NX5u dropping 4 frames of audio after 30 minutes

[John Lenihan]

Eric,

In actuality, the camera doesn’t create a new file every 12 minutes, it creates it every time it gets to 2Gig file size. So the higher the resolution, the shorter the clip. I shoot at 1920 x 1080 x 60i

I use the clips as they come from the camera, I just take them right off the camera, the mts files. If you look at the files as the are on the storage media, you should see the size is 2 gig max.

If you use the Content Management Utility that came with the Sony, to get the files from the storage media, it will concatenate the files into one long one. This is easier to edit, however masks the issue.

If you use the Cineform codec before editing, it will concatenate the files into one long one.

I am not familiar with how you are processing the files before FCP, but I suspect that it may be concatenating the files.

I am using Sony Vegas Pro 10. This allows me to take the files directly from storage card and drop them into the editor. When I tell the program to lay out the files according to the embedded timecode, it leaves the one or two frame gap between clips.

Remember, loosing two frames every 12 minutes is not noticable at all in itself.

It is only an issue with multicam shoots, or where you have audio being recording on a different device like the zoom recorder and the event is say over an hour. Like a 3 hour dance recital or play or concert. In those cases I might have 2 cameras with 4 tracks of audio plus the zoom h4n with 4 more tracks of audio, and after one hour the audio is noticably out of sync between the audio on the two cameras and the separate device.

John Lenihan

LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com

[James Kumorek]

I’m working on a product review of the NX5U for Church Production Magazine, and am also observing dropped frames when new files are created on the SD cards. I’d like to hear from those of you who are experiencing dropped frames what SD cards you are using — make, model, size, and class rating. Any input would be appreciated!

And, if you found a solution to the dropped frames problem, I’d certainly like to hear about that as well.

Thank you!

[James Kumorek]

I had a discussion with a Sony product engineer Friday night about this. The problem (at least the one that I was having) is because I did not use Sony’s content management software to copy the clips off the SDHC cards, which builds new files containing the entire clip from the 2-gig clip fragments on the cards. When I did this, all the 2-frame gaps went away in the new resulting clip — no issues at all. Why the clips won’t work stand-along in my editor (Sony Vegas) without there being gaps is a mystery, but using the content management software solved the problem.

[Eric Pensenstadler]

Thank you for sharing your info James, that’s really good to hear. If I’m not mistaking, though, the software that came with the camera is only for PC, not Mac (ie, Final Cut Pro). I should revisit that to make sure.

At least there IS a work-around, even if we think it shouldn’t be that way or if it’s a little inconvenient.

I’m still in the process of some more specific test but unfortunately I will be out of town for 2 weeks so they’ll have to wait. In particular I’m very surprised that when I record long shots in HD it is transfering into FCP as ONE clip! I don’t know why, I thought it would have been multiple clips in 12 minute incraments. Anyway, I’m still curious as to if there’s audio dropouts every 12 minutes but at least for syncing purposes I won’t have to resynce every 12 minutes.

I’ll report back.
Eric

[Ian Cook]

Hi All,

Apologies for the late reply, but I think this is solved by using each NLE’s dedicated file browser, rather than file–>import. Final Cut Pro has always worked this way when importing via Log and Transfer; Premiere and Vegas now support the same kind of workflow.

FCP: Log and Transfer will show spanned files made up of 2 GB segments as one self-contained file

Vegas 10: If you use the Device Explorer to import from either the card or a stored card image, the spanned portions should register as one self-contained clip, just as they do with XDCAM EX. You need to first show the Device Explorer, then point it to the AVCHD card. If the files are stored locally, right click and select Browse, then go to the root folder of your AVCHD image..

Premiere Pro CS5: If you use the built in Media Browser the spanned clip portions should show as one file. You need to make sure tht browser is set to ‘AVCHD’ and not ‘File Directory.’

Please let me know if you discover otherwise…

Unfortunately there is still no way to import the CMU-reconnected MTS files into FCP without first re-wrapping them.

Below is a screen shot of Vegas showing a spanned clip in the Device Explorer and two spanned clips (tested from different sources, card/local) on the timeline..

John, we are taking another look at your multicam issue, thanks for hanging in there

[Rahul Choksi]

Hi I am struggling with this issue too.

Ian, I have tried to use the media browser in CS5 to import the files and it still shows up as individual 12min clips. IIRC when I did some workflow tests, the audio was set to PCM and the files showed up as one clip (well individual clips but all with the same duration of 3 hours). This meant that I could import one file onto the timeline and it would show a 3 hour clip. Since then I have changed the audio to dolby…would that have made a difference? trying it out now to check but maybe someone has some insight,

On another note, any idea why the NX5 struggles with FCP’s log and transfer. Any large clips over 1 hour in duration seem to make L&T crash…I realise there were some problems back in the day with regards to PCM audio but a firmware sorted that out.

thanks,

[Rahul Choksi]

Update. I recorded a 35 min clip last night and copied all files to my hdd. File >import and imported folder into pp cs5. All clips showed 35 mins and when I moved one clip to the timeline I got a 35 min sequence. I have not noticed any breaks in video or audio. This happened once I changed audio to pcm instead of dolby. Any ideas why that has happened

[Ian Cook]

I checked this again and saw no difference in behavior between LPCM and D-Digital clips. See attached images. Each 20 minute clip in the Media Browser spans two MTS files on the FMU128 drive. I included the Finder window showing the spans on the card in the screen shots. Both clips display in PPro as single 20 min files in the Media Browser and on the timeline. Even if I file–>import 0001 (the first half of a spanned clip comprised of two files) the entire span comes in as one clip. This was in Premiere Pro 5.0.2 (075(MC:218798)).

As far as Log and Transfer and long clips I believe this has to do with memory management/allocation within FCP. FCP will often have issues with long transcodes of any format (NXCAM, HDV, XDCAM) as the ProRes output files can stretch into the hundreds of gigabytes and from all indications FCP simply runs out of available memory. Remember that transcoding to ProRes 422 HQ will increase the file size nearly 10x. If you look at the crash logs you will probably see memory allocation issues in the “crashed” thread. In my experience this is somewhat normal for FCP and will not change until FCP 10 is released with 64 bit memory addressing and access to more than 3-4 GB of RAM.

[Rahul Choksi]

Thanks for the reply Ian. That is very strange then. Literally the only setting I changed yesterday before my test was to change audio. I am using pp 7.03 although that shouldn’t make a difference. I am shooting a wedding tomorrow but should have time to carry out some more testing next week. Will report back if I find something. Any suggestions in the mean time? Thanks

[Rahul Choksi]

Right, some very strange behaviour now!

Captured the wedding yesterday and spent the morning transferring the FMU unit’s files to my computers HD. Once I imported that AVCHD folder into PP CS5 I noticed that once again the files did not show up as one duration. I had a number of files showing 11-12mins each and they had a break. So this time I transferred the data from the SD cards as well (I record to both SD and FMU for backup)…and when I imported those files in I am getting files showing the same duration – i.e. one spanned clip.