serious JH3 HD Kona 2 problems

[David Battistella]

Have you run your project throuhg cinematools?
It seems like you had a 24P workflow, edited 29.97 and now want to conform 24P material in the 29.97 offline. You have to use cinematools to do that. The offline you create to recapure the HD as to be 24p, so the whole project needs to go through cinematools before FCP can determine the correct TC numbers to capture from the 24P material.

The problem of the machine asking for more media than the clip has nothing to do with hardware. It has everything to do with how the offline sequence was created.

You missed the checkbox “delete unsed media from clip” when creating the offline sequence.

This article is produces excellent results.

https://www.lafcpug.org/FCP_4_trim_dang_it.html

Remember, when using FCP to conform, it like to see the online as it’s own seperate project.

Next.

The deck recapture issue sounds like the Jdeck may be set to be outputting a different frame rate than the one you used to capture. If you try to capture 29.97@ 23.98 or vice versa it will not let you do this so please ensure that the Jdeck is playing back the correct frame rate for the project.

Much of what you posted has little or nothing to do with the KONA hardware and sounds like a workflow issue.

David

[Walter Biscardi]

[David Battistella] “Much of what you posted has little or nothing to do with the KONA hardware and sounds like a workflow issue.”

Yep, I’ll second that one, sounds more workflow related and I’m thinking Cinema Tools is probably going to be the answer on that one.

Did you by any chance run any tests during your offline? Take a short 2 minute Sequence and up-rez it to HD? We spent close to 6 months ironing out a workflow here for a broadcast series which is shot on 24p but delivered in 29.97 1080i HDCAM. Testing, testing, testing is the best advice I can give to anyone cutting HD for broadcast.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Justin_n]

hey. I hear you, BUT-
I downcoverted to DVCAM first and sent a pulldown to it. Then captured and edited.
The JH3 Deck automatically sends the pulldown, so it is directly adjacent to a 29.97 space.
thats what is weird.
we did a test, and it worked fine, IN FINAL CUT 4.5!!!!!
then, we upgraded and stated the project. yes, i know, i know, but we upgraded system software BEFORE we started the project, and every vendor swares it works.
Why would 4.5 be any better than 5?
(Dont anwer that…)
anyhow, it is 2 problems we think, but we are adding a terrabyte to our Apple RAID, so we can import the 10 hours of stuff we need for our 56 minute sequence.
Had media manager worked at all in FCP5, (We’ve media managed 300 projects successfully before we installed FCP5), this would NOT be an issue.
whaddya think?
Justin

[David Battistella]

So,

1. The captures arecrapping out and you are taking the downconverted output od the JH3 deck?

2. You have no way of creating an offline that only includes the shots from the timeline with ahdnles?

The media manager article link did not help you?

select all the clips in the timeline, and drag them into a bin and capturing tose clips and then relinking those captures to the sequence?

David

[Andy Edwards]

Are your JH3 deck settings correct? Did you change the deck timing from 29.97 back to 23.98? This requires a restart of the deck after you change the system settings in the deck menu. Re-check your settings and make sure the display on the deck is reading what you are actually inputing to the Kona_2. If you are feeding the Kona_2 the wrong type of signal, I would think the Kona_2 would choke and not capture your full clips due to the timing error.

I know you might have already checked this with your deck settings, but just thought it might be a shot in the dark.

Did you update your Apple X-raid software with the update that came out a few weeks ago?

Andy

[Walter Biscardi]

[Justin_N] “Why would 4.5 be any better than 5?
(Dont anwer that…)”

Actually, from an accuracy standpoint, FCP 5 is much better than FCP 4.5 with frame accurate layoffs. I was forced to upgrade in the middle of our first broadcast Post run here because FCP 4.5 was slipping 1 – 4 frames with each Edit To Tape. FCP 5.0 is dead on accurate.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[David Battistella]

Andy is right.

You can not play out 23.98 and capture at 29.97 or the capture will loose TC information and dop frames. you have to set up a 29.97 capture preset and then have the JH3 do the reverse pulldown from 23.98 to 29.97. When the KONA 2 sees this matching signal it will capture.

David

[Justin_n]

That is what we are doing….We wouldnt even have been able to screen footage if it were set to the wrong frame rate. But you are along the right path.
-justin

[Steve Covello]

[this note is based on my experience using only an F500 HDCam deck. Can’t say if the same holds true with other HDCam decks]

On HDCam, pulldown timecode does not actually exist on the HDCam tape. Even though you can get the deck to DISPLAY DC TC, it is only being generated in RT from the 23.98 TC that was literally recorded on tape.

When you downconvert to SD, the pulldown boards generate SD 29.97 TC in realtime and integrates it into the data stream that your SD record format receives via **SDI** in the VITC, not RS-422. FCP receives its TC information via **RS-422**, so the SD SDI downconvert spigot from your HDCam deck will not provide FCP with the DC TC information that matches your DVCam DC dubs.

In other words, if you downconvert to SD, thus creating pulldown timecode at 29.97, then try to capture your online from the **HDCam** deck at 29.97 (though your material is 23.98), there is no way for the HDCam deck can provide the 29.97 downconvert TC through the normal RS-422 connection from which FCP is able to read. So FCP will not know what to do.

I can’t say whether putting the HDCam deck into 29.97 Interlace mode will solve this problem — never tried it. This does not guarantee that the TC output via RS-422 will be correct.

What may have happened in your partial online capture was that some of your clips started with TC numbers that actually exist on the 23.98 fps tape, and some start with TC numbers that do not i.e. 1:00:01:28. Once FCP acquires a capture starting point, it might not care if the frame rates are different, though it may not know when to stop. [I was able to fake out our FCP onlining a 29.97 SD project in HDCam 23.98p using this method, though every scene was off]. HDCam deck will only playback at the frame rate it is set to, not what you want it to capture at. At least with the F500 in my case.

I concur with Walter about having done tests with your workflow before implementing it. Had it been me, I would recommended downconverting to DBeta and using the DB’s for offline and online, though it adds an extra expense of machine rental and tape stock. Maybe clone the DB’s to DVCam too if you are in a DV only type setup.

K2 dudes: if I am off on any of this, let me know.

steve covello
double wide post

[David Battistella]

FWIW

I have tried to capture 23.98source@29.97 with the F500 it is a NOGO, batch captures will start and then fail. I am sure it is due to the TC laydown as you described it. I guess the RP-188 TC is not a solution either as that would not have been the TC on the DVCAM sub masters.

WHEW! This one looks tough.

Maybe a reverse cinematools process could work then?

David