HD to DV Down Conversion and Time Code Questions

[Shane Ross]

[North303] “My capture setting is DV NTSC 48 kHz Anamorphic and device control setting is DVCPRO HD FireWire”

Wrong settings. When the deck is set to DV, it does a center extraction. Just try the DV/NTSC easy setups…don’t modify anything, even deck control…and try that.

[North303] ” I thought I would capture the material in HD, then put it into a DV sequence with the sequence time code mirroring the clip, then render it and lay it to DV tape for recapturing. But when I tried that, the time code between the original clip and the sequence would not match precisely. I presume this is due to the 60 frame of HD versus 30 frame of DV. “

That seems like wasting a lot of time to me. Time is money. Why not offline at DVCPRO HD? 53GB per hour at that rate, and you can get 1TB Firewire 800 drives for $1100. How much footage are we talking about here?

Or just make sure that you have the settings I suggest for DV ingest and see what happens.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Jason Starr]

Thanks for your suggestion Shane but it did not work. Capture window still shows: Preview Disabled. While FCP controls the deck and sent it into capture mode, it never stops. Eventually I have to hit escape and have no video captured.

There are two reasons I would like to convert to DV for the offline. 1-To save drive space. This is a feature documentary with over thirty hours of interview material and probably another twenty of b-roll and other elements. 2-I have a production assistant writing transcripts with time code notes. I give the assistant a firewire drive packed with interviews and she takes them home to work on. While DVCPRO HD files are not enormous, they take up a lot more drive space than DV and require more processing power than I can expect from my assistant’s old laptop.

The issue of converting 60 frame material to a format such as DV that uses 30 frames is something I have never had to deal with before.

[Walter Biscardi]

[North303] “Is there anyway to make DV count the 60 frames? Am I domed in this endeavor? Suggestions will be most appreciated!”

Not really necessary and you won’t have any issues capturing. I conform 29.97 SD shows to 720 / 59.94 all the time and we’re frame accurate with our captures all the time. I receive the SD project and simply set up our system to recapture everything at 720/60 and we haven’t had a problem with over 30 episodes to date.

As for the DV capture, what Shane suggested should work so long as you have the DV-NTSC Easy Setup all set. I’m trying to think if there’s another menu setting, but I don’t think so. Might just want to check that the default playback for the deck is 720p, not 1080i. I know that default for the deck is 1080i and it has to be changed to 720. You could also tell this right away by switching the deck to Easy Setup DVCPro HD 720/60 and make sure you see video in the FCP Capture window. If you don’t, it’s set to 1080i.

If you have access to a Kona card you could always have the Kona do the downconvert to DV for you.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
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