[David Grantham]

To finish this post off, Final Cut Pro interprets all of this footage in sync, though it also captures the footage reporting dropped frames (apparently due to a corruption of data on this tape.)

VLC and Windows Media Player will play this footage properly, captured by PPro.

But there was no fix obtainable on this or any other forum or web searches that would enable PPro to work with this footage in sync. I had to render it all to an intermediate.

All programs have their strengths and weaknesses, this may be a weakness of PPro CS4.

The bigger problem is of course on this tape, from Fuji. I’m hearing from one source that Panasonic tapes are recommended for 24p.

My renter assures me their cameras are cleaned before each rental. I’m hearing also that it’s wise for the renter to clean the heads before using any rented tape camera. (Like many, I’m headed to solid state, but they’re not always available or in budget.)

[David Grantham]

Cineform tech support told me about an update which CS4 (both AME and PPro) aparrently required. Installed them and it worked. Thought it was updated.

[David Grantham]

I spoke too soon above. That installation wasn’t stable.

None of the many fixes which can at this time be found on the web for this problem solved it in my case. It took a lot of Adobe tech support time and they were flummoxed for about a week until eventually suggesting the creation of a new Administrator User Account and re-installing from that account. Uninstalling my firewall (Zone Alarm Free) may have helped (exiting it alone did not help) and there’s a chance that uninstalling AVG (free) antivirus helped also. I reinstalled those security programmes after the succesful PPro re-installation and so far PPro appears to be running as well as after its original installation on this machine.

Besides PPro there are only a couple of DAWs (Reason and Cubase) on this machine, and a VST instrument called ‘Play’ from EastWest software. Otherwise it’s a clean and new XPpro SP3 installation. Must be a conflict somewhere in the original administrative user account from which these other programmes were installed, but we did not find it.

I hope someone else finds this solution here and saves themselves a lot of down-time.

[David Grantham]

Thanks Ann. That might have worked. Adobe support actually suggested some other things which did not, until they guided me through some registry deletions and eventually said that the persistent error 2 message (which remained) can often be ignored if the programme runs alright. Initially the reinstallation ran just as slowly as before, until they walked me through some more deletions.

Might be running better now than before, but it still crashes every time I close it, which seems to me like a sign of something amiss, and was one of the problems I was expecting a reinstall to solve. They are still trying to figure out why.

[David Grantham]

seem to have to post to set email preferences.

[David Grantham]

Seems simplest to render an SD intermediate of the master SD footage from the timeline, starting 30 seconds in, and then do my off-line edit with this version – the time code of which will match the HDV versions. I should have thought of that.

Postings searches seem to favour the Quicktime png codec where losslessness is important, so that’s what I’m doing. I hope that applies on the PC side. It’s taking 12 hours to render an hour’s worth, and doubles the file size from the master SD files, (and it may be problematic to edit with CS4 on my temporarily under-specified setup (P4 at 3Ghz)?)

But this is what I’m testing in the absence of any other ideas; for this sort of thing I’ve read of concerns about other free codecs. (Don’t want to buy a codec until I know what I’ll need – or not – for my soon-to-be-chosen new system will be.)

[David Grantham]

Turns out that though my 1394 host controller driver was up to date, my 1394 net adapter (I always seemed to notice only one or the other – didn’t appreciate that they were different items) was not.

Updated that and voila. Thanks for the comments, which got me back at it with some hope…

[David Grantham]

Thanks Craing. It’s indeed a pain.

I suppose the HD capture trouble might be related to the firewire port being on the sound card. (It’s the only one on the machine. But it works fine for SD.) A practical solution may be a firewire card.

I’ve never had any trouble capturing SD, either from my old XL2, nor my SD capture camera (a little Canon ZR90.) I’m just now getting into HD – I suppose it’s a whole different set of demands.

It’s difficult when some aparrently sure-fire remedies are so expensive.

[David Grantham]

Thanks. In fact it turned out that nothing on my computer would recognize a rented HV40 in HDV mode for capture. At least not Ppro or HDVSplit. Tried all the reported fixes after searching many forums:

camera output to HDV/DV (not DVlock)- check.
try two different firewire cords – check (besides, it works for SD)
camera record mode to same mode (1080 24F) as playback – check
turn off camera and turn on again – check
camera playback standard set to auto or HDV (not DV)- check
camera-specific capture drivers installed on computer – check (canon site says not required)
computer’s IEEE 1394 drivers current – check
PPro project setting matched to HDV footage res/framerate – check (tried every other project setting too.)
restarting Ppro while camera connected – check

the only thing I haven’t tried yet is uninstalling the IEEE 1394 drivers – current though they are – and the re-installing them again. Saving up possible fixes to get the camera again and try them.

[David Grantham]

Thankyou. I’ve been experimenting.

I’m actually thinking the speech transcription feature – hilariously garbled as it may be – may be useful to me. There appear to be enough key words to search to places in the script. (Or at least speed up logging.) We’ll see.

Judging from the assumptions it comes up with, it must be designed for news reporting. (But not always – winning error so far: Actual line in passionate spat, from 40ish guy to 40ish gal “So say it again – I need to know. Do you love me?” PPro’s transcription: “So say it again – I need to know she was eighteen.”)