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Having Issues Importing From Camera (Tape)
Hello,
I recently started a job that has had me reviving a dormant video department part-time (moonlighting technical writer). I have some work experience in the production world, but it’s been fairly eclectic and has always been more of a hobby than a career. After rummaging through the A/V catacombs, my first order of business was to move from Media Composer 3.1 to FCP X as the short, service bulletin videos I’ll be producing will be of a single camera nature with an emphasis on speed and efficiency since many of the problems we’re addressing are timely. I spent a few days acclimating myself with media composer, before deciding that the 300 dollar price tag of FCP X would likely pay for itself considering the time it would take me to become fluent with Avid and the time I could potentially save with each edit moving forward.
I’m also hoping to move to a tapeless workflow in the future, but that might not be until budget allocation happens in February. So that rambling introduction brings me to the issue I’m having.
I’m shooting with a Panasonic AG-DVX100b and when I capture the footage using FCP X’s (understandably limited) “Import From Camera” function, I’ve experienced a lot of dropped frames and chaotic audio. I’ve tried using the analyze and fix options for both audio and video but in this particular case, they seem to have made things worse. I’ve tried importing directly from the camera and from our JVC deck – both of which were immediately recognized by FCP X.
So far, I’ve just resorted to capturing the footage with Media Composer, exporting it and bringing it into FCP X that way. I’m okay with doing this until I migrate to tapeless, but I just thought I’d check and see if any of you guru’s had an idea of what I might be doing wrong.
I sincerely appreciate this resource, and the time that you folks take to help out meandering noobies like myself.
Cheers,
-Boe
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7 Replies
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I did have a dropped frame once in FCP X importing HDV. I fixed it by creating a camera archive first (in the FCP X Import from camera window). Hopefully it will resolve it.
If not try another FW cable, or another FW port on your mac.
Camera archives let you treat your tape based footage like it was a solid state device. It’s a very nice workflow.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque -
That camera shoots DV25 to tape with 24fps using standard or advanced pulldown. Does FCP X remove pulldown? Could there be some problem with this function? Have you tried 24p versus 30p?
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
It’s curious that it’s working in Avid, but not FCX.
I used to have problems with a particualar sony deck, and the answer was to NOT daisy chain the camera and the external drive, but purchase a second firewire card for the mac so the deck would be on its own bus. This may not be your issue.
You can also import footage using quicktime 7. Select “New Movie Recording” and in the preferences under “recording” select the hdv as your video source, and select “device native” for the quality. I’d say if you can import the footage in Avid and quicktime but not FCX, it might just be an issue with X.
I’ve never used imovie, but I believe that should also be able to ingest camera footage.
Good luck.
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FCX. She tempts me, abuses me, beats me up, makes me feel worthless, then in the end she comes around, helps me get my work done, gives me hope and I can’t stop thinking about her.Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com -
Good morning, gentlemen. I thank you for your replies.
Timothy,
I tried the camera archive method. It seems like a neat workflow concept and it did produce better results than experienced initially but there were still issues of dropped frames and fragmented clips.
Oliver,
I’m not sure I have the knowledge to address your suggestion entirely, but I can confirm that the footage is imported as 29.97i – whether or not FCP X conforms it during the import process, I’m unsure. I did also try and manually set the project to 24p and then import the media but it was not suitable.
Mark,
I was a little perplexed by it as well. My first suspicion was that the tape was damaged or I botched something during shooting, but when it worked fine in Avid, that seemed to indicate otherwise. I will play around with the capturing functions in quicktime and may just need to find the most streamlined process of capturing with something else, then importing to FCP X.
Other than this issue, working in FCP X has been a delight thus far. I hadn’t really used it professionally prior to my job here, so I was a little bit nervous about recommending the switch to a program that I’d only played around with in my spare time, but so far I think it’s going to be perfect for my needs here.
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[Boe Beito] “I’m not sure I have the knowledge to address your suggestion entirely, but I can confirm that the footage is imported as 29.97i – whether or not FCP X conforms it during the import process, I’m unsure. I did also try and manually set the project to 24p and then import the media but it was not suitable. “
The DVX100B records all footage to tape as 29.97i. However, it can image as 24p (in two modes) or 30p. Each progressive frame is 2 interlaced fields. So this is recorded to tape using a repeating cadence to create 24-over-30. The cadence can either be “standard pulldown” of 2:3:2:3 or “advanced pulldown” 2:3:3:2. This is how 4 progressive frames are divided into 5 interlaced video frames. The concept of 24PA (2:3:3:2) was developed by Panasonic so you could easily remove the middle video frame in the FireWire stream and be left with a true 24fps progressive signal within the NLE. FCP “legacy” and Avid can do this.
If this is how it was recorded and the recording was 24P (standard pulldown) and you are ingesting as 29.97i, then your signal should look visually like anything shot on film and transferred to NTSC videotape. If it was recorded as 24PA (advanced pulldown) then the cadence will make it look like there’s an extra held frame in the middle of every 5 frames. In other words, you might not have any dropped frames, but are simply seeing what looks like dropped frames.
The easiest way to tell is simply to step through your video with the viewer at 100% and “both fields”. If it was 24P (2:3:2:3) then you should see a pattern of split and whole frames in a WWSSS pattern. If it was 24PA (2:3:3:2), the pattern will be WWSWW. If it was 30P, then all frames will be whole frames.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Hey, Oliver
Thanks for the explanation – that makes sense. After reading your reply, I perused the camera’s menus (again), before eventually consulting the online manual. I finally found the menu option to set the frame rate and turn on progressive footage.
I shot some new sample footage at 30p, and it captured perfectly, as 1 clip with no dropped frames, within FCP X.
Hopefully this will continue to be the case moving forward.
I sincerely appreciate the input from each of you.
Happy holidays!
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It seems that my settings won’t save when I put them in. I turn on progressive and 30p but when I change something or power down the camera it reverts back to being off.
Back to the manual, I guess.
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