IOXT capture and downconvert questions

[Shane Ross]

Not sure about your first question, as I haven’t had to capture from HDCAM SR…only Digibeta, BetaSP and regular HDCAM. And I haven’t tried to turn off channels to listen.

As for number 2…the IoXT will still downconvert and change the frame rate…that’s the one conversion it will do with Avid MC. You set your secondary output to be 525i 29.97 in the AJA Control Panel, and then set the system to downconvert to that. And it is a hardware downconvert.

What the AJA hardware won’t do is convert 23.98 to 29.97 or other frame rate, and retain the frame size.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Adam Cravens]

Thanks very much Shane. I’ll give the hardware downconvert a try. I’m very pleased that should work as I wind up doing a lot of those and I vastly prefer the hardware method to the software.

[Adam Cravens]

So I have given the hardware downconvert a try and have hit a snag. When I try to lay off a 29.97 digibeta from a 1080 PsF timeline I am met with the following error:

The NTSC machine “Sony DVW-A500” cannot be used for 24fps I/O. Please manually configure the deck.

I have adjusted the outputs in the IOXT to downconvert to 525i 29.97 and I’m feeding proper reference everywhere. When I try to configure the deck, I have no options other than 24 frame deck configs. Am I doing something wrong here or is this the limitation of not having the “universal mastering” of a Nitris DX?

Anybody have any ideas?

[Adam Cravens]

Anybody have a good solution to this problem? Am I only able to crash record a downconverted sequence onto digibeta this way or is there a way to lay down a sequence with proper timecode from a 1080PsF timeline to a 29.97 digibeta? How are other people doing this?

[Gary Adcock]

[Adam Cravens] “m I only able to crash record a downconverted sequence onto digibeta this way or is there a way to lay down a sequence with proper timecode from a 1080PsF timeline to a 29.97 digibeta? How are other people doing this?”

have you tried using AJa’s VTRX app to do this. That was my workflow in the early days of HD.

It should allow you the ability to define the output TC correctly with it. It is available on their website.

gary adcock
Studio37

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[Adam Cravens]

Thanks for the suggestion Gary,
I downloaded the app (version 5.2) and checked out the accompanying PDF which lists pretty much every other AJA device being supported with the VTR Xchange except the IOXT. Undeterred, I forged ahead and hit another road block when I tried to get deck control with a digibeta and was told “no serial port has been chosen- look in preferences” When I check prefs it lists the IOXT serial under “serial port” but I still get no control of the deck. Poking around the app, it seems to be much more geared toward capturing footage than laying off with only 1 menu item on the top bar called “playout” which seems to do nothing. I think I’m kinda stuck on this path, but I genuinely appreciate your suggestion.

[Adam Cravens]

So… I totally stand corrected. I restarted all of the gear and voila- I was able to control the deck. I then went back to my 1080p timeline in MC and exported a quicktime ref of what I wanted to lay back to digi. I then opened the ref file in VTR exchange, adjusted my secondary formats to 525i29.97 with an anamorphic downconvert in the AJA control panel, cued it up in VTR exchange and layed back to digi. It worked quite well and looked great. The only down side is where I would previously be able to run an assemble edit to digi out of my old symphony set up, it seems that I need to pre-black and insert edit via this method. Small price to pay. Thanks very much for the help Gary! I think this is a great work-around. It’s a pity that you can’t simply do this out of the AVID software directly since the IOXT seems totally up to the challenge.