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Capture live from one machine to another
Hi all,
Here’s a stumper:
Can you capture live output from one FCP machine to another?
Here’s what we’re trying to achieve…
We have a job coming up in a few weeks where we’d like to scrub through footage (it’s a stop motion job) and use the natural motion of the scrubbing to speed up / slow down the action. The aim is to get a natural feel to the motion rather than keyframing it. It sounds like a convoluted method, but let’s just say it’s something we’d like to try.
We’d be aiming to play out ProRes 4444 via HD-SDI (AJA/Blackmagic) and hook it into the input of another AJA/Blackmagic box.
We’d be looking at a pretty (very) fast drive to get smooth motion I guess, but our big unknown is whether there’ll be hiccups with lack of timecode or sync issues or any other pitfalls we haven’t thought of.
Does anyone know if it is feasible?
Thanks in advance,
Al
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13 Replies
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Yes, you can do it. Turn off Machine Control on the recording machine.
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
As for the scrubbing while recording, I don’t know, I would guess no.
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your response…
We’d be scrubbing on one machine and capturing “now” on the other machine. So not scrubbing and recording on one machine at the same time.
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No, I get it, Realtime no issues, It’s when you scrub the Play machine, that the record machine might freak b/c it wants to “lock” every frame coming over SDI…
I have recorded from one NLE to another on occasion w/o issue. I have not tried the scrubbing you mention.
Let us know how it goes.
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
Ah yes – I’m with you.
That’s the kind of worry I had. But encouraging that you’ve had success before with a different setup.
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The SDI output will be at the frame rate determined by the Easy Setup so regardless of scrubbing, the output remains fixed frame rate so it will record correctly on the second machine via SDI.
Because you are scrubbing, timecode is irrelevant, so capture now, uncontrolled device will work.
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Reminds me of 1993 – VideoCube 1.0. It had no way of creating slowmo, so we captured it off the betacam sp with dynamic tracking right into the system. It was an art getting your ramp up/down just right.
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Thanks for all the responses…
It’s sounding pretty likely that we can achieve what we’re after. My next question is this:
What would you think is the most effective way of achieving this? …remembering that we don’t want to lose quality from the original ProRes 4444…
In my head I’ve been thinking “scrub in FCP, capture in FCP” – using 2x capture units. Maybe there’s a different way? Is there any other software that’ll scrub smoothly and offer 4444 output?
I’ve only just thought of that, so will go do some research.
Thanks again everyone!
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Create the effect you’re after in AE?
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
Yup, that’s definitely one option… And it’s our fallback really. Or Twixtor in FCP, but that’s a bit slow and rendery for my liking.
The director really wants to get that human feel in the motion.
It’s something I’ve been talking myself in and out of for the last couple of weeks.
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