AJA LHe Sync Issues while laying to Beta SP, Help!

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Ryan Foregger] “The audio is laying to tape anywhere from 2-5 seconds ahead of the video. It fluctuates from attempt to attempt but once the video shows up, sync does not drift.”

What do you mean by this? Once the video shows up?

[Bob Zelin]

1) on the Beta VTR, MAKE SURE that the 75 ohm termination switch is ON. The Horita BSG-50 will NOT put out a black burst signal unless it is terminated (open collector circuit).

2) on the AJA LHe, open the AJA control panel, and click on the CONTROL tab, and make sure that it is set to EXT REF. Look at the little block diagram in the control panel. Does it indicate that it is receiving NTSC black ?

Bob Zelin

[Ryan Foregger]

Jeremy, Sorry for the bad explanation. When I print to video, the 1800 starts recording, but only tone (I’m laying bars at the start) for 2-5 seconds BEFORE any picture gets recorded (bars). Then the whole thing continues out of sync.

[Ryan Foregger]

Hi Bob,
Thanks for your responses.

1) I do have the termination switch in the “on” position with the 1800. I also have a terminator on the ref loop out. For the LHe, I’m sending ref in and looping it out to a crt monitor with a terminator on the crt monitor. Do all outs from the Horita need to be terminated?

2) I won’t be in front of the machine until morning but If I remember, when I checked, in the control panel for EXT REF it said 525i 29.97 but didn’t mention anything specifically about “black” I’ll check again when I get in tomorrow.

Thanks
Ryan

[Ryan Foregger]

Still having the same issues this morning so I switched the project over to a G5 I have with a Kona 2. My sync issues were resolved, everything is working fine EXCEPT I’m having some interlacing issues. My video looks fine in my final cut pro sequence but when I lay to tape it looks like the field order is off. Everything is crunch, really noticeable in the titles but its in the entire picture. How do I fix this?

My Sequence is 1280 x 720 ProRes HQ 29.97. pixel aspect is square (maybe this is the problem?)
and I’m outputting to Beta using Kona 525i29.97 10bit(720×486) –I’ve also tried 8bit (720×486)… no difference.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Well, a G5 is not rated for ProRes HD playback. That could be your problem. Go back to your LHe machine.

I think you have a configuration issue.

What you have to do is set your FCP project up in the proper HIGH DEFINITION easy setup of which you have probably created a custom 720p30 easy setup. So use that custom ProRes setup in FCP.

Now, open your Kona control panel and control click (or right click) on the analog output triangle and choose secondary from the drop down menu. Control click again and choose 525i29.97 from lower down in the same drop down menu. That should get you situated.

Jeremy

[Ryan Foregger]

I never used an Easy Setup. What I did was drop my clip (from After Effects) into a sequence and let Final Cut automatically change my settings. Is this not advisable? Should I custom create an Easy set up and render my clip?

My secondary setting has been correct this entire time at 525i29.97.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Ryan Foregger] “Is this not advisable?”

It’s advisable, but it will only change your seq. settings and not your video output settings.

In this case, try selecting the Aja Kona LHE 720p 59.94 ProRes easy setup.

Jeremy

[Ryan Foregger]

I tried the 720p 59.94 easy setup and tried my commercial in both that sequence setting and also allowed final cut to change my sequence. Both times I still had the same issue, and this time it was an 8 second delay between sound and picture. Since the spots needed to got out today, what I ended up doing was

1) Dropping the ProRes 1280×720 clip in AE and letterboxing it myself, and rendering it out at 10 bit Uncompressed

2) Using that clip in Final Cut on the G5 and laying to tape using the Kona 2.

Everything looked okay so I just kept making them that way. Hope I didn’t lose anything quality-wise but I didn’t notice. Still need to get my MacPro / LHe to work though…

[Jeremy Garchow]

Hmm. Did you try mixing down your audio?

Select all in the sequence and hit option-command-r. This will render all of your audio down to one file for playback.

I would also contact AJA support. This should be working (and does work) flawlessly.