Buying the pany AJ-1400

[Steve Mahrer]

Hi Seetoh;

Neither ruumour is correct:

1/ The 1400 can and does downconvert over 1394, so you can play an HD tape and output DV25. A menu change is required. Many use this every day, it’s great for offline / SD dalies use.

2/. Playing over IEE1394 does not distort the audio. IEE1394 playback just buffers the off tape data, there is no processing that’s why it’s transparent and used to cloine tapes etc.

Cheers!

Steve Mahrer – Panasonic Broadcast

[Jeff Merritt]

All,

I want to echo what Steve Mahrer has said and let you know I personally set up this scenerio this morning in our West Coast Service Center and tested the outcome. Both the HD1400 brochure and Page 20 of the Operators Manual clearly shows down-conversion from HD tape to DVCPRO 50 and DV via the firewire port is possible. It worked exactly as advertised with no problems or interference. Going to the DIF section of the machine menus and making the appropriate changes is necessary. Please refer to the Ops Manual for details. Also be sure your cables are of professional quality.

Thanks,

Jeff Merritt
Product Line Business Manager
High Definition Products
Panasonic Broadcast
323-436-3676

[Jeremy Garchow]

Seetoh.

If you are planning on using Final Cut Pro and outputting to tape over firewire, the audio does in fact distort. Not sure if it’s the deck, the Mac or what, but everyone I have talked to seems to think it’s a sync/wordclock issue. No idea on how to fix it and it sucks for on location work where portability and firewire connectivity are necessary.

Sorry.

Jeremy

[Kimberlee Mctaggart]

I, apparently like many others, have tried everything to get a downconverted image into my Avid Express Pro via firewire. I could not make it happen and neither could one of my rental clients. If this really does work, what is the trick??!!

Kim

[Gary Adcock]

[kimmiemate] “, apparently like many others, have tried everything to get a downconverted image into my Avid Express Pro via firewire. I could not make it happen and neither could one of my rental clients. If this really does work, what is the trick??!!”

read the manual
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/120/858404

and check out the settings for the 020 /023 and the 600 series menu.

I do this all the time and have never had an issue.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Kimberlee Mctaggart]

Gary,
Sorry if my post sounded snide (promting your “read the manual” reply!), but in trying to figure out my problem, I was surprised to see so many other posts with the same problem. I have studied the manual extensively due to a loose firewire board (I thought the problem was a setting). Given that others have had the same problem, I figured that there must be some obscure setting that we are missing. “We” includes our local Panasonic rep. Having said that, I have already tried every configuration of the 020-023 settings. The SDI downconvert works just fine. What particular settings in the 600 menu should I be looking at? I didn’t see any that could affect firewiredownconvert, other than 620 format, but that shouldn’t affect whether or not I get an image.

Any help would be appreciated. I am the first to admit that problems are 95% operator error so I like to eliminate every possible user error before I surrender to the techs (who are 1000 miles away!)
Kim

[Galen Yeo]

downconversion via firewire works fine but it did take us a while to make it work – you need to power down and up.

ditto for avid ingest – you need to restart the deck and maybe even the application for the detection.

we had no problems with it. using avid xpress pro 5.7.

[Gary Adcock]

it actually is in the manual –

you have to think about it as what do I have and what am I doing with it.

these are system setup

set the
020 menu to manual
022 menu to your format
023 menu to your output format

this is how you want the video to look on output
620 determines the output conversion

this is telling the deck to spit out the DV/ DV50/DV100 as you choose.
880 menu determines which of the DV protocols you will be receiving over FW.

totally dependent on your needs:
Other settings that may or may not need to be changed are audio/ TC regen etc. which are all dependent on your set up and needs

yes you must cycle the power on the deck,on changed then need to be changed back.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Kimberlee Mctaggart]

Thanks Gary,

That answers my question regarding an “obscure” setting. I have adjusted all of those settings as per the manual’s instructions, but I didn’t do the power cycling, other than the autocycling that the deck does. I will attempt it again, cycling the power of both the deck and the Avid as suggested.

Kim

Kimberlee McTaggart Editing Limited
1657 Barrington Street Suite 217/218
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

[Jeremy Garchow]

Did you head to the dif out settings @ #894?

Hd->DIF OUT : 0002 DV

Jeremy