Edit to Tape is 1 frame early – Only sometimes!

[Michael Gissing]

Do you have a reference signal to both deck & card?

[Mark Maness]

[Duke Bishop] “I have MetaSAN also installed, but I have all of the media for this project on an Internal RAID, so that shouldn’t affect it. “

Question here….

You say that you are writing back to HDCAM SR 444 DL RGB and I have to assume that your sequence is 24p, right? Because your program is starting at 59:59:23 instead of one hour, right?

Ok…. so here’s my question. What format are you editing? Uncompressed? And your using an internal RAID for this? Why not using the SAN? What kind of internal RAID are you using? Software or hardware? If its software, I’d tend to think this may be your issue.

Also… Have you checked with Sony to see if this is a known issue with you HDCAM deck? There may be a software update for this.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com

[Dan Monro]

Have you updated to FCS3? And if so, have you updated your Kona drivers? We’re on FCS3, and until we upgraded the Kona drivers we had problems. Once we updated the drivers it was pretty solid until we upgraded the Kona drivers again to 64bit; back to lots of problems and have since reverted to 32 bit and have had better luck.

That being said, we still have issues with frame accuracy and cannot pin it down, despite fine efforts by several in-house engineers working along with Apple techs. Its an ongoing search right now.

The playback offset in your device control settings can be used to force it to frame accuracy. I have been at +1 or +2, and even a +3. Switching decks (handy to have a room full of them) will often help, but not always. We’ve even had the first slate (this is for a spot reel) go in correctly and the next 6 go in a frame or two late. Very hard to pin down.

I restart FCP as a matter of course; trashing prefs doesn’t seem to affect this particular problem. Cueing the deck up before making the edit also helps. Occasionally I lay down one spot at a time, but that gets cumbersome. Sometimes it hits right on the first time and everything is correct.

I’ll report back any solution we find, but for now, we’re still investigating.

You’re not alone,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Dan Monro]

Forgot to mention that this is with a SR deck. I’ll get more details (the deck model and kona driver version info) the next time I’m in an FCP suite – in Avid today.

And the config in my signature is my home system, not work. Better stuff here….

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Mark Maness]

Let me ask you this…

Has your tape been pre-striped with timecode and black? I know this sounds funny and kinda archaic but NLE’s are funny little creatures that sometimes have a mind of their own.

Are you doing assemble edits or insert edits? And how are you printing to video? Thru the menus or by dragging your sequence in the Edit to Tape window. Sometimes, opening the Edit to Tape first and then dragging you sequence into the desired operation will work properly.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com

[Dan Monro]

Hey Wayne,

In our case the tapes are pre-striped, but not always in the same deck in which they’re used for lay-off.

I insert edit, and do it by dragging the sequence to the window. I usually enter my in-time, cue the deck, and then drag the sequence.

This happens with the other editor who is working with the same media. And the offset seems to be pretty fluid.

Its ProRes422 HQ media, digitized from SR tape at 23.98. We have changed the playback to 8 bit, however, to avoid the stuttering, green frame and crash issues mentioned elsewhere in this forum.

AS I said, we can get it to go in at the right frame, it just doesn’t happen the 1st time every time.

Thanks,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Mark Maness]

Got ya….

[Dan Monro] “AS I said, we can get it to go in at the right frame, it just doesn’t happen the 1st time every time. “

To be perfectly honest… This has happened with me many, many times in the past and various versions of FCP to boot.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com

[Matt Lyon]

Me too! As far back as FCP 4.1, IIRC … always w/ Kona (although maybe Decklink too, my memory is hazy). I had some success fixing this by exporting my timeline as a self contained quicktime, then importing the file into a new, empty project and dumping to tape from there (with nothing else open). Of course, drive space might become an issue now that HD is more common. Try adjusting your preroll setting too.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Andrew Dietz]

I noticed when I go into audio/video settings and go into “Device Control Presets” If I click on the default Preset called “AJA Kona3 23.98 Sony VTR B” The time source is “LTC” instead of “LTC + VITC” Is that weird? I will try changing that, and do a longer Pre-roll.

FYI, I just re-installed my ENTIRE system from scratch, and It did this again on me, after I output 10 tapes flawlessly with perfect timecode. 🙁

[Andrew Dietz]

Yes I have reference to both my Kona3, and the HDCAM-SR deck.