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FCP Won’t Log Drop Frame Footage
I’m trying to log and capture plain old DV and DVCAM footage. For some reason as I log the footage its going in as Non Drop Frame. I of course want drop frame. I’ve never seen this problem before. How do I set the logging preset to Drop Frame??? I want the footage acquired as drop frame and its driving me nuts. HELP!! This is my first project since upgrading to FCP 5.1.2 on my G5 Powermac. I’m sure its something simple but I can’t seeem to find it.
Thank You!!!
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6 Replies
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Open the log and capture window and then click the capture settings tab. Change the capture preset to firewire NTSC not firewire NDF.
Jeremy
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Thanks for the speedy response!
I may be a bit confused. I shot in drop frame and my timeline is drop frame. Wouldn’t I want to acquire it drop frame? Isn’t drop frame standard for most all 29.97 DV timelines? What is happening is its logging it as NDF but I want DF. When I enter the logging info it just seems to want to default to NDF. When I try and aquire my footage I get a warning to the effect of “You’re trying to acquire NDF for a DF clip. This may lead to problems… blah blah..”
I’m aware I can go Modify –> Timecode and switch the clips to DF before I acquire them but its a silly, tedious process. Is a master clip inherently DF or NDF BEFORE acquisition? Does it harm anything to switch it from NDF to FD after acquisition?
Also if I use NDF footage in a DF timeline am I going to run into problems? Frustrating for me as I’ve never had this issue before.
Thanks for any advice!
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Yeah, it’s frustrating. It’s a bug. Yes you want to log and capture in the native ‘frame rate’. So if you change it to firewire NTSC it still doesn’t work?
Jeremy
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Thanks again Jeremy
Yes this problem seems to be a new bug to FCP in 5.1.2. Firewire NTSC setting works fine if you insert the tape and play it a bit through FCP so it may autodetect for DF vs. NDF. If you run the tape a bit this way it defaults to whichever the tape was recorded at. Thats not too much trouble I suppose assuming you have the tapes.
Apparently the PD-150 the client shot with was set for NDF which was a surprise to me as I wasn’t aware the PD-150 could shoot NDF.
Since I was entering data off logs rather than actually cuing the tape it didn’t seem to know which to go with. Once I ran a tape in the deck throgh FCP BEFORE logging it worked fine. I’ve never had this issue in previous versions of FCP. Am I the only one??
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That’ll do it and no you aren’t the only one.
Good luck!
Jeremy
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[Barathron] “Apparently the PD-150 the client shot with was set for NDF which was a surprise to me as I wasn’t aware the PD-150 could shoot NDF.
“PD150/170 allows the option to shoot DF or NDF (and pre-settable) timecodes while in the DVCAM mode.
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