[Chris Maurer]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the quick response and the idea. That setting came to mind while experiencing the problem and “show all file extensions” was enabled on the 5.0.4 (XML Import) machine. But after reading your message I realized I had never investigated that preference on the 5.1.1 (XML Export) machine I was using to test. I found that while the files in question are displaying their file extensions in the Finder, the “show all file extensions” preference is NOT checked. I will try again with the preference checked on the exporting machine and report back. Unfortunately the 5.0.4 machine are far away so it won’t be today.

Thanks for the help!
Chris

[Chris Maurer]

I’ll add my voice to the “buy someting else” chorus.

We have many of the decks and I’ve pledged to fight any suggestion of buying more. They were convenient during a transition from SVHS to mini-DV, but the DV side of this deck is simply not reliable for the high level of use that we demand.

Our VS30Us seem to be very picky about tapes. Some tapes will play back with glitches or display a “Use Cleaning Casette Message” on one SR-VS30U and playback without a glitch on another VS30U. The first VS30U, the one that gives the cleaning cassette message, will still work fine with many other tapes just not with the particular tape that it was complaining about. The tape stock issue may not be as much of a problem in a pro environment where you are probably using quality tapes and not putting many passes on the tapes…but we’re dealing with students here and they usually buy the cheapest tapes they can find and keep using them until they lose them.

As far as batch capturing with FCP, we do that all the time and the only major problem we run into is that occasionally the computer and VCR do seem to lose communication…but not a complete loss. In these situations you can still control the VCR and log clips in FCP but the preview window will have no video, just color bars. When you attempt to initiate a Batch Capture in this state you are greeted with an “ERROR: There is no video” message. The solution to this problem seems to be to Quit FCP, turn the VCR off, relaunch FCP (with the VCR off!) and then, at the External A/V warning, turn the VCR back on and press “Check Again”.

As someone else mentioned, the biggest problem with the decks is that they are not reliable. They just don’t hold up to the wear and tear that the students put on them. We’ve sent many back to JVC for repairs. It is a signficant cost and it seems that all they ever do is completely replace the DV side. I’m planning to replace the decks with Sony DSR-11s when the opportunity arises.

Chris

[Chris Maurer]

Keeping FCP up to date may require that you upgrade to newer OS versions or newer Quicktime versions. AVID is, more often than not, a little delayed in officially supporting new OS and Quicktime versions. If they are both on the same boot partition you’ll need to decide whether the upgrades to FCP are worth the potential loss of functionality of your AVID software.

I decided that it was best to avoid this potential problem and went for the 2 partition approach.

Chris