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FCPX and Matrox MX02 LE and DV
It worked fine the last time I tried to import VHS as DV but that was about a year ago. This morning, the process completely failed on two fronts; using the MX02 LE or using a DV deck as a bridge to the VHS player.
I first downloaded the latest driver for my Matrox MX02 LE with Max (Matrox, WHY do you require a login in the heat of the moment to download a driver? I mean, it’s not like I’m running a pirated copy of the MX02 LE hardware!).
I had changed laptops since I last used the MX02 so there were no previous driver installations to delete. In installed the software and restarted the laptop and the Control Panel for the MX02 reported that the hardware was present and its firmware had been updated.
Launched FCPX. I have the latest version on the next-to-latest MacBook Pro with max RAM, max SSD, and max processor speed. Plenty of hard drive space.
I had a VHS player hooked to the composite input of the MX02. I had set NTSC 8-bit in the Control Panel and had set the Composite input as the input of choice.
However, no Matrox in the Import window!
I gave up on the Matrox after a half hour of searching the Web and trying other settings and I pulled out my trusty Sony DV deck. I had a Firewire cable from it to a Firewire adaptor for Thunderbolt that went to the laptop. I put the VHS output into the DV deck.
In the Import window ‘DV’ showed up and it had the video and audio playing from the VHS player through the DV deck and coming into the laptop. I hit ‘Import’ with the correct Event attached and the counter in the upper left of the video window began incrementing. I then stopped the import.
A recorded video was nowhere to be found! It wasn’t in the Event that I had selected on Import, not in the Events folder > Original Media of the Event on the hard drive, in the Movies folder and not on an attached hard drive. You can choose to see ‘All Files’ and sort by date and the latest file to be added that’s anywhere the laptop can see will bubble to the top of the list. Not there.
Clues, anyone?
Don Smith
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4 Replies
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Can you utilize the Matrox capture app? Then drag the files over to the event. I’m guessing FCP doesn’t like the lack of TC. The only format of tape it can capture natively is DV and maybe HDV, right? For capturing betacamsp I rely on BMDs capture app for my Ultrastudio Express.
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Matrox unfortunately is not supporting capture when having the FCPX drivers installed. And the capture app is unfortunately only available if you use old non FCPX driver. ( I can’t even get it to work with Premier which it supposedly does.) I’ve reported to Matrox that this seems incredible misleading that they are advertising a capture app that doesn’t work with the current drivers. But don’t get me started.
The other issue is that FCPX requires timecode on a firewire input. Thusly playing through the input on your DV deck work work. So here are two options:
1) copy your VHS to DV tape first then capture the tape in FCPX. – works great.
2) use iMovie to capture. No timecode required.I hope this helps.
– T.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque -
T. Payton – Thank you for that. I thought it was me. My first reaction is to say “Well, then I have an MX02 LE with MAX for sale!” but I’ll wait until the rumored major update to FCPX is issued to see if anything changes. If not, then I’m putting it on eBay.
NewsVideo.com
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Indeed, it is very odd, and frankly foolish, that Matrox is not supporting the capture apps when their own web site and literature says they support the Venture Capture Apps. See this page:
https://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo2_mini/software/
Granted, I’m throwing Matrox marketing department under the bus, but it seems like they did that themselves.
When I moved to a thunderbolt iMac I evaluated moving to a Blackmagic solution from my MXO2 Mini. I found that the Matrox actually worked better for monitoring (allowed color adjustment, added pulldown on the fly), but non existent for capture. Blackmagic has an excellent capture tool. Since having my Matrox for about 5 years, I have only needed it for capture once, so I went with the Matrox thunderbolt adapter.
Matrox tech support has been very helpful and responsive.
It is a bummer that Matrox has such inconsistencies.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque
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