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Studio Varicam Shoot with a HD-SDI capture…advice please.
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Walter,
It’s a 1200A menu setting; #507 “TC SOURCE” default (0000) is Internal, to latchup to embedded LTC use “0002” setting!
JS
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[john sharaf] “It’s a 1200A menu setting; #507 “TC SOURCE” default (0000) is Internal, to latchup to embedded LTC use “0002” setting!”
Ah, another dreaded menu setting. Man, it seems that every “issue” with the 1200A turns out to be a simple menu deal. I’ve found a lot of them to date, but hadn’t found that one yet.
Thanks!
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
G5 Dual 2.0, AJA Kona 2, Medea FCR2X
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Walter,
It’s true that I at first I was put off by the many menu settings in the 1200A; but over time (about a year and a half now) I’ve come to appreciate the versatility of the deck because of the many settings.
It should be fairly obvious, that in lieu of the more conventional Record Run/Free Run
hard switch which is found on many other VTR’s there is a need to somehow choose whether the TC should origionate in the deck, on the taPE, by a slave to the external TC IN connector or from the embedded signal in the HD-SDI. The same is true of other “confounding” settings which have to be made; eventually you will find the solution in the menu!Regards,
JS
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Hi John,
The original question is about HD-SDI out of the camera though. Have you seen embedded TC in that output? If it is there do you know a way to get it to RS 422. In the PRO 50 world I have seen it pass through a VTR but delay was introduced as the signal came out on RS 422, and sometimes it refused to cycle. -
Mathew,
Yes, the TC is embedded in the HD-SDI signal! The only way I can get to it though is through my 1200A VTR to the TC OUT spiget. On my multicam rig however, which includes Copperhead Cine Fiber Cable systems, I route the TC from the TC OUT connector of the “A” camera back through the CH Base Station, to a conventional DA and then back into the other CH base stations’ TC IN connectors and then into the TC IN connector at the camera end. I also sync (genlock) all cameras to the same Tri-level-sync generator, which again is carried through the Fiber Cable System.
I’m sure there are other third party devices, perhaps by Evertz or Miranda that allow you to strip the TC from the HD-SDI, but you’re right, there might be delays of a frame or more.
JS
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Walter,
I said that Final Cut does cannot see SMTPE TC signal over SDI, it is embedded into the data stream, it is just that final cut pro cannot currently read it.
Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA -
Matt, I directed a feature this summer shot with the Varicam. We captured directly to from the HD-SDI to RAID drives through a DeckLink HD Pro (single channel) card. We captured at the same quality as the camera 10bit uncompressed using the apple codec. The rate was about 58MB/sec. Each RAID array was made up of four 400GB Seagate SATA drives formatted with SoftRAID. The capturing went off without a hitch for two weeks. It was great. The timecode issue was one that I was unable to solve. The current HD cards can’t read the embedded timecode. There is BNC timecode out of the Varicam, but it needs to be RS-422. I did find a BNC to RS232 converter but not one that converts to rs422. We did record to tape as a SECOND back-up. Our main back-up was another RAID set that we backed up to every night. The would put us in a pickle if we needed to use those tapes since the TC doesn’t match. Be sure to have the person capturing video pay close attention to any hits or noise. Besides having the great depth of 10bit color and the full resolution of 1280 lines across (instead of the downsampled 960lines), the great convenience is not having to rent a deck and spend a week capturing video. I am very happy with the codec’s quality. The FCP system dropped out unflagged frames and captured at 23.98 with ease. Remember the 23.98 that’s coming out of the SDI isn’t a 3:2 pulldown. It’s 23.98 progressive frames per second with duplicate frames written in that aren’t flagged. We had no problems with the system knowing which frames to capture and which frames to throw away.
I decided to attempt this whole thing when I realized that the Varicam recorded to tape downsampled to 960 lines across instead of the full 1280. My DP thought it was an interesting approach but didn’t think a lot about it. But when we were on the set and doing playbacks (which is another great convenience) he was very impressed with the picture quality. Unless you really have a reason for 24p, make sure you record and capture 23.98p which sets up a good workflow to 29.97 interlaced masters.
Sean Meredith
Director
“Dante’s Inferno” -
[Sean Meredith] “The timecode issue was one that I was unable to solve. The current HD cards can’t read the embedded timecode. “
That is not correct, it is FCP that does not read the TC over HDSDI / SDI it has nothing to do with the cards.
[Sean Meredith] “There is BNC timecode out of the Varicam, but it needs to be RS-422”
Addenda makes a TC dis-embedder to RS422
Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA -
“That is not correct, it is FCP that does not read the TC over HDSDI / SDI it has nothing to do with the cards. ”
Are there other editing programs that can get the TC out of the HDSDI? I had heard people talking about this issue before and they had said it was an issue with the cards and that Aja and BlackMagic were having trouble with it. But that’s only what I heard.
Do you mean it converts the BNC TC to RS-422? I looked at the Addenda product page, but couldn’t figure out which product would do the job. I wish I had known about it before my shoot. I spoke with 2 camera technicians, an A.C., and a D.I.T., and none of them had a working solution. Luckily, we won’t be needing to go back to the tapes.
Sean Meredith
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[Sean Meredith] “Are there other editing programs that can get the TC out of the HDSDI? I had heard people talking about this issue before and they had said it was an issue with the cards and that Aja and BlackMagic were having trouble with it. “
correct Sean, lots of other editing apps see the embedded SMPTE time code over SDI , you yourself said your were able to capture at 24p which means the card you were using saw the RP188 Flagged frame content over SDI.
RAVEHD, Avid, Quantel, Discreet can all see the SMTPE code over SDI.it’s that darn DV birthright of FCP still messing with us, My AJA boards see the SMPTE code on Wintel systems
Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA
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