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Video artifacts when capturing.
I am editing, in FCP 4.5, a feature shot on 16mm film –> transferred to BetaSP –> and then dubbed to MiniDV. This material was shot in 1996 by a young filmmaker and over the years some material is lost (such as the BetaSP tapes) in various moves.
This is my first feature narrative project and my first project shot on film. I have 3 years of experience on short narrative subjects and long-form documentaries.
I captured the material one 60-min MiniDV tape at a time and then marked in/out points in the clip to produce sub-clips for each take. I used a JVC HR-DVS3 as a playback deck.
Some tapes captured cleanly with good sync’ed sound and no video artifacts or noise. Others tapes had problems including a.)little square artifacts appearing on certain frames, b.) Entire stripes of video all askew, perhaps an interlacing problem, c.) audio out of sync., d.) no audio at all.
I was still able to make an off-line rough cut of the movie. I decided to capture the material again once we have picture lock and before we go into color correction and sound mix.
I’m looking for remedies.
Deck: I’ve heard some unflattering things about the JVC deck that I used to capture. I cleaned the heads a couple of times throughout the capturing process. The re-capture will be from another deck (recommendations? I can probably borrow a Sony GV-D1000, or rent any other MiniDV deck. I’d rather not use my camera as a capture deck.
Firewire: I connected the deck over firewire to my Mac. This is the only option. I don’t have a Kona card (yet).
Strategy: I captured the entire tape and then made sub-clips. Can this introduce out-of-sync audio? Re-capturing will be on a clip-by-clip basis as I will have already set my in- and out- points.
Timeline: It did not occur to me that I should edit this on a 24fps timeline as the final output will be video. Is this something that can be converted? or should I begin to weep openly. The Producer/Director hinted as we sat to watch the rough cut that I maybe should have used a 3:2 pulldown when I captured. (That tidbit would have been more useful when he dropped off the tapes. Though I should have asked…)
I’d appreciate any and all suggestions about a strategy to re-capture the clips to eliminate the errors. A quick primer on what I should have done in the first place, may be helpful as well.
If you want to see an early, unfinished rough edit it’s up on myspace. The errors are visible in the opening shot of the sign.
https://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=829341354&n=2&Mytoken=133E2E9F-93C4-D59C-B6029790227465CF14339279Thanks for the help,
Andrew Fraser
equipment: G5 dual 2.0 GHz; FCP 4.5.; 1 GB RAM -
10 Replies
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Andrew,
First, you should never have begun cutting the project until you solved these issues. If you can’t solve the issues at the time of initial capture you will almost certainly be unable to recapture with any degree of accuracy.
Second, when you said, “Some tapes captured cleanly with good sync’ed sound and no video artifacts or noise. Others tapes had problems including a.)little square artifacts appearing on certain frames, b.) Entire stripes of video all askew, perhaps an interlacing problem, c.) audio out of sync., d.) no audio at all.”, you imply that you know this is a capture issue and that the tapes are all good. In fact, did you ever evaluate all the tapes to make certain the transfers from Beta were done properly?
DRW
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Thanks for the response.
Obviously, my inexperience is showing. That’s why I love the COW.As I wrote my original post, I realized that I should have tested the “troublesome” source tapes by just playing them back when the captures didn’t come in clean. This is on my list for tonight.
But to my original question, could the problems that I’m seeing actually arise from incorrect capture settings, or is the most likely problem with the MiniDV tapes themselves. Again, I’ll play the troublesome tapes back tonight.
Two other bits of info that I didn’t mention:
1.) I DID capture the clips to an external drive. The deck was connected to a Firewire port on the external drive, not the CPU.
2.) Some footage was already captured by the Producer which I transferred from his hard drive to my hard drive. This footage came from several of the MiniDV tapes and is error free.-Andrew
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Andrew,
Until you evaulate the tapes all else is just a guess. There can certainly be issues stemming from the way you’ve piggie-backed your camera through the firewire drive. Some people get away that, some don’t. But, vealuate those tapes frist and at least eliminate that side of things if you can, that way yu can focus on the capture if that is where the problems lay.
DRW
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Not a fan of those cheap JVC decks. Have you tried another deck or a simple DV Camcorder?
Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Workshop!
fcpworld.com
Pres. SF Cutters -
Clarification:
I searched the web for the correct terms to characterize the “video artifacts” that I’m seeing.1.)Primarily, I am seeing “dropouts” or perhaps “sparkling” (though mostly this was referred to HD)
In the literature I saw, this is related to digital signal degradation, possibly caused by hardware. I scanned several articles that suggested that this was more common with digital-to-analog conversions. (such as BetaSP to MiniDV?)2.)The second defect I get is “Banding”. This is attributed to defects with the tape head, tape head pre-amp, or the tape itself. It can also occur with dirty tape heads.
Did I miss anything regarding these types of defects?
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UPDATE: I reviewed all the tapes (I played them back in my camera and watched on the LCD screen) and they are all crystal clear with sync’ed sound and everything. The defects occured in the capture.
1.)I’ve taken the JVC deck out of the loop.
2.)I’m going to purchase a disk utility software package to look at my hard drives and probably defrag.Since I’m going to recapture all of the material, should I just reformat my scratch drive? I’ll park all the clips to another drive temporarily until the “Capture Project” is done. Any advise/warnings about this procedure?
On another note. The footage was originally shot on film 24fps and digitized with a 2:3 pulldown onto BetaSP to 29.97fps. These were dubbed to MiniDV with 29.97fps. This was my first project that originated on film so I didn’t think clearly about the timeline considerations. When I recapture, is it possible to recapture to a 24 fps timeline? My Director said that FCP should automatically detect and correct for the pulldown but that seems a bit far fetched. I realize this will probably mean a lot of rework for me. On the upside, I know that I’ll never make that mistake again!
I’m using FCP v4.5 HD.
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[Saguaro] “Since I’m going to recapture all of the material, should I just reformat my scratch drive?”
Forget about defragging and just reformat.
[Saguaro] ” When I recapture, is it possible to recapture to a 24 fps timeline?”
Why? What is it you wish to gain?
DRW
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[Saguaro] ” When I recapture, is it possible to recapture to a 24 fps timeline?”
[DRW]”Why? What is it you wish to gain?”
The original material was on 16mm film at 24fps. On MiniDV (3:2 pulldown) it is at 29.97fps.
Shouldn’t I want to do import it at 24 fps? Is there an advantage to leaving it at 29.97?
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You said earlier that your final output was video, so a 24fps film finish is not in the cards. Perhaps one could make a case at doing a reverse 3:2 pulldown and editing 24p would yield a true progressive DVD? As far as I can see that would be the only potential benefit. However, since the project has already been compressed 5 to 1 toDV I’m not certain there’s a big benefit there. Is there something else I’m missing?
DRW
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[David Roth Weiss] ” However, since the project has already been compressed 5 to 1 toDV I’m not certain there’s a big benefit there. Is there something else I’m missing?”
Probably not. Thank you for all of your responses.
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