Canon XH A1 and final cut 6

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

Hi Rick,

I have a Canon XH-G1 and I’m also editing on FCP6…what frame rate is your video? If you’re shooting in 24F, use the “HDV 1080p24” preset. If it’s 60i, then it sounds like your settings are correct. Are you getting timecode in the Log/Capture window when you operate your camera remotely?

[Chris Poisson]

Rick,

What Cathy says may help, although I was surprise that when I was testing capture with my A1, I put 30f, 24F and 60i in a row on one tape, and it captured each one at the proper frame rate on it’s own, on the fly. It knew!

You seem to be doing everything right, as a last resort I would take a paper clip and push the reset button on top of the camera, but first, try trashing your FCP prefs, use an HDV easy setup when it re-boots, plug the FW cable into the camera BEFORE you launch FCP and see if that helps.

[Rick Dervisevic]

Thanks, before I do the reset thing, I thought I would run this past you. Last night I was fiddling and while the tape was running, I pressed “Capture Now” and it worked! I captured the whole tape without a hitch. I cant imagine this is how its supposed to work? If I wanted to create in and out points, logically it seems to me, that wouldn’t work but maybe this is how its supposed to be???

[Chris Poisson]

Oh, well, I have never done anything else but capture now. Just always shoot plenty of handles and you should get through most anything.

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

From my experience, you’re better off using ‘Capture Now’ b/c the nature of the footage forces a new clip to be made every time there’s a timecode break. FCP gets a little weirded out when you mark and In and Out point beyond a break in video. The most efficient way is to capture the whole tape, then log the captured footage afterwards.

[Chris Poisson]

I agree with Cathy, as long as you name your clips and store them properly, you should be good to go.

[Jan Bliddal]

Hi CathyCam just to be sure that I understand you right.

When capturing in hdv from the XH A1 you will use capture now instead of log and capture and then use log and capture later to rename the captured files? If understood correctly why?

The reason for my asking is that I recieved my Canon XH A1 on friday. I am not going to capture any HDV material to Final Cut 6 anytime soon, but I would like to be prepared when I need to.

Thanks in advanced

Let the machine work for you. Not you for the machine

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

Hi Jan,

Yes, exactly. To be honest I don’t really know what the true cause of the clip splitting is. Below might be a clearer explanation of what happens (another editor who first brought this issue to my attention, and I have since confirmed that he was correct):

“The only really annoying thing I found with taking the HDV over firewire… Any time there was a camera stop, even if there was no timecode break, FCP forced a new clip on capture. So after logging a few tapes and then setting up some batch captures I got back all these split up partial clips. I tried re-logging paying stricter attention to camera stops – but sometimes on a static shot it’s pretty hard to tell, especially when the tape is running by in FF. Eventually I gave up and captured full tapes, letting FCP choose the in/outs based on camera stops; I logged after the captures and deleted the garbage.”

Hope it’s helpful!

~ Cathy

[Alvaro Lanciai]

hi there…

I’ve experienced the same prbs with the same equipments….
it seems to be incredible but I solved everything just changing the fire wire input from the front to the back…connecting my cable in the firewire connection on tha backside of my mac…everything was working correctly…..
and ‘i’m not the only one ….

MAC INTEL dual quadcore 3ghz
4gb ram
macos 10.4.11
fcp 6.0.1

[Dirk Ramon durchgraf]

Hello there.
I just bought a Canon XH A1. I have managed to capture HDV, but cannot seem to be able to switch “External Video” to “All Frames” so as to be able to view the sequence on an external reference monitor.
Also he HDV option is not selectable in the Video Playback Menu. Any idea what might help ?