-
KiPro Dropped Frames
I am hoping some wise soul here has an idea what I am doing wrong…
I work at a station that shoots on Sony EX-3’s in 720p, and we edit on Final Cut Pro. We bought a few KiPro’s to use in Court for Pool Feeds, hoping that we could use the Express Card 34 slots for our Media, but that has not happened yet… We are creating a kit with the KiPro in a rolling pelican case with an AC supply, V-Mount battery plate and an I/O panel, to make things really easy for the user to get started quickly.
Here’s the issue. We are using a Blackmagic Designs Analog to SDI converter to get the analog Audio and Video to the SDI input, but when we try to record a Standard Def 16×9 signal through the Blackmagic converter, and have the KiPro upconvert signal to the hard drive in 720/60p, the KiPro time code stutters and after about 10 seconds it flashes a “Dropped Frames Error” and stops recording. The strange part is that if we try to upconvert to 1080i it records fine. We tried switching from ProRes 4:2:2HQ to ProRes 4:2:2 but that didn’t seem to solve the problem.
Any ideas would be appreciated
Thanks for the help
Butch Henderson
KCPQ-TV, Seattle
bhenderson@kcpq.com
We really would like to record in 720p to make the editing faster -
15 Replies
-
Since you have a Ki Pro, not a Ki Pro Mini, you might consider using the analog input on the Ki Pro and using the Ki Pro’s ability to upconvert from SD to HD.
Dropped frames are usually only seen when you are experiencing an underperforming disk; you may have disk fragmentation, a directory error, etc. that is causing the dropped frames and you might solve this by reformatting the disk (after backing up all of it’s data). One important thing to note is that not using the SLOT button to unmount media could lead to directory errors that could cause dropped frames warnings.
You should contact AJA Technical Support if you need assistance with your configuration. They can be reached via phone or email Monday through Friday between 9am and 5pm PST.
—
AJA Video Systems
+1 (530) 274-2048 Intl.
(800) 251-4224 US
sales@aja.com -
I would have to agree with AJA Sales Department, as always.
The wild card in that setup is the converter. Try removing that, using the analog inputs and use the Ki to up convert. In understand that this will be more cable to run, but it’s worth it to see if that clears up any weirdities.
Jeremy
-
Thanks for the suggestions, stil trying to come up with a Composite to Component adaptor to try.
-
Oh, it’s composite? Then yeah, bit of a different setup. What cameras are you using?
-
Hi Jeremy,
Here in Seattle were shooting news with EX-3’s. These KiPro kits were bought for pool feed situations in Court cases.
The courts up here have been fairly accomodating in that they allow us to have 1 camera on sticks and the other 3 on the floor recording the 1st camera. We normally use SDI to “Daisy Chain” from one camera to the next but our issue is the EX-3’s don’t take external video in…
The other 3 stations are just beginning their HD transition so for now 2 stations have got Sony DNW-9’s and another is shooting with Pannasonic P2. At least all of us are in 16×9 now though.
Granted that 90% of the time we are going to be using SDI, but we want to have flexibility in the design of these kits so they will work in all situations.
Were editing with FCP and have timelines set up for XDCAM. initially we thought about recording in SD, but we had issues with the aspect ratio not coming into FCP correctly and long render times in the upconvert, so we thought we would use the KiPro to do the upconvert and then just drag and drop, but we can’t seem to get it to do 720 60p reliably. for some reason it will do 1080i though…
A year ago we bought 5 of the KiPro’s and now Sony is making the PDW HR-1/Mk1 with the SxS Card option installed, which is exactly what we were looking for. (Battery and AC Powered, Cards and disks for memory, Analog and digital inputs, a monitor and speaker, all in one package.)
If we can work out the issues I think we have a solution that is about $5K less than the Sony product, so we’d really like it to work.
Thanks
Butch Henderson
KCPQ-TV, Seattle
bhenderson@kcpq.com -
Got ya.
So, even with the converter 1080i works?
If it all possible, can you post the “config” page?
If the settings are correct, and 1080i works and 720p doesn’t, I’d start with AJA support.
My feeling is that something is inadvertently goofed in the settings. I use 720p fairly regularly across Kipro and mini (although not while upconverting). Do you use the web interface to set these up or front panel only?
-
I’ll see if I can figure out how to capture the Config Page. the initial setup was done using the Front Panel, Bruce from Engineering used the Computer interface to change from ProRes 422 to ProRes.
-
You should have Bruce from Engineering to take a screen grab of his web browser when connected to the Ki.
And call AJA support on the phone. 🙂
-
Bruce got the screen grabs, and has talked to AJA. There is also a suspicion that it is machine specific. A second KiPro behaved normally, so maybe it’s just 2 drives on the same KiPro that are a problem.
-
Nice work. Those all look good. If it’s a bad unit, AJA will take care of it promptly, I’m sure.
Jeremy
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up