NEW Sony HVR-1500 Deck and Avid Adrenaline – Salvation for HDV or more #%!!?

[Erik Pontius]

I can let you know. We just had a 1500 installed and a brand spanking new Adrenaline. We already have a M25u, however it only has component/HDMI output or HDV/DV over firewire and no RS-422. We have the HVR-1500 mounted side by side our DSR-1500a DVcam deck. Both have rs-422a according to the specs. What scares me a little is that rs-422 didn’t work so well with the DSR-1500a and Xpress Pro, in fact the machine template for it in Xpress specifically suggested switching the deck from rs-422 to 1394 for machine control. We never had much problem with it. We have had issues with the M25u and the Z1u cameras doing batch captures and attempting to do insert edits with pre-striped tapes…hoping the that HDV-1500 is not plagued with those problems which I think are more to do with Avid’s way of pre-rolling, seeking and reading TC. Other NLE’s don’t seem to have these problems.
We were especially interested in the HDV-1500 because of the HD-SDI, since the rest of the studio and router will be wired that way. We’ll also be installing a HDW-1800, which also can upconvert the HDV footage to HDcam.

Erik

[Grinner Hester]

I really wish I had been recording the last conversation I had with Avid tech support.
It went something like this:
“so like, nevermind the buggyness of getting this stuff in the box, I’m in a 1080i project and when I push play with it in HQ mode, it just goes black.”
“yes, This is normal. You can’t play HQ HD out of the Adrenaline.”
“what? so Adrenaline can’t handle HDV yet?”
“yes, it can but you can’t watch it.”
“what?!”
“you can export it after you cut it in half quality mode and then you can see it.”
“so, Adrenaline can’t handle HDV yet?”
“yes. It can.”
“wait, whos on first?”
lol
Bob Zelin can explain exactly what you need to work around Adrenaline’s premature HDV isms. Firewire still isn’t our friend, at least adrenaline’s friend.

[Jerry Levine]

So Erik, are you saying that you ignored the 1394 request from the Avid software and used the 422a for deck control? And did it actually allow you to log and digitize normally? Or are you still having pre-roll errors when digitizing with the HVR-1500?

Jerry in Miami

[Jerry Levine]

I have some workarounds – but they are temperamental. I turn off the Adrenaline, attach my HDV deck to the firwire on the front of my G5, re-set the deck config and then power the deck off if it doesn’t get control thru the Adrenaline. I just cannot BATCH capture with any reliability no matter what I do. I have also heard that this is an Avid issue from many people, since my Final Cut friends do not experience this headache. As for Avid tech support – it always pays to call back and talk to someone else when someone doesn’t get it. Editing with the material once in the Adrenaline is no problem.

Jerry in Miami

[Rick Dolishny]

I tested it and it works perfectly. HDV into the Avid finally.

A few issues with audio while scrubbing. It would think the HDSDI audio feed went away. But I clicked OK and pressed Play on the deck and it is all good.

– Rick

[Jerry Levine]

Hi Rick,

Did you log and digitize as you normally would? How many clips were batch captured in your bin? Any pre-roll errors? Also, does the deck search the tape with relatively precise motor control? Thanks!

Jerry in Miami

[Erik Pontius]

We’ve just now started to get the HVR-1500 hooked up to the Adrenaline. Haven’t had a chance to do any batch captures and the like so don’t know if the r2422 control is more reliable with the HVR1500. We found out today from the installer that the Adrenaline/Media Composer will not recognize HD-SDI from the HVR-1500. The installer said it was due to it being HDV, etc… They’re supposedly in contact with Avid as to a workaround. The deck is pretty new, so no machine template yet which maybe part of the problem perhaps. We had to capture HDV the old fashion way – firewire through a second firewire card, disable the adrenaline…a workflow I was trying to avoid with HD-SDI out on this deck.

Erik

[Jerry Levine]

Hi Erik, I am not surprised. It makes no sense that the Avid cannot accept the HD-SDI directly – maybe with a slight frame stretch. One of their techs told me that would work. Perhaps the template you mentioned will fix it. Did you try capturing with the deck’s HD cable – into an HD SDI project within Avid, instead of HDV within the Avid format choice settings?

Jerry in Miami

[Erik Pontius]

Our setup is kind of complicated. We have and HD/SD-SDI router routing signals between various devices to 3 edit bays and a fiber loop for broadcast, we have AJA analog SD/SD-SDI boxes converting beta decks and other analog sources to/from the router. I can route the HD-SDI output from the HVR-1500 to any HD LCD or the live switcher we have fine, shows up as 1080 60i. The router also routes machine control from sources to/from the Avids (adrenaline, studio, xpress). We’ve bypassed the router and attached the HD-SDI output directly to the adrenaline using a HD project and still can get it. The “V” video button doesn’t even light up in the capture tool. HDV capture over firewire worked fine, but Media Composer really gets moody with switching between DNA/1394…so it’d be nice to fine a way of capturing HD-SDI.
Our HDW-D1800 should be in next week, we’ll see how that goes…might be able to route the HDV through that or at least dub it up to HDcam and go from there.

Erik