Edit to Tape is 1 frame early – Only sometimes!

[Andrew Dietz]

My sequence is a 23.98 Uncompressed DL 444 RGB. I would totally use our SAN for this, but it’s SLOW! I can barely get 200MB/s out of it. I am using 3x 1TB drives striped to a RAID 0. I would like to upgrade my SAN though so I can handle 444 material.

[Andrew Dietz]

Yes I am on FCS3. Latest AJA drivers as well. I just downgraded my Kona3 to 32 bit, I’ll see if that helps.

Also, when I insert edit, it inserts on the correct frame ALWAYS. It is the last frame, that FCP or whatever is adding a black frame. I tested this by adding a frame of bars after after my out point but It didn’t add the bars. That is confusing let me explain.

Doing insert edit for a slate In- 58:50:00 out-58:59:23. When I do the insert and play it back the slate starts at the correct time, but the out point is 58:59:22, and frame 23 is black. So something is adding in a frame of black instead.

I know doing an insert edit is different from assemble, but the same type of thing is occuring where everything is 1 frame early (Except the original in point).

I will try to see if there is an update for the HDCAM-SR deck.

[Andrew Dietz]

Wayne, I always open the edit to tape window, and drag my sequence to the “assemble” icon.

Also, my tapes are not pre-striped with timecode and black. I am just blacking the tape until my sequence start timecode (57:30:00).

[Andrew Dietz]

I was trying to respond to specific posts, but all my posts are lined up… Anyway…

I reset the firmware on the Kona to 32 bit, and it worked for now, but who knows when It will pop back up. I should know pretty soon as I have 20+ tapes to output.

Another odd thing… When I had the Kona3 to 64 bit, when I was in the “edit to tape” window after doing an assemble edit, I would try to go forward or backward 1 frame, but the timecode was tripping out, and sometimes going forward or back 2 or even 3 frames, and appear to skip frames sometimes. It didn’t seem to be displaying everything accurately. Since I have reverted to 32-bit firmware, this seems to have gone away. The only other things I have since changed are setting the deck preset to “LTC + VITC” and setting pre-roll to 5 seconds.

I’ll keep this thread updated in case anyone cares.

[Andrew Dietz]

Well nothing ended up working. I’m guessing it’s some bug with the Kona3 or more likely Final Cut. I don’t know what else I can do except wait for a fix if they even know about it.

[Andrew Dietz]

UPDATE – It looks like the Final Cut Pro 7.0.1 update fixed this problem. I have done about 30 tapes, and they’ve all been frame accurate.

[Andrew Dietz]

Actually, I don’t think 7.0.1 did fix this. Now I am running Snow Leopard and I still have the same problems.

[Luke Pearson]

I find that if you have the regen on the deck set to LTC you get frame accurate edits from FCP.