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Analog Video Capture – Need Expert Help Please
First of all, please let me say that I am a long time video professional and FCP user. It’s not that I’m not grateful, I just don’t need common suggestions. I need someone to respond that has TRIED what I need to do.
I have an analog video mixer exporting s-video or composite video and I need to capture this in FCP in real time. I have been going through a DSR11 and using the Non-controllable device capture and it’s crap. It just drops frames regularly and is unusable. Our only option has been to record the program live, then capture using Firewire NTSC and it captures just fine.
So here’s what I need to know. Is there ANY converter out there that would take an analog video signal, combine the timecode with it so that FCP would let me capture live using a Capture Now, retaining the Firewire NTSC settings? I have been working on this (for a non-profit organization) for about a year now and it clearly appears to me to be a timecode issue with FCP.
We need a proven solution as inexpensive as possible. Again, Non-controllable device settings are not an option for us. I doubt that setting is usable for anyone in a live, 75 minute show. FCP just won’t do it.
Thanks so very much.
Jerry Wilson
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17 Replies
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How about capturing to a FireStore Disk-recorder?
https://dvcreators.net/products/fs4.html
via the Deck’s FW out?
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We have tried to do that, but can’t get the Firestore to start up because it, too, is waiting on timecode. It just sits there in “ready” mode.
We have it capturing to a separate drive on the Mac, and empty, non-journaled drive, and have plenty of hard drive space.
After a year of experiments with multiple cameras and decks, this appears to be a FCP deficiency, I’m just needing to know if anyone has overcome it somehow that we might now have thought of.
Thanks for trying.
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Have you used this device in a similar circumstance, or can you vouch for its applicability in our situation?
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What is generating the timecode from your shoot? From what I can gather you have multiple cameras (what format? how many?) going to a switcher and you are trying to take the live mixed output to FCP. Does the switcher have an RS422 port? If you explain your complete set up and workflow then may be some people will be able to offer better help or at least point you in the rightt direction.
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If you are trying to use a Firestore, check what control mode you are in. If it’s in synchro mode it will wait for timecode to hit before recoeding. I’m not in front of my Firestore right now (FS-3) but I have used it sucessfully to recoed longer events. Never a problem.
We also produce a half-hour talk show for a local hospital in the area. We use their small studio right within the hospital itself. I used to recoed to Mini-DV tape and then capture it into the Mac. Lately I have been using Capture Now taking the Firewire output from the DV deck while I recoed the show (for backup) Four shows and not a single burp in the process. I’m capturing to an internal serial ATA drive in the Mac itself…in the second disk slot. It’s worked like a charm so far. Your setup should be able to do it as well, depending on your hardware. We’re running a Dual 2.7 G5 with FCP 5 at the hospital. Another choice might be one of the analog to Firewire converters that Canopus sells. Very good quality at a decent price point. They take analog composite video and audio in and convert it to Firewire. I’ve used an ADVC-100 for years with good results. It’s since been replaced by an Aja Io,, but it still gets called into service every once in a while.
What you are trying to do can be done, but I would always roll a tape on it as well just for backup.
Tom -
I am using 4 Sony vx2100 cameras and bringing in an s-video signal to a videonics mixer (analog) and coming out from there with an S-video signal to a DSR-11. I’m coming out of the DSR-11 via Firewire to a G5, 1.7 into FCP 5. We’re using 10.4.5 (although the upgrade to this was accidental) and latest version of quicktime.
Specifically, we capture to tape fine with the DSR-11. We capture fine FROM the DSR-11 to the G5 as long as we use Firewire NTSC and capture from the recorded tape. It is using the pass-thru that gives us problems. When we switch to non-controllable device we have fits. The program ends up with time lapses and jumps throughout its duration.
As for the Firestore, we cannot get it to capture in ANY mode from the DSR-11 firewire signal when the Sony Deck is recording live. We are guessing that the Sony deck does is creating time code from the analog signal and laying it to tape but is not passing that through the firewire signal to the mac. We cannot capture now and see no timecode readings using Firewire NTSC.
When this “live” 75 minute program ends, we have three hours to have it on the air on DVD. You can see why we need to not spend 75 minutes of it capturing something that could have been captured live in the first place.
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I’d love to hear your exact workflow. We cannot get a Firestore to even let us manually start it without a timecode present. It just sits there. If you can record live to a Sony Deck and simultaneously pass a signal to the firestore that records I would love to hear about it.
Tell me more.
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OK! Switching to “non-controllable device” will not allow for timecode capture. Leave the capture device as Firewire NTSC. In the menu on the DSR-11 you need to set it to EE mode so the audio/video and timecode signals can “pass through” the deck to your NLE.
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Will this work for me considering there is no timecode to pass through the deck? The deck is creating the timecode and we have found any setting that would pass that “on-the-fly” timecode through to the mac so we could use the firewire NTSC setting.
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