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Bug in P2 Log and Transfer related to DVCPRO HD Frame Rate Converter
Describing the bug below is hard to do because of all the variables involved but I am going to try to make my description as clear as possible.
I recently started work on a spot that was shot in Panasonic DVCPRO HD using two different cameras, a HVX-200 and a HDX-900 (using P2 Gear for storage).
I am using FCP 6.0.3 on OS X 10.5.3.All the footage came to me on a hard drive set up with the individual P2 cards as directories.
Ingestion using the Log and Transfer tool went normally.
All footage from the HVX-200 was perfect and did not exhibit the problem described below. All slo-mo footage from the 200 came in already converted which was good.
Since some footage from the HDX-900 was shot at 60FPS for conversion to 24FPS as slo-mo, I then attempted to use the DVCPRO HD Frame Rate converter to accomplish this.
I got this error dialog that said:
“The selected media file (FILE NAME) cannot be processed by this tool.
Only DVCPRO HD 720p 59.94 and 50 fps media files are supported.”Which is odd since this footage was EXACTLY that format.
I should also mention that the converter is embarrassingly flaky–sometimes the error dialog referred to a clip other than the one highlighted.
I tried a lot of things to make the converter work–putting all the slo mo stuff in a separate project and other voodoo that people had mentioned on the various forums to no avail.
In the end, I installed a clean version of Final Cut on another computer.
Using FCP 6.0, I re-ingested and tested. Under 6.0 the process worked smoothly and properly with no error dialog.
Also, using the footage ingested under FCP 6.0, the converter worked fine under FCP 6.0.3.
I notice that one of the software updates for FCP installs a package called:
P2.RADPlug
I believe that this is the culprit but removing it from 6.0.3 makes the Log and Transfer tool no longer work for P2 Directories.
This package is not in the plain FCP 6.0.
So my work-around is to use FCP 6.0 to ingest….not very elegant.
Love to hear any others experiencing this problem and finding other solutions.
Thanks,
Lance Moody
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3 Replies
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Lance,
Have had a very similar issue after 6.0.3 update. I’m no longer able to slow 60p footage with cinema tools.
I brought a 60p clip ingested pre 6.0.3 in to cinima tools – quality reads: maximum. The clip can be conformed 30p.
Another clip log & transfered post 6.0.3 – quality reads: normal with temporal. The clip says it is 30p & will not conform to 30p. Even though FCP & QT say it is 60p.Our other machine which is running 6.0.2 still brings everything in with a maximum quality read out in Cinema tools. So we have been ingesting through it.
I have had success putting the clip in compressor and using the DVCPRO HD 60p preset (the exact thing the clip says it is!!!) and can then slow down the footage with no ill effects. But not a very good work around if you have a lot of clips.
I would definitely like to hear from more on this.
-Dane H
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Ok, had some issues with the DVCPROHD frame rate converter myself.
Two things you need to look out for – the error message “The selected media file (FILE NAME) cannot be processed by this tool.
Only DVCPRO HD 720p 59.94 and 50 fps media files are supported.”
doesn’t makes sense – I read that this pops up if you don’t have the latest version of QuickTime, which could be true as it will convert it into a new .mov file – have never experience that problem myself.However the problem I ran into is that all of a sudden the error message “error occurred during processing, unable to conform source media” even though I had successfully converted 59.94 fps to 23.98fps (shot at 720p24 setting in the HPX 500 with the scene file set to 60 frames)
I tried to reimport the same footage into a new FCP project but that didn’t help still the same error.
so I shot another test again normal 25p and then at 60frames (same settings, same camera as above) and then brought it into final cut. setup a 23.98 time line and used the DVCProHD frame rate converter (only really works when you select the clip in the browser some people write about selecting it on the timeline, never worked for me). And: it totally worked converter my 59.94 footage (check ‘remove duplicate frames’ and ‘make self-contained movie’ you can alos choose “import result into FCP) and when I dropped the converted file onto my 23.98 timeline I had wonderfully smooth slo-mo like last time I did it.
Now I imported the clips from my FCP project that didn’t want to convert files anymore. took the original clips in my new project and converted them no problem, worked too.
Then I opened my old project, in which the converter didn’t work anymore and – look at that the converter all of a sudden worked again…
so I know it’s been a while since you posted this question but since to me it seems that this is more a bug then human error and lack of knowledge I felt I still throw in my little experience also for other users…
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hey just wrote a reply to this and somewhere mentioned I was shooting 25p that’s of course complete nonsense I shot 24p – sorry shooting too much PAL lately 🙂
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