Can’t capture color

[David Bogie]

[Amy Hildenbrand] “‘m having trouble digitizing from a 3/4″ tape. I can see color in the monitor, but Final Cut won’t show me color in the preview window,”

You will need to tell us how you are connecting your ancient 3/4″ deck to your Macintosh.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Roth weiss]

Amy,

That’s typically a cable issue with 3/4 video, not a sofware issue.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

[Amy Hildenbrand]

As for setup, I’ve got a 3/4 deck, VHS deck, and Sony J-1 Beta deck running into a switcher (Sima SVS-14). RCA outs from there into a splitter: one set to the monitor (where I can see color) and one set into the Canopus card and ultimately into my machine. I can see and capture color on both other decks, and have captured color on this deck before my clean reinstall this morning. That’s the only thing that leads me to think it might somehow be software related. I’ve swapped all cables (even FW), reset the Canopus and still nothing. That’s the frustrating part….

Thanks,
amy

[David Bogie]

Sounds like you know what you’re doing but 3/4″ can loose color a couple of ways. You haven’t said anything about the 3/4″ deck, you might be hooked up to the wrong output. If it has a tbc on it (should) you may have hooked up to one of the component outs instead of composite. Many DV convertors are twitchy about the quality of the signal coming in. Tracking could be just enough out of whack to prevent stable chroma from locking into the Canopus.

Are you absolutely certain the 3/4″ signal has chroma as it leaves your switcher? You will need to insert a monitor between the two to make sure. Better, bypass the switcher entirely.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Amy Hildenbrand]

I should’ve been more specific I guess – I have a video monitor hooked up and it’s coming out of the switcher (so I can see signal from whichever deck is active).

The 3/4″ deck is a Sony VP-7040, a play-only NTSC/PAL switchable deck. The outs on the back are:

Video Out (BNC)
Sync In (BNC)
Audio Monitor (RCA)
Audio Outs (RCA, L/R)
RF Out (looks like a turtle male RCA 🙂

Unfortunately it’s a very simple deck. All the standards settings are correct on both the deck and the Canopus card. The only thing I remember from the last time this happened was that it just suddenly started working from me messing around with the deck and trying to capture. I guess spazzy should’ve been taking better notes.

I appreciate any help but I’m guessing it’ll just suddenly decide it’s ready sometime…

[Rennie Klymyk]

Why not try to record a bit onto mini dv or your vhs deck to see if it picks up the color. Are you looping out of the monitor or is it a serarate Mon. feed from the switcher?

“everything is broken”

[Amy Hildenbrand]

The path is like so:

Decks –> Switcher

Switcher –> Splitter

Splitter –> Monitor
Splitter –> RCA to Canopus

Canopus –> Computer

I just tried routing the signal through the VHS with no luck.

[Uchenna Ikonne]

Well, I’m two years late coming to this discussion, but I’m dealing with the same issue and I hope somebody can help me!

I’m using the same Sony VP-7040 u-matic deck as Amy, and I’ve been unable to capture in color in neither Final Cut Express nor iMovie.

However, unlike Amy, I have also been unable to get color playback on a TV. (Amy was using a monitor; I’m using a standard TV set.)

I did some research and I found that the VP-7040 requires a monitor or a TV with a “Q” suffix to achieve color playback, so I guess it makes sense that Amy was able to get color on the monitor.

My question (perhaps a naive one): What exactly is a “Q” suffix and is there any kind of adapter or TV tuner card I can use to get the “Q”? (I’m running the video from the VP-7040 to a MacBook Pro through a Canopus ADVC-55.)

I’d appreciate any help with this!