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Log and Capture problems with Betacam FCP and Decklink Blackmagic
Everytime I try to Log and Capture video from the beta deck I get tons of problems. I use the capture now with the remote on and in the User Preferences I have the “abort capture on dropped frames” off and I have “Make New Clip” turned on. So what happens now is that it makes a new clip every thirty seconds or so even though there is no timecode break. Right now I have close to 60 clips that should be captured in 1 clip. It starts digitizing, then stops, backs up frame by frame to locate timecode, digitizes like another 30 secs then stops and does it again. So I changed the “on timecode break” in the “user preferences” to “Warn After Capture”. So instead of making new clips where FCP thinks the timecode break is, it Digitizes 1 clip but where it would make a clip on the other setting, it just hangs up and lags behind for a few seconds then the video continues then about thirty seconds later it does it again. I have also tried changing the LTC to VITC and Auto and both, and it still does it. It took nearly all day long to capture 30 minutes of Beta tape and in the end it was unusable because it would break a clip in the middle of an interview. I would like to just be able to capture the whole tape with now clip breaks like I could in Leitch’s NewsFlash. Also NewsFlash has a Mediabase where all the video goes into with no hassles, all the video is there at your finger tips and you don’t have to search all you hard drives for media, it is all there everytime you open the program. Is there some plug in or something for FCP to Manage Media better? It’s just so unorganized and complex. So how can I fix this problem and also NewsFlash has a Mediabase where all the video goes into with no hassles, all the video is there at your finger tips and you don’t have to search all you hard drives for media, it is all there everytime you open the program. Is there some plug in or something for FCP to Manage Media better? It’s just so unorganized and complex. I am running FCP on a Dual 2.5 GHz G5, 4 GB DDR SDRAM, Blackmagic Decklink card, OSX ver. 10.4.6, with Sony Betacam SP deck. I am at a total loss, please help!
Mani -
7 Replies
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Mani,
What type of raid are you running?
Also, you shouldn’t have to search your hard drives for media after digitizing. FCP digitizes to a specific directory on the scratch disk that you designate, but more importantly, before openning the capture window you must first designate the bin where you want the media to go by right clicking on the bin and selecting “Set Logging Bin.” If you haven’t been doing that you may want to revisit those manuals that came with your software.
DRW
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I have a similar configuration: dual 2.5 G5, not as much RAM, and a Decklink SP card. I use the system for BetacamSP editing and have captured clips up to 20 minutes in length.
Here’s one thing you might want to check: In the capture window, under the “capture settings” tab is a button called “scratch disk”. Click on that button.
In the window that appears, at the bottom is an entry for “Limit capture to ….”. Mine is set for 30 minutes. What’s yours at?
Ryan Video Productions Inc. Rockaway, NJ
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Yeah I have all that stuff set up, it is just that Leitch has all of the video, and when I say all I don’t mean just the media in the project, it has a spread sheet log list of every video that you have for everything, video, audio, graphics and it is intuitive it’s always there and all video is in one place not in different folder and stuff and it is organized by name or video type or date. There is not a bunch of diretory junk to go through to get to your video, you simply open up the system and everything is accessable. Final Cut has somewhat a similar setup but you have to set it up everytime you do anything. In Leitch it doesn’t change, it is always open with the program for all media not just a few projects. It just makes things more complicated when you pull video from this bin and that bin, this folder and that folder. Then you end up with too many folders and assests that are spread throughout the hard drive. I’ve heard of a program called HD logger but don’t know if it is worth it. You’re supposed to be able to digitize outside of FCP and be able to log all video in there but I just don’t know how intergrated the program is with FCP or if there is something else better. Also I have an apple raid with about 6TB of space.
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Yeah I got it set at 30 minutes. But I don’t know how that would mess up video and drop frames when capturing.
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have you posted this in the BlackMagic forum?
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_view_posts.cgi?forumid=124have you contacted BlackMagic tech support?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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It’s probably too obvious but both the Decklink and the beta machine have the same refernece video
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We finally figured out the problem, when we hooked up the new raid the Xraid admin program didn’t configure the raid correctly. Basically it was set to a cache writing setting that caused the video to break up into blocks instead of a streaming capture. It took some hurdles to jump but it’s fixed now. Thanks for your help,
Mani
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