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Down convert through mini Teranex
I’m having a bit of a problem and I was hoping to maybe someone here in the community could point me in the right direction.
I have a Teranex Mini UDCSN. I am working in Final Cut Pro with a HD 1080i apple pro res 422 (hq) timeline. I am trying to downconvert the footage to SD and lay back to a Sony digibeta DVW 500. I have talked to Teranex’s tech support, and they informed me that there is a four frame delay on the layoff with LTC and I have to go through VITC. For some reason though when I try to lay VITC down the tape won’t accept the TC. I tried the deck switched to VITC and AUTO neither worked. I also tried with FCP set to LTC/VITC and VITC. Still nothing. I feel that I must be missing a step somewhere. One other detail I’m using FCP to lay black to tape. I know I should have a generator for this but unfortunately the facility I’m working in currently doesn’t have one.
I contacted Teranex again and asked for the step by step procedures for this specific layoff. Their response is below.
We understand that you are outputting 1080i59.94 and attempting to downconvert to 480i59.94 to record on your Sony DVW-500. After running some tests here with DigiBeta (but with no FCP), we suspect that the time code your Digital Betacam is recording is coming from the RS422 control from FCP. We attempted to defeat the TC on the RS422 input, but could not determine how to tell the Sony VTR to ignore the RS422 port and read the TC from the incoming video. We suggest doing your lay off to tape from FCP with the RS422 control line unplugged. You may also want to contact Sony for assistance with timecode inputs to the DVW-500.
I believe without the RS244 cable I would have to PRINT TO TAPE. If I do this will TC on the tape match the sequence and don’t I need the RS244 cable to lay down LTC? The company I’m delivery to requests both LTC/VITC on their tapes.
If anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.
Jim
Quad Core Intel Xeon
Kona 3 (although for this project we are not downconverting through it)
Mini Teranex
Caldigit HDone -
7 Replies
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The thing is, there is no timecode out from Final Cut. Timecode info is carried over 422 control, but only for control. The deck does not use it as an input. The statement from Teranex is odd, and wrong.
As you as doing an edit with like frame rates there is no reason not to do this like any other edit to tape (with the deck set for internal regen). The only difference is the delay created by going though the Mini. A bit of testing should get you to the proper offset. Once you have that, edit away.
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Dino,
Thanks for the advice. Previously we had tried to move the sequence forward to compensate for the four frames. At first it was working then about minute 3 it was suddenly off by one frame. We had set the deck to non drop frame.
Although, I was just looking through the Kona 3 control panel I did notice there is an “OUTPUT TC OFFSET” we’re going to try and adjust that next.
Thanks for your time.
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the AJA Kona 3 does a real time downconvert from HD 1080i to SDI 525, simply by selecting this on the AJA Control Panel. You play back from FCP, tell the AJA to output a 525 NTSC signal, and it comes out of the HD Out 1 or HD Out 2 as an SDI signal.
This is what almost every TV station does – why are you going thru all this aggrivation ?Bob Zelin
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Hi Bob,
Thanks for responding to the post.
Let me start off by saying that I know you are a proponent of the AJA products and specifically the Kona3. My company is as well that’s why we outfitted our bay with their products.
That being said we had tried doing the downconvert through the Kona3 card but felt the image quality looked rather soft. We contacted the station we’re delivering to and they told us that they use a Teranex for their injest and output. So we looked into and and decided to go with the mini based on price. Unfortunately we’re just not big enough to purchase the more expensive model.
Since we usually use an LCD for critical color we rented a SONY CRT thinking that the LCD was causing the SD image to be soft. But the image still seemed soft on the CRT.
Tomorrow we’re laying off again and I will post our findings.
Thanks for responding I know your time is valuable.
Jim
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Avids real time downconvert is a little soft also.
We found that we get the best results outputting to HDcam
(or HDcamSR)then running a down covert dub from the HDcam to a digibeta. We’ll just keep the hdcam as a back up master.Usually we’ll use the realtime downconvert only for screeners
or non-broadcast stuff.Scott Cumbo
Editor
Broadway Video, NYC -
well, forget the 4 frame delay just for a second. When you went thru the Teranex mini, was it sharper than the AJA downconversion on the CRT or Plasma ?
Bob Zelin
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I also work for the same company. The LCD is what we have been using. And the image looked much sharper through the teranex as opposed to the kona 3.
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