CatDV playing half of the proxy

[Peter Furseth]

Update: The proxy of the other project just finished, another .MTS file. CatDV is only playing half of that proxy as well. I made a proxy of a .MOV file shot on a 7D and CatDV is playing the full file. Any thoughts would be great.

[Rolf Howarth]

I have no idea offhand what would be causing that but just to clarify, do you mean CatDV is playing EXACTLY half the file down to the nearest frame, or simply that it’s playing some of the file but stopping before the end?

How was the clip originally imported into CatDV? Is the duration that’s shown for the clip correct (and if you play the proxy the time cursor stops half way throught before it gets to the Out point) or is the out point short?

[Peter Furseth]

[Rolf Howarth] “I have no idea offhand what would be causing that but just to clarify, do you mean CatDV is playing EXACTLY half the file down to the nearest frame, or simply that it’s playing some of the file but stopping before the end?

How was the clip originally imported into CatDV? Is the duration that’s shown for the clip correct (and if you play the proxy the time cursor stops half way throught before it gets to the Out point) or is the out point short?
“

Yes, It’s playing exactly half, down to the frame. The clips where dragged in, but because they are AVCHD files CatDv doesn’t get any metadata from them. Not until the Proxy is imported. So the duration according to CatDV is half of what the file really is.

I think it was something with the server update. We updated it on Monday to the latest build. Up until then, all of the AVCHD files we made proxies of are working. But Tuesday on, anything we do imports at half length.

[Bryson Jones]

Strange question…have you played these proxy files in Quicktime player?

My thought is that if those MTS files are spanned, CatDV and Episode might not do that whereas another tool would.

Make sure that QT Player and CatDV are seeing different durations. If not, check the tool you’re using to look at the clips and also strange things like licensing issues. (some unlicensed codecs will only play a certain number of frames when in demo mode, etc..)

This is a stumper.

bryson

bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com

hidefcowboy.com

[Rolf Howarth]

[Peter Furseth] “The clips where dragged in, but because they are AVCHD files CatDv doesn’t get any metadata from them. Not until the Proxy is imported. So the duration according to CatDV is half of what the file really is. “

I’m not sure I quite follow – was the clip in CatDV created by importing the AVCHD .mts file or by importing a proxy? If the proxy, what format is the proxy in and how did you create it?

If you import an .mts file, CatDV should be able to scan the file and extract metadata, including the correct duration (though it won’t be able to play it natively unless you have Xuggle installed or create a proxy).

[Peter Furseth]

[Rolf Howarth] “If you import an .mts file, CatDV should be able to scan the file and extract metadata, including the correct duration (though it won’t be able to play it natively unless you have Xuggle installed or create a proxy).”

Yes, We are bringing in the .MTS files and then creating proxies in episode. Oddly enough, when we do bring in the files it doesn’t bring in any meta data. It doesn’t update and fill in the fields until the proxy gets made for it. If you would like I could send you one of the .MTS files to see if it happens on your end. We do not have Xuggle.

@Bryson It’s not a trial codec because 1. it plays exactly half. To the frame. and 2. We have been doing this same workflow for 3 months. This is the first project that it has done this with. I’ve tried a few work arounds and nothing has worked. I am going to try and convert the raw footage to something else and see if that works.

[Peter Furseth]

So now a new twist. We noticed that the duration is half when bringing in the .MTS file, and that we can change it. I know it’s not recommended and CatDv takes away the video icon in the type field, but if we change it to what the file really is it plays the entire proxy.

This is such a weird thing. It was working fine until we updated our server. I’m going to upgrade the firmware in the camera on the off chance it’s something there and I’ll post that outcome.

[Rolf Howarth]

If you could send us a small .MTS file that shows the problem so we can investigate that would be great, either by email to support@squarebox.co.uk or using a service such as sendthisfile.com (or an FTP server if you have one).

[Bryson Jones]

Hearing the “update duration” thing, I’m betting it’s related to the metadata in the original clip not matching the qt proxy.

That is a strange one though.

bryson

bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com

hidefcowboy.com

[Jeff Schaap]

I know this post is old but I will reply anyway. We are experiencing almost the exact same behavior in our workflow with AVCHD .MTS files from a Sony FS100 and our Sony VG10’s.

When we import .MTS clips I have a workernode script that has ClipWrap rewrap the MTS files in MOVs and positions them in the proper proxy path. CatDV finds the proxies and plays them just fine.

However, when importing the MTS files CATDV incorrectly “reads” the end of the clip and truncates it by half. The proxies also only play half of the length of the clip even though when played from Finder I can see that the proxy file IS the full length of the original clip. WEIRD.