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Audio fine on DVCAMplayback, incredibly low when captured to FCP
Recently I recorded a lecture on DVCAM via a Sony DSR-1800. I brought the tape back to my capture station and played it back on a Sony DSR-45A. It sounded fine and the levels were great. I captured the tape into FCP via Firewire with my normal settings. For some reason, in Final Cut, the levels are all but nonexistent. I tried doing it on my other capture station but it has the same issue. Other tapes recorded in other rooms seem to have no issues.
My question: are there any settings or issues that could lead to audio being recorded on DVCAM tape in such a way as a DVCAM deck can read the data and play back the audio with no problem while FCP cannot or will not capture the audio?
Thankfully I have a usable audio-only recording that I should be able to use for the sound track but that doesn’t solve the overall problem.
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12 Replies
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If you captured via FW and you had AUDIO selected as well as vid then it should be there. Unless you captured audio tracks 3&4 by mistake?
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
It only gave me the option to capture tracks 1&2 and those are the only ones that should have audio. Perhaps the DSR-1800 where it was recorded was mistakenly set to record to tracks 3&4. I’ll keep playing with it but it’s driving me nuts.
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OK, I tried manually telling it to capture 3&4 and the result was the same.
Here is the part that is really confusing me. When I am in log&capture, I see levels on the preview meters when capturing 1&2. With 3&4 there were no levels. I just don’t understand why the meters are showing perfectly fine levels when playing the DVCAM tape but captured footage has unusable audio levels.
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Jerry,
It has to be pilot error of some sort in your hardware setup or menu selections, because firewire simply captures the digital info on the tape, there’s no possible manipulation of the audio levels on the way in.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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That’s what I have been thinking but I can’t figure out just which problem exists between keyboard and chair in this situation 🙂 I have tried capturing on multiple stations and they have the same problem. Video recorded in other rooms with the same models of cameras, switchers, decks, etc. captures just fine. I can’t figure out what it is about recordings from this room that are causing all of these problems. I’m about to just play one deck into another (analog) and then capture the result since the decks seem to have no problem playing back both video and audio. Then I can capture the result but it doesn’t solve my overall problem.
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If you mute one of the tracks, or pan them over to one side or the other, does the other one get louder?
Is this only about your sound coming out of the speaker system, or are the waveforms on the timeline almost flat as well?
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When I play it back on the deck, the levels are fine on both 1 and 2. When I capture via firewire, the levels are nearly flat on the timeline.
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Very Strange.
Tracks aren’t muted are they?
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
Nope. To narrow it down we tried on two identical workstations that both have no problem capturing other tapes with the same default settings. I am seriously stumped.
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Do you hear any audio thru the headphone jack?
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group
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