Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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You choose the sequence preset that matches the one you used when you shot with the EX. Check the EX and see which one you used: HQ 1080i 30, HQ 1080p 30, etc. But even if you have a new sequence created in FCP, when you drag an EX clip into it, if it doesn’t match what you shot FCP will ask you if you want to change the sequence settings to match the clip settings. Choose “yes” of course. Makes it really easy.
But my point is that you don’t need to choose a sequence setting right now because that won’t make a difference to the Sony Xfer Tool. I just needed to know if the EX codecs were present. Are you using the Sony Transfer Tool as a stand alone app or from within FCP?
To make sure that the Sony Transfer Tool “sees” the EX codecs do the following:
1) Quit the Sony Transfer Tool.
2) Turn on the EX camera with it already connected via USB.
3) When the camera asks if you want to connect choose “Execute”.
4) Make sure the card icon appears on the desktop.
5) Start FCP and choose “Import Sony XDCAM” from the file menu.
6) The Transfer Tool will start up within FCP and you should now see and hear your clips within the Transfer Tool window.Post back after so I know this worked for you.
– Don
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[Sarah Weinstein] “When I open XD Cam Transfer, the program DOES load my cards and the clips and the info. about each clip. But there’s just no way to view or hear them or work with them.”
Looks like you’ve got all the stuff you need. You’re right, if you’ve got QT v.7.4 then you don’t need to go back to v.7.3. which is the minimum Quicktime requirement, not the ONLY QT requirement.
[Sarah Weinstein] “Do I need to have the latest operating system? Is that the problem?”
No. OS 10.4.11 is fine.
You state that you can’t view the clips within the Sony Transfer Tool. This tells me that the XDCAM EX codecs aren’t available to the Xfer Tool, otherwise you’d see the clips. A really fast way to find out if the codecs are actually there is to start FCP and and choose: New Sequence (Apple – N). In the pop up window scroll down to the very bottom of the list. There should 10 XDCAM EX settings just above the XDCAM HD presets. Make sure that “Show All Presets” is checked in preferences.
Check that and then post back with your findings.
– Don
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They refer to the charging state readout of the single LED. Flashing orange tells you that the battery’s being charged. Flashing green will show for an 80% charge and steady green for fully charged. My interpretation probably isn’t perfect but it’s close enough, at least for me.
– Don
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[Todd Roush] “The truth is that I have no brand loyalty whatsoever and Canon A1 really looks appealing to me.”
My local broadcast supplier is selling boatloads of the A1s and they haven’t had any buyers coming back complaining about major issues with them. The recent drop in the A1’s price point is making this camera very attractive to today’s buyers.
FYI this same broadcast house recently did a short comparo between an A1 and the new Sony Z7U just to look at picture quality and low light capability. Although I wasn’t present to see for myself I was told that the Z7U beat the A1 in low light sensitivity (as expected) but that the Sony picture had more noise than the A1.
– Don
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[Chris Babbitt] “How much difference?”
I’d like to say about half a stop but I don’t think it’s quite that much. Check it out for yourself though. Toggle between Interlace and progressive mode in the menu and the picture will alternately lighten and darken by a small amount.
– Don
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[Luc Majno] “as one person says KNEE adjustment, and another says BLACK GAMMA adjustment, and still another says WHITE adjustment… I have tried them all, but with little luck and a lot of image quality degredation. “
This won’t help because these settings are for fine adjustment of your picture and not specifically to decrease the amount of light coming into the camera.
1) Start increasing your shutter speed until the highlights are under control. The higher the shutter speed the less light will be hitting the imagers.
2) You can also shoot in progressive instead of interlaced. Shooting progressive requires more light to get a properly exposed picture.
3) Set the picture gain at -3 instead of shooting at 0 gain.
4) Buy a screw-on neutral density filter for the front of your lens to be used along with the in camera ND2 setting for really bright snow conditions. Filter size is 77 mm.
– Don
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Beware of helicopters: they are basically 60,000 parts flying in formation. I’ve seen them thrash themselves to death just sitting on the taxi way.
– Don
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I think all you need is the Sony FAM driver (Universal Binary) so your G5 Quad will see the card reader as a device and display it on the desktop. It’s worth a try as the FAM driver is free and comes bundled with Sony’s Transfer Tool software.
– Don
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Hi Jonny,
This is the way I do it, and you can take from my workflow what you want. I use a G-Raid Mini for on-site backup instead of a USB drive because FW 800 speeds are faster than USB. My suggestion for you is if you want to have mirrored backups why not simply back up to the Macbook Pro’s own hard drive instead of having to deal with two external drives and some sort of splitter cable. Later, back at the shop, you can connect another drive to the Macbook and transfer what’s on the laptop’s internal drive.
Using the Macbook Pro’s Express 34 Slot it takes about 5 1/2 min. to transfer a full 16 Gbyte card to my FW 800 G-Raid Mini. I just drag and drop the BPAV folder from the card into the external. Afterwards I use Sony’s Clip Browser to briefly preview the transferred clips. After I’m satisfied that everything transferred over properly I’ll simply drag the SxS Pro card’s BPAV folder to the trash and empty it. Done.
– Don
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[Randy Strome] “I had settled on “use 720 only when shooting for slow motion”. “
Me too.
– Don