Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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I don’t use a lightmeter, probably because my GL2 has a good one built right in. With my camera it’s possible to set the zebra bars anywhere from 80% to 100% in 5% increments. Some cameras like the Sony DSR-PD170 start their zebras at 70%, but there’s only two settings: 70 or 100% and nothing in between. I use the GL2’s zebra 80% setting all the time to shoot caucasian faces. I’m sure……..okay I’m not sure since I’ve never used a GL1, but there must be a setting in your GL1’s menu to vary the zebra setting amount.
Remember that if you’re recording with zebras set to 100% and you’ve got them anywhere in your picture, that portion of the frame is lost due to overexposure, because 100% zebras is equal to 100 IRE which equals totally blown out highlights. Some pro video cameras have two separate zebra setups, one for exposing at whatever you set it for and the other to show where the picture is approaching 100 IRE. Suffice it to say that having the option to use zebra bars on your camera is important.
– Don
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You’re correct. When you push the stop button and then want to record more on the same tape you need to back it up a second or two so you don’t break the timecode. I’ve been told for years by others to always keep recording a few seconds longer, even after you’ve got the shot you want for the simple reason of backing the tape up a bit to keep the timecode. These few seconds of footage recorded before and after each important shot are referred to as ‘handles’. I’m sure you’ve run across that term before in FCP.
If you were using iMovie to make your projects you wouldn’t need to worry about handles or broken time code because that program starts a new clip at every timecode break. I don’t think that iMovie even displays timecode. iMovie was made for people that no nothing about video but want to make a DVD of their home movies. FCP and programs like it use timecode exclusively and this is a much more exact way of capturing and editing.
– Don
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[Kevin C.] “Does not the camera stop after a few minutes on pause?”
Yeah it does, but it’s supposed to back up a few frames when it does go into stop mode so you don’t lose timecode. Check it out. Put it into record pause mode, then hit record for a few seconds and then push the record button again so that it goes into record pause mode. You should see the timecode back up a few frames. If it’s doing that OK and if you still lose timecode during capture then it’s something else…..and probably not the camera.
– Don
(where are the forum moderators?)
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Sorry, I’m out of ideas. Someone else may respond, though. You could do a search of the posts here. I seem to recall that this very problem has reared its ugly little head before.
– Don
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Did it work?
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LOL! I love it when I hear I’m not the only one who does stuff like that 🙂
– Don
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Go to your system prefs and then Enrgy Saver/Options/Processor Performace. Make sure it’s set to ‘automatic’ and not ‘highest’. It may have been changed by unseen software gremlins who infiltrated your computer room while you were off enjoying yourself for 2 whole weeks.
– Don
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Make sure the timeline you have your 16:9 footage in is also set to DV NTSC Anamorphic. Go to sequence settings and make sure the sequence is set to the same thing. Once that’s done the canvas window should reconfigure itself into a 16:9 viewing ratio. If it doesn’t do it automatically then you can force the issue by going to the menu where you change the window arrangement, choose one, such as the standard arrangement and FCP should change the canvas aspect ratio. I’m using FCP4.5, but I’m assuming FCP5 will do the same thing.
When you output your completed project just make sure you choose: “use current settings” from the pop up export menu, or to remove all doubt as to what those settings will be you can choose: “DV NTSC Anamorphic” from the menu.
– Don
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I just thought of something else you can do to get your FCP3 back and working again. You can use one of your LaCie FW drives as another startup drive, complete with your older version of OSX and FCP3. That way when you want to use FCP3 you can choose to start up from the FW drive instead of the internal drive that has Tiger on it. The only drawback to this is that when you want to capture video with FCP3 you won’t be able to use that particular FW drive as a scratch disk, since it’s never a good idea to capture video to the same drive as the same one you’re using to run the operating system.
Just a thought.
– Don
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[Graham Scholes] “There was a discussion a few weeks/months back about the need for PAL in Europe.
Does anyone know about the need of PAL in Australia.
“Don’t know about PAL in Oz but here’s a link to a recent discussion concerning DVD PAL in Europe that might shed some light about the land down under.
They talk about European televisions made after the mid ’90’s being able to display NTSC video, so perhaps the same is true for Oz:
quote – “ALL standalone PAL DVD players will play NTSC discs (region coding aside). They output a signal with PAL color space and NTSC frame rate and resolution. Most PAL TV’s manufactured since about mid 1990 can play that signal.” – unquote
– Don