[Dan Riley]

After my first post above I kept searching around and found out both cameras
I mentioned work for file transferring within FCP. The downside is the capture time
is double, meaning an hour of footage takes 2 hours to transfer. Not the best scenario
but for the short clips we are planning to shoot it may be ok. Looks like the camera
with the best transfer speed from the media is the Sony EX1, but that will
have to wait.

Thanks,
Dan

[Dan Riley]

I just found the manual online for the camera. It shows the menu settings and
the choices are 59.94i, 50i, 23.98PsF, 24PsF, 25Psf, 29.97Psf, and that
is all the choices for frame rates.

Now, how do I get FCP and KONA3 to let me capture 29.97psf? I don’t see a
setup for this.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

I’m telling the DP to shoot 1080p30 (29.97) with the HDW-F900R HDCAM camera.
I’m going to be using the Sony J-H3 deck to capture via KONA 3, HD SDI.
I don’t see any setting in FCP for KONA 3 1080p30 (29.97) ProRes 422 HQ.
And what is “psf” ?

I’ve been working exclusively with DVCPRO HD 720p 23.98.
This HDCAM and 1080p or psf is not something I have experience with.
Help would be appreciated.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

They are using the Sony HDW-F900R.
I originally wanted them to take the HD SDI out and record directly, uncompressed
to a Mac Pro and KONA3 card and RAID. But that didn’t work out.
I wanted this because there is green screen on this shoot and I wanted as clean a
recording as possible to work with. But now we’ve decided to go with the HDCAM tape.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

For air, the sequence will be output to DigiBeta, but I’ll edit it HD.
I’ll use a project setting of whatever I decide to do with the transfer.
I’ll bring in all the other elements in that same format when possible.

And yes, I know the tape formats are different, I meant the same HD format of
frame size and rate, which in this case will be 1080p30 (29.97).

So, from a quality standpoint, and this is my main concern, does native HDCam
look better than native DVDPRO HD? Would I be losing anything going from the
one to the other? And if so, then it seems like the best idea is to capture directly
from HDCam to FCP using the HD Pro Rez HQ format.
(I don’t want to use HD uncompressed).

Dan

[Dan Riley]

Yes, it’s at zero.

This is the strangest thing. Every time I start up FCP, either from a dead systems startup,
restart or from and FCP close and open… each time I do that, If I start playing back
a sequence, the audio will be off by more than a few frames (audio will be late)
on both SD and HD sequences and projects.
I go up to easy setup and re apply the setting it’s already at, I see a blink on the
NTSC and/or HD monitor, start the sequence playback again and it’s fine now.

Maybe trash prefs? I’ve looked all over the AJA card settings and don’t see anything
unusual there as far as I can tell.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

Thanks Ann.
Had the problem on startup today. Did a cow search, found your post,
did as you said, fixed it.

Have a great day.
Dan

[Dan Riley]

Try Handbrake too. It’s free and it might work.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

FCP 6.0.4 fixed a rendering error for me with Live Type. But the one you mention
still comes up occasionally. The one it fixed for me had to do with opacity of the type
on it’s own background within the Live Type file. Previously I had to render the title
within Live Type and use that rendered file in FCP. I don’t have to do that anymore
since FCP 6.0.4

Dan

[Dan Riley]

I don’t know about XSAN, but other than that, going from 6.0.0 to 6.0.4
will address many of your issues, at least it has for me. 6.0.0 was trouble especially.

I’m running the latest everything as of two weeks ago and have not seen any issues.
OS 10.5.4. FCP 6.0.4, Quicktime 7.5. KONA 3 drivers 5.1, all good here.
You should check with people who know XSAN to see if it’s ready for the updates
and update XSAN too if called for.

Dan