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Live Video Capture?
We have a Sony DVCAM deck connected via firewire to our MAC. Is it possible to capture live video that is currently being recorded onto tape in the deck via the firewire? Any suggestions would be helpful.
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1 Reply
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Yes, but unfortunately you won’t get timecode, unless this is fixed in FCP 5. With FCP 3 I used to use this method all the time and it worked beautifully, with FCP 4, Apple “broke” the feature.
With FCP 3, the setup was this: On the computer, use the Easy Setup for DV-NTSC which includes the Firewire NTSC control. Start the Deck Recording manually, then use Capture Now on FCP to record both the image and timecode from the deck. Stop recording on FCP FIRST, then stop the deck. It worked beautifully.
If you try this same method with FCP 4 or 4.5, you will get an error in about 1 second “Capture Now has reached the end of the tape…….” The only way to make this procedure work with FCP 4 / 4.5 is to use the “Non Controllable Device” setting in FCP. You’ll get picture, but no timecode.
On our indpendent film shoot this past weekend, we did this method with the Panasonic AJ-HD1200A deck and what I did was to turn on the timecode window. So we rolled with non-controllable device settings, but I can see the timecode on screen. This is fine as we’ll do the rough cut with the window burn DV and then recapture all from the original DVCPro HD tapes later.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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