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FCP Not Capturing HDV
So I just took over as the videographer on a cruise ship and we are also upgrading to HD video. I’ve been shooting with a Sony Z1U and I’ve been attempting to capture it to a brand-new (as in bought this past Wednesday) iMac via FCP. I got quite a bit of it captured and then I realized that it was capturing it as SD footage. I tried changing the Easy Setup settings. Changing it to any HDV 1080i60 setting gives me a blank preview screen and a message saying that there is no data. Using the Apple Intermediate Codec causes it to give me a blank preview screen and the message at the bottom says it is cueing up the video. Meanwhile, it just plays the actual tape on the camera at normal speed, but doesn’t seem to stop or do anything else. I let this go on for about a minute before giving up. I I mostly tried capturing it using Capture Now, but used a few of the other methods from the Log and Capture menu as well.
I know for a fact that the footage captured was indeed HDV. I’m also capturing via Firewire from the camera if that helps at all. Thanks!
Someone on the Apple forums said to check th
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4 Replies
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Make sure your Z1U is set to output 1080i. Sony’s cameras had the ability to do a realtime down convert while playing back, if I remember correctly. Once that’s checked, go into FCP and use the corresponding easy setup for your footage, HDV – 1080i60, and capture away.
Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes -
That did it, thanks! Turns out I needed to change the iLink setting, which is in the camera’s menu when it’s in playback mode.
Now I have a smaller problem: FCP is making every. single. camera start/stop a separate clip, meaning that there are around 200 clips per tape. What do I do if I want to change this? The article posted below mentions this, but doesn’t say how to get rid of it. Thanks!
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I believe this is a limitation of HDV. Because when you shoot and hit start/stop record on your camera the codec has to close out that GOP (because it’s not an I-frame based codec). Remember HDV works by extrapolating data from set points within a given GOP (Group of Pictures). Sony used 15 frames, JVC 12 (some companies used 6 I believe too). So every 15th frame would be an I frame within the camera. The other frames in between would either look forwards or backwards to the surrounding I frame in order to extrapolate the motion. That’s why your able to fit HD onto a miniDV tape @ 25Mbps….cause you’re throwing away a lot of data and extrapolating the rest. Brilliant on one hand, and a complete PITA on the other! 😉
So when you import via your NLE each time you hit start/stop on your camera it makes that a new file because it has to close out the GOP structure. FCP in the User Preferences has a box for “On Timecode Break: Make New Clip” which is your best option. The others are Abort capture or warn after capture.
Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes -
OK, thanks!
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