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Very strange capture problem
Wise Ones:
Here’s a summary of a thread from a few weeks ago. I’ve tried everything and still can’t solve this problem. I thought I’d throw this out there one more time in the hope that a brilliant lurking genius might come to my rescue. Many thanks. –Fred
Fred: I’m capturing 720p/59.94 from a 1200 deck using a Kona 3. Capture seems to work fine and I can see the clip as it’s being captured. But then when I exit log-and-capture and try to play the clip, the clip is black. I can see t.c. and audio but no video. Other clips I captured a few weeks ago play back fine. The weird thing is that the media file plays fine in Quicktime and if I drag it to the FCP browser window, it also plays fine. That’s my workaround, but I’m wondering why this is happening in the first place. There has to be a simple explanation.
Walter: Did you capture HD-SDI? If so, there have been issues in the past with HD-SDI captures and 720p with FCP, we’ve seen it here. Just for grins, try selecting one of your clips and doing a “Reconnect Media” and reconnect to the clip on the hard drive. See if this brings the audio / video back. If that works do a Reconnect media on everything. We had similar issues in the past and simply reconnecting all the media after it was captured solved it.
Fred: Yes, I captured HD-SDI. I just tried the Reconnect Media trick and it didn’t work: I got an error message saying the clip didn’t have the proper content. And yet all I have to do is drag the QT file into the browser and it’s fine.
Shane: The typical fix for any strange behavior is to trash your preferences. Try that and see if it helps.
Fred [March 23]: I just tried that and I still have the same problem. The video is clearly being captured, since it’s there when I play the Quicktime file. But it’s not connected to the clip in the browser. And when I try Walter’s suggestion of doing a Reconnect Media, the error message says that the clip doesn’t have the proper content. Somehow the info that connects the media to the clip in the Browser isn’t getting laid down with the Media. When I drag the media into the Browser, everything is fine because I am adding that info by dragging the clip in.
What in the world is going on? Could it be a Kona 3 problem?
Thanks for any help. –Fred
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3 Replies
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Do I have this right?
“Kona 3…[c]apture seems to work… But…I play the clip [in Final Cut Viewer], the clip is black. I can see t.c. and audio but no video… the…file plays fine in Quicktime and if I drag it to the FCP browser window, it also plays fine….the Reconnect Media trick … didn’t work: I got an error message saying the clip didn’t have the proper content.”Just a couple of questions?
What happens when you edit the clip into the timeline? Is it still black? If it is, select the clip in the timeline and make sure under the “Modify” menu that the “Alpha Type” is set to “None/Ignore”
When trying to playback that clip in the viewer, under the “View” menu, try changing the channels to something else (like Red) and see if anything appears on the screen.
For that clip, what is displayed in the Browser column under “Alpha”?Long shot #1: I’m just wondering if FCP can’t see any alpha information in what it thinks is a matte clip with an embedded alpha. So when you try to connect media it won’t because it sees the clip on the drive without an alpha and is looking for a clip with an alpha. Yet it will allow you to drag it into the FCP browser because it is indeed a simple clip with alpha of “None/Ignore”.
Long shot #2: I had a similar issue with the AJA IO when I would scale a clip in the motion tab. As soon as I scaled the clip it turned black. AJA suspected a 3rd party plug in.
To test if this problem could be caused by a 3rd party plug-in:
Quit FCP and open your Mac HD drive click on Library/Application Support/Final Cut System Support/Plug-ins.
Look in the plug-in folder for any 3rd party plug-ins and pull them out to the Mac desktop. Start up FCP and see if the problem goes away. If so, quit FCP and add back in those plug-ins one at a time (quitting and restarting FCP each time) until you figure out which plug-in is the culprit.In my case, it turned out I had an old Black Magic Codec installed along with the AJA codecs. The problem went away after I removed “Blackmagic Software Codec.component” from the HD/Library/Quicktime folder. You can look in this folder for any 3rd party component files and drag them to the desktop and perform the same troubleshooting routine as you did with the plug-ins folder above.
I don’t have a Kona 3, but the first thing I’d try is calling AJA tech support. They’re great! Next might be to reinstall the Kona 3 driver or go through the above plug-ins and component files troubleshooting routine.
Let us know what you found out.
Love,
JeffFinal Cut Studio 5.1, G5 2GHz Dual Processr, 2.5Gb RAM, AJA IO
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Jeff: Thanks for taking the time to reply. It’s very kind of you. But alas, I tried all of your good suggestions, and nothing seems to help. Alpha is None/Ignore. When I change the channel to Red, I still see nothing. (I also tried looking at the scopes and there’s nothing there.) As for Plug-Ins, I don’t even have a Final Cut System Support folder in Library/Application Support.
As I posted in another thread, I tried using FCP Rescue to trash my prefs, and even after trashing them, FCP Rescue keeps telling me that my settings are corrupt. So maybe there’s something going on there.
Again, thanks so much for all your time. –Fred
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[Fred Grossberg] “As for Plug-Ins, I don’t even have a Final Cut System Support folder in Library/Application Support.”
Make sure you’re looking in your hard drive Library folder, not your user Library folder. It’s there.
Same goes for the HD/Library/Quicktime folder. You may want to investigate that again.Preferences still corrupted, eh? Strange.
Have you tried reinstalling FCP/Studio since this started happening?Last, but certainly not least, don’t forget about the good folks at AJA.
Love,
JeffFinal Cut Studio 5.1, G5 2GHz Dual Processr, 2.5Gb RAM, AJA IO
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