Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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Hi John,
It may sound (no pun intended) strange, but you might try trashing your FCP preference files first. You won’t hurt a thing by doing this and it may very well resolve your problem. Corrupt pref. files cause FCP to act in strange and mysterious ways, including audio glitches that start for no apparent reason. Here’s a link that explains why you need to do this and how to do it properly:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html
Since trashing FCP preferences is an ongoing problem with most users there’s a free program you can get to do this for you. Do a Google search for “Final Cut Pro Rescue”. I suspect your timecode is fine unless your GL2 is having problems generating it.
If you’ve done the above and are still having audio issues then you can do an audio mixdown within FCP. This will create an invisible file which will consolidate your audio into two tracks if you have many audio tracks in your timeline. This will be less processor intensive and may also solve the problem. If you make any changes to any of your audio tracks after using the audio mixdown command then the invisible file will be discarded and you’ll have to use the command again. I don’t use FCP3 but in 4.5 the audio mixdown command is in the sequence menu.
The other thing I can suggest is to run DiskWarrior to make sure all your hard drive directories are in good shape. The last thing I’m going to recommend is to do a reinstall of FCP3. When you upgrade an operating system sometimes the untouched programs will not recognize certain upgrades (like your new version of Quicktime) and may very well cause the audio problems you’re experiencing.
My choice of fixes for you go from easiest and fastest to the more time consuming if the first ones fail. Hope this helps.
– Don
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I watched a workshop video presentation with Adam Wilt from DV Magazine and he said that exposing for film is the opposite of exposing for video. Highlights have to be protected in video or the detail in the highlights will be lost. Sounds logical and we’ve all seen what blown out video highlights look like. In film the detail in the dark portions have to be protected at the expense of the hightlights. Interesting. Does this mean that blown out highlight detail in film can be recovered in post?
– Don
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Hi John,
Have you always had this audio problem or is it a more recent thing?
If you could also give up some info about your system it would help greatly in diagnosing your problem. It could be any number of things: from a media drive that’s getting full, not enough RAM or processor speed, corrupted hard drive directories or project files, large project files, etc.
– Don
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If you could be a little more forthcoming with information about your particular Mac platform and any peripherals it would help greatly for anyone trying to diagnose your capture problems.
With regard to your recent reinstall of FCP3 and OS10.3: it’s generally accepted that you need to install this stuff in sequence for software to “recognize” other software properly. Follow the proper sequence recommended in your manuals. There is also more info regarding this at the Apple web site.
– Don
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Do you have a separate media drive that you’re using for capture or are you capturing to the startup drive? If you’re capturing to a separate drive is it a new one? If so is it formatted in Mac OS Extended?
– Don
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Try trashing your FCP3 preferences first. If you’re working in OSX here’s a link that explains why you might need to do this and also how to do it properly:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html
You can also get a free program that will do it for you. Do a Google search for “Final Cut Pro Rescue”.
Hope this solves your capture problems.
– Don
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Marcelo,
If you’re going to use this new camera to shoot a show in a controlled lighting environment then perhaps the DVX100A would suit your needs. The Panny in smaller, lighter and is less expensive by quite a bit. It has a nice wide angle lens but it’s only a 10X zoom, so you need to be closer to the subject than you would with the XL2. The Canon is better in low light, has a stock 20X zoom lens and native widescreen, but you’d need a wide angle adapter to get the same field of view that the DVX100A has. Or you can get the Canon 3x wide angle lens, since you can change lenses on the Canon but not the Panasonic. Cameras these days have become very specialized, so you need to base your decision on the type of shooting you plan to do.
As far as picture quality goes: in the March issue of Camcorder & Computer Video magazine they did an extensive test of these two cameras. They conducted a blind test with several people looking at a monitor. The opinions were given without knowing which camera image they were looking at. They found that “The majority (5 out of 6) preferred the image generated by the XL2. None expressed exactly why, but they were definite in their preference.”
Hope this helps in your decision making.
– Don
“I never knew the true meaning of happiness until I started shooting DV. But by then it was too late.”
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Luis,
I’m with Ralph on this one. I’d go with a new GL2 and pass on the used XL1S. The reason? You’re potentially buying someone else’s problems. Who knows where those recording heads have been. That’s why I don’t rent cameras, either.
I sold my XL1S because I didn’t like the picture quality and I found the GL2 to be much better. I may have been unlucky and bought a dud of an XL1S but I’m so glad I got rid of it in favour of an XL2.
But you know what……it all depends on what you want to use the camera for. The GL2 has a great picture but it needs lots of light in order to get it. The XL series have better low light capabilities: the XL1S seems to be about a half an F stop better than the GL2 and the XL2 is even better. The best low light MiniDV cams are the Sony VX2100/PD150/PD170 series. It all depends on what you’re shooting.
– Don
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Jared,
Your Sony HDV camera audio prefs will most likely be set to 16 bit 48Khz. Just make sure your FCP timeline prefs reflect the same thing and you shouldn’t have any issues. The log and capture preset should also be set to the same thing. If for some reason your camera was set to the 12 bit 32Khz setting then that may be the reason why FCP is telling you the sequence settings are not the same as the audio that was captured. I also know that in FCP 4.5 if you go to the audio/video settings in the file menu, then click the A/V devices tab you can set the audio sample rate/bit depth/number of audio channels by clicking on the “options” button to reflect how your camera’s audio was recorded. This setting is for Firewire DV Audio if that’s what you’re using to capture with. Since I don’t have Final Cut Studio OR Tiger I’m just giving you basic advice. If someone else knows anything that’s different from previous FCP versions feel free to offer your knowledge to Jared.
– Don
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The best case scenario is to get a firewire 800 PCI card. LaCie makes one with 3 inputs, so you can connect your 250 and 500 gig drives to the Mac on their own firewire BUS. Keeping your camera/deck separated from the media drives seems the best way to avoid 2 way communication errors that result in dropped frames, etc. Plug your digital 8 directly into the G5’s FW400 port if that’s the way you usually connect your camera (using firewire).
Whether or not daisychaining your 2 drives is going to work properly without dropping frames when they start to get full is something you’ll have to determine yourself. Either it will work or it won’t. You can get the free program XBench to carry out some transfer rate tests on your media drives. Just Google it and it’ll come up. Then you’ll know for sure if the dropped frames are the result of low capture rates or it’s something else.
Mini DV requires a minimum of 25Mbits per second, so FW400 will be fine (800 is even better) if everything is connected properly as described in the first paragraph. I’m assuming that digital 8 has the same requirements although you shouldn’t quote me on that, since I know nothing about digital 8.
– Don