Recording entire tape breaks video into several clips

[John]

[Tom Wolsky] “Are you talking about HDV material? That will break up at shot changes regardless of the setting in clip settings for breaking up clips. As far as I know for most cameras there is no way around this with HDV material or material transcoded to AIC.”

This has been my experience as well.. at least when capturing directly from a camera over FireWire. Does anyone know if this happens when capturing from a deck (i.e. HVR-M15U or HVR-M25U)?

Question Tom.. If one were to bypass HDV altogether by capturing through a Kona or Blackmagic card, would this issue go away?

John Christensen
cdesign@airmail.net

[Joseph Jamieson]

Yes, this is all HDV material with either an HDR-FX1 or HC1. Those are the two cameras we’ve been using.

This isn’t a problem with the cameras – so what do you mean “for most cameras there is no way around this?” I can use any Windows capture software and capture entire tapes just fine. But I don’t want to use Windows, I want to use this Mac, and I want to use Final Cut. Grr.

Is there an alternative method of capturing video besides Final Cut? Is there a 3rd party software I can use to capture the entire tape which I can then turn around and use in Final Cut?

[Joseph Jamieson]

Note that this only appears to be a problem with Final Cut – other HDV NLE’s do not have this problem. Premiere Pro and all the other capture software on Windows seems to be fine with HDV.

So it’s not a hardware issue.

[Eduardo072]

I just finished shooting a doc with 2 z1u’s. When I started capturing I realized every tape I shot was capturing fine while my colleague’s tapes were being broken up into clips (we shot it in HDV 50i). We realized that his camera had the “quick rec” feature on while mine was off. We read further and found out that some cameras where sold with the feature on and some with the feature off.
The “quick rec” feature allows the camera’s head to continue spinning , not going into full standby. This allows you to…well get a quicker response when you press record. Apparently what this feature also does is that it sometimes disrupts the timecode every start/stop.
Check to see if your hvr-z1u camera (I dont know about other cameras), has the feature “on”. I am aware of the capture window settings that allow you to control this from FCP, however you will realize that if the “quick rec” feature is on in you camera, most likely your tape will be split up into different clips without you being able to control it from the capture window.

[Joseph Jamieson]

I’ll definitely check for the option on the two cameras. One is the HDR-FX1 and the other is the HDR-HC1, so hopefully these have the option since they’re the “consumer” versions of the cameras (I just couldn’t justify $2000 more for the “pro” FX1 for some XLR ports and 50i.)

I’ve ended up not using FCP for now because of this issue. I firmly believe this is a FCP issue – it doesn’t happen when I capture HDV with any other software. It is doing something that other software isn’t – whether or not it’s because of some camera start/stop thing.

I cannot accept that this is just “the way it is” because it COMPLETELY disrupts the entire editing process. You can’t use milti-camera, you’re left with 3 second gaps at random places, and with 12 tapes to capture it’s insurmountable.

Apple support says that’s just the way it is. So I’m forced to use something else, and that’s just the way it is too. It’s too bad. Hey, maybe the new Premiere for Mac coming out will be better then the Windows version! (ie HDV is workable.)

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
The new version of CatDV to be shown at NAB reportedly has the ability to capture via FW over T/C breaks without falter.

[Joseph Jamieson]

My problem is that FCP is breaking up the tape into seemingly random clips – there’s no TC break. Most of the tapes are a full recording from beginning to end, with no pauses or stops on the camera. It still happens.

I’ll check out CatDV though, it looks like it might be useful either way – but if it can make full tape video files without breaks I could use FCP. But, I shouldn’t have to spend $275 for something that I shouldn’t need.

[Jono Vaughan]

This is an old thread I know, but I thought I’d share info just in case someone reading it is having the same issue. What you need to do is open the “log & Capture” box, and then go to the second tab across, I think its called “Capture Settings”. In that tab is a check box named “New Clip On Start/Stop”, you need to un-tick it. That’s what is causing this to happen.

It was driving me insane as well.. but then I remembered finding it a while back and my memory kicked in. I’m sure by now someone has figured it out, but this is just for anyone reading the thread looking for an answer.

Cheers.

Jono.

[Luca Celada]

I’m reading this thread in June 2011! I’ve just epxperienced the very same problem while trying to capture HDV from my Sony Z5U cmera into my MacBook pro, FCP 6.1, and predictably it is driving me crazy. No time code breaks and the footage is split up in random clips with no apparent relation to start/stop points nor scene changes and 2-3 second loss of footage at cut points. Even more remarkable the problem does not manifest if I capture the same footage downconverting it to DV. I’ll try your solution tonite.

Thanks – Luca

[Keith Matthews]

Has anyone found a fix for this yet? It’s driving me nuts too!