at a fixed 15 frame GOP length via a computer interface without losing a generation.

What sort of capture card would work do you think?

Try capturing in QT Pro and see if you'll drop frames. If not, and you have a tower with a capture card in the area, run it through SDI or components with deck control.



www.strypesinpost.com

I will try both of your suggestions and report back later - thank you for the advice!

Your post was really long, and I confess to not reading the whole thing. Two notes.

Quote

Canon XL-H1a set to HDV 720/1080 24f

That camera only shoots 1080, not 720. If I didn't know that already from my own experience, I'd be asking you right now which one you meant.

Quote

This being a very simple project, without a lot of footage to edit, I just set my
Final Cut Pro 5.0 to use Easy Setup HDV 1080i60f.

This is where I stopped reading. If you shot 1080p24, then you have to set your system to 1080p24 to capture. Otherwise it won't work correctly, as you've seen.

Use the correct preset and all will be well.

But... but... the settings worked part of the time. Some of the footage on the tape captured just fine. Just not the best shots. As far as settings go it's kind of all or nothing right? If the presets were wrong then I couldn't capture anything from the camera/deck.

Here's a list of the presets offered in my version of FCP 5.0:



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1080p isn't offered. nor is anything 24 frame except for 720, but that's in the DVCPro department. I shot 1080i with the XL-H1a on very high quality HDV tapestock. Mostly the framrate was set at 24, although some shots were done at 60. (Btw the 60fps shots are not the only shots having the TC/capture problem.)

I would love it if this is a setting issue. I would be saved from schlepping to a friend's place to use his tower and capture via component with a capture card or SDI. But I suspect it is more complex than that.


Sorry about the long post. I was hoping that by giving enough info on the problem it would make it easier to solve, but maybe I overdid it.

>I was hoping that by giving enough info on the problem it would make it easier to solve, but maybe I overdid it.

Not at all. The detail is good. Apologies in advance for thinking out loud here ...

Is your FCP 5 machine up to date (ie FCP 5.0.4 or FCP 5.1.x) ?

One user tip that I saw recently (haven't seen it before and can't verify it) noted that logging HDV on the fly produced subsequently more reliable captures, meaning setting your In and Out points for capture whilst the tape is rolling rather than paused. May help, may not.

How about capturing HDV to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) ... does that work on your system?

What about (shock, horror) capturing in iMovie (again, this would cause the capture to be transcoded to AIC) and then bringing those files into FCP ... not something I've ever done myself but would that work for you?

I won't advice using iMovie. I remember Tom Wolsky mentioning something about iMovie doing something funky to the frame size.



www.strypesinpost.com

IIRC FCP didn't support Canon's 24f mode until 5.1.x or 6.x.


-Andrew

>>Mostly the framrate was set at 24, although some shots were done at 60.<<

So there's mixed frame rates on the same tape?

What you are seeing a Canon firewire capture problem. First of all in order to capture FW 24f you need at least FCP 5.1 or later.
I have had that problem every time I use my Canon A1 and capture through FW. Even at 60i.
You actually lose a few seconds of footage. I have tried capturing through Component and that works as long as you don't have FW camera control. I may still lose a frame or two but at least I get the footage I need.
The A1 doesn't have SDI out, but I would try SDI out of the H1

God Bless,

Douglas Villalba
director/cinematographer/editor
Miami, Florida

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