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Problems capturing BetacamSP using the Matrox MX02 and FCP
I primarily bought the Matrox MX02 with hopes of transferring my years of analog BetacamSP masters to a digital format and storage. I use FCP in a current MacPro environment. After initial setup, I found the RS422 offers excellent machine control, and the picture from the Betacam looks great on the NTSC uncompressed 8-bit, 48kz setting. Unfortunately after 3 or 4 seconds of capture, the deck pauses and I get an error message indicating that FCP is looking for time code. There is no provision for time code in on the MXO2, either in or out. I also tried running the machine manually (with out RS422 machine control) which worked for a bit (usually about 30 seconds of capture), but then the deck stops because of drop frame errors. I have tried numerous tapes with known good time code, always with the same results. I was told by a Matrox tech that I did not need to gunlock the deck, so I haven’t. I am currently using a UV1800 BetacamSP deck for this project.
I have tried different settings and I can’t seem to find anyway to disable FCPs need to have time code in a capture environment. Does anyone know of another way to do this? Is there a backdoor solution or any such thing? Has anybody ever had good results capturing Betacam using the MX02 and FCP. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Rick Carr
Creative Director
Gulfstream Creative Media, Inc. -
3 Replies
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Personally I haven’t captured Beta SP with MXO 2 but I have with both Kona and Blackmagic cards with great success. I know you mean genlock. Even though Matrox says genlock is not required, it cannot hurt.
What hard drives are you capturing to? Hopefully a RAID.
If you do not have a gunlock on the gun, then shoot the deck!
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Rick these days timecode is usually transferred through the RS-422 port
for purposes of capturing or laying back through nle interfaces, so if deck control is
working just fine, it’s likely to be another issue.there are different rs-422 presets in the easy setups though.
perhaps matrox can suggest a better one. For example
my aja kona-lhe will absolutely not work with my jvc brhd50u deck
for some odd reason with the default rs-422 settings.and make sure your disk array is up to the task of capturing
that format of video of dropped frames are occuring. -
Rick,
Did you ever solve this problem? I am looking to purchase the MX02 and use it to capture from existing Beta SP footage also and don’t want to run into a problem I can’t get around.
Any input would be appreciated.
Eric
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