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Capturing a NTSC tape with a PAL camera
Hi all:
A friend of mine needs to edit some material that was shot in MiniDV in a NTSC country. We’re here in PAL-land and all the cameras that we have are PAL only; well, actually we have a Sony FX1-E that, despite being PAL, can play back the NTSC tape in question, but what I don’t know is how to capture using it. Should I put “NTSC” as a capture preset in FCP and “Firewire PAL” in “Device Control preset”? Or “Firewire NTSC” too? Actually, is what I’m trying to do even possible? I’d read the manual of the FX1-E, but I don’t have it handy.
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5 Replies
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You can play NTSC tapes in PAL cameras (and I think PAL tapes in NTSC cameras) but what you get is not a standard video signal. I tried to capture that but no way. Perhaps I was doing something wrong. You can try setting “Non controllable device” and “Captur now”.
The best you can do is to try to borrow a SONY DSR-11 (DVCam) that plays NTSC and PAL.
Cheers,
rafael -
Hi
Versions of iMovie around 2 and 3 could capture the FW output of a PAL camcorder playing an
NTSC tape into an NTSC iMovie project.However iMovie would only open an NTSC project if a genuine NTSC FW device was attached.
So I opened iMovie with a AVDC 100 converter (or a Hollywood Dazzle Bridge convertor) set to NTSC mode attached by FW, and then once iMovie was ready to capture hot-swapped the camcorder onto the FW, playing the NTSC tape.
Everything captured fine, as an NTSC DV Stream. That was with a Sony TRV-900E camcorder – I don’t know if more modern camcorders or versions of iMovie can still do it.
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Sure that’s possible Paul. i-Movie is much less exigent than FC for capturing. FC in the moment that there are problems with the TC or with the signal for example, it do not capture. I think I-Movie is designed to ingest what ever kind of video you plug in.
Anather way to try to capture your video is with the QT recorder. I’ve never tried capture NTSC played by a PAL device, but it may work. And another possibility may be with Toast. It also can recor from camera. Just try.
Cheers,
rafael -
Okay, guess what? I tried with Toast 7 Titanium and… it worked. All I had to do was to get it to recognize the camera as a “NTSC DV camera” (instead of “PAL DV” as it was its default), and that was it. So here it is, for reference of future users…
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For a desperate situation.
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