[Don Greening]

Hi Marrianne,

Welcome to Creative COW. Yes, you need to have the BPAV folders from both cards accessible in Sony’s Transfer Tool in order to successfully recombine a video clip that spans the 2 cards. You can do this in a couple of different ways:

1. Use the camera as a deck. Connect your camera via USB and then turn it on. In the camera’s viewfinder you’ll see a prompt to confirm that you want to connect (via USB). Once the camera has connected you’ll see the icons from both cards become visible on the desktop. Start the Transfer Tool and navigate to your cards one at a time. Wait until the clips appear from the first card and then navigate to the 2nd one. Once all the clips are visible the Transfer Tool will combine the 2 pieces from the spanned clip automatically and you’ll be able to import that one along with all the rest.

2. You can use your card reader to actually copy the BPAV folder from the first card to your hard drive. Put the BPAV folder inside another folder that you can name whatever you wish. Don’t change the name of any BPAV folder otherwise Sony’s Transfer tool or the Clip Browser will not see it.. Once you’ve copied the 1st BPAV folder do the same for the 2nd card. Put that folder inside another user-named folder just like you did with the first card. Now start Sony’s Transfer Tool and navigate to these 2 copied folders just the same as if they were still on the SxS Pro Memory cards.

Using either method outlined above, once you navigate to the cards themselves or the folders that you’ve named, the Transfer Tool will “see” the BPAV folders inside and will display the clips in the Transfer Tool window

Hope this helps.

– Don

[Don Greening]

[Jacques Mersereau] “PS I tried to find an app called FCP rescue, but it seems to have been removed from all sites that had this download. Anyone know the story there?”

You’re right. It seems to have been deleted and Anders’ site can’t be found in a Google search anymore, either. Very strange.

If you want it I can email it to you. Contact me at: greeningATshawDOTca.

– Don

[Don Greening]

[john stander] “To record at the highest quality, would he hook the mic up to the XLR terminals at the back?”

Yes.

[john stander] ” If so, will this require any kind of adaptor?”

No, as long as the end of the XLR cable is a 3 pin male connector which is standard.

[john stander] “And will he be able to then bypass the on-camera mic and record this sole input in 16-bit? “

Yes. Behind the XL2 audio door you’ll find an input select switch for the channel 1 and 2 audio. Set it to “rear”. This will disable the on-camera mic and anything connected to the 2 rear XLR inputs will be recorded @ 16 bit 48Khz. If your sound recordist is using a non-battery powered mic make sure the 48v phantom power switch on the XL2 is switched on.

– Don

[Don Greening]

[Mike Brownstein] “s there a way to say (as in AE), export from frame (so and so) through frame (so and so.)”

Yes there’s a pretty easy way to do this.

1. Make sure your sequence window is active, then park your playhead on the TC frame where you want the exported piece to start.

2. Hit the “I” key to make an in point. Now place your playhead where you want the exported movie to end. Hit the “O” key to create an out point.

3. Now go to the File menu and choose Export>Quicktime Movie. Export at current settings, name your clip and FCP will only export the piece between the in and out points.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Phillip,

You’ve stated that you’ve been able to import and view clips with the Sony Transfer Tool previously but now you can’t. Think about what’s changed with your system: from being able to use the Transfer Tool to now where you can’t. Have you added or deleted any software?

Any additional info would help us to provide you with an educated guess instead of “maybe try this and see what happens.”

– Don

[Don Greening]

…..and just when you thought it was safe to put this question to bed along comes another addition to the topic. But it’s worth it:

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/you_tube_hd_gary.html

– Don

[Don Greening]

[David Distenfeld] “I know from experience that this is way too long and has become an issue in the past few months. “

If you’re editing the same way now as you have been for the last several months using the same hardware and with the same type of footage, project file sizes, media hard drive space etc. and you’ve been experiencing a gradual reduction in performance then it’s most likely a system maintenance issue.

– Repair permissions on your startup drive.
– Get DiskWarrior to rebuild the directories on all your hard drives.
– Use a system maintenance program like Cocktail to get rid of bloated log and cache folders that are slowing down the Mac OS.

There are some high mileage FCP houses that wipe their system drives every 6 months and re-install all the pro apps for the very reason you’ve described.

– Don

[Don Greening]

[gary adcock] “Why?

NTSC is an interlaced format with Lower field first- that would be the default unless you modified the original- no matter how the content is created, it will be converted to the default on import. “

I’m assuming that your “why” question is referring to my “it drives me crazy” statement. Answer: because I’m too stupid to remember to change the format attributes from lower first to progressive each and every time I import media files and drop them into a DV NTSC Anamorphic progressive sequence. You’re saying that I can make a modified DV NTSC custom preset that will always default to importing stuff as progressive? If so then that sounds logical.

Motion acts the same way when working in DV NTSC. I have to keep going to the media tab and telling Motion that my video clips are progressive and not interlaced. When finished I export a progressive .mov that, when imported into the FCP project will still default to lower first in the Browser and its subsequent addition to the progressive timeline.

Not all imported media defaults to progressive, however. When I import my Sony EX progressive HD stuff and drop it into a DV NTSC progressive timeline it stays progressive. I can only assume that this has to do with the FCP 6 ability to work with multiple formats in the same sequence. My progressively shot XL2 anamorphic footage always gets flagged as interlaced in the Browser but I understand why this happens because of DV NTSC’s defaulting to interlaced. I wonder if DVX100 progressive does the same thing. Probably.

I guess some media attributes stick better than others. BTW, did I use the word “progressive” enough times?

– Don

[Don Greening]

Hi Teresa,

The EX USB connection is only for transferring media to and from the SxS Pro cards and for firmware updates. If you want to capture to a computer or a deck you would need to use the firewire or SDI port. The firewire port on the EX supports the HDV modes only whereas the SDI port will output all modes and even do a standard def. down convert in real time.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Any video or graphics media in a DV NTSC project defaults to lower field first when imported into the Browser whether the media is progressive or not. Drives me crazy. In the Browser go to the field order column for the graphics file and choose “none”. I’ll bet money that it’s set to lower.

– Don