[Dpray]

Apparently it was the deck. After the “Error 02” message continued to show on the AJ-HD1200A, even when put onto my other editor’s G5 (the 3rd system I’d checked), it became obvious. I returned it to the rental house, got a replacement, and everything seems to be fine so far, several tapes into capturing. The other clue was that the little green “720p” light had never shown on the first deck. No big deal except for the 8 hours of downtime and troubleshooting… alas, such is post.

I still think the 1200-FCP relationship is more touchy than when capturing DV or from other decks, but this is probably due to the fact that my footage is all run-and-gun, handheld style, from tape insert to eject. It’s a luxury if I can run bars and tone at the top of a tape. Capture-sensitivity is the price I pay.

And for anyone thinking otherwise, I still think the varicam-FCP-720HD “tapeless post” is by far the best way to go for documentaries. I’ve used film, DVX, Sony900 1080i, HDV, DVcam, you name it– the Varicam footage is gorgeous, the camera is superb, and I now have over a hundred hours of full res footage sitting on this little tower by my G5 (8 x 400gig drives). That’s my online.

Thanks for the previous advice about capturing.

doug

[Dpray]

Thank you Jeremy, Jan and Gary for responding to this. Logically, I agree it’s the deck. The deck rental house insists that it just came back from the factory and they’ve had no problems with it. I keep wondering if it’s the fact that I’m on OS X 10.4.3– have you heard whether or not that might be a bad thing? (the other G4 I tested on was running that, too)

And to answer your question, no my capturing sessions from December and September were not the exact same tapes, but they were from the same camera, same settings, etc. this is all one project and we’ve been duplicating everything all along). Finally– for the record– I never rewind tapes in the field, nor do I allow full shut downs. Battery changes are the only “known” possible TC hits, and don’t always create a bump.

Thanks

doug

[Dpray]

One more piece of info– the reason I think it’s not just the tapes is that if I quit FCP and start up again, it will often solve the problem by capturing a clip that wasn’t capturing before… Same clip, same time codes, Error message first time, but works after quitting and restarting FCP… anyone had this scenario?

thanks

[Dpray]

I agree with the last post– this is not normal, it’s a very quiet camera. Assuming you get that fixed– it’s a fantastic camera. Good luck.
dpray