[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

Hi,

Since you say it has been working flawlessly since September, it sounds like something you installed recently has broken things.

Have you used Software Update since your system was last working correctly? (Updated to OS X 10.4.9 for instance?)

Or installed any other software?

Or upgraded the firmware of your F350 or F70?

It would be really helpful to identify what causes this.

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

If the error was like “invalid SMPTE key – 00.00.00…”, we saw this a lot with the first batch of Intel-based Macs. There was a firmware update for these Macs that fixed the problem from Apple. So, have you tried running Software Update and accepting any firmware updates?

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

You mentioned the “PDZ Browser software” (PDZ-1?) and “PDZ Viewer software” (I think there are two, the one that comes with PDZ-1 and the PDZ-VX10 separate download app), but both of these are Windows only, right?

If you’re thinking about Mac / FCP editors, have you tried the XDCAM Transfer software for the Mac? To be fair, the current version (only 1.1) is aimed squarely at getting clips from XDCAM into FCP and putting sequences and clips back again, so it probably doesn’t fit your current workflow. But it would be really interesting to hear what your top 3 missing features are?

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

Hi Crispy,

XDCAM HD achieves slow-motion by reducing the number of lines recorded from 1080 to 540. If you look in the clip info area for these clips in XDCAM Transfer, you’ll notice that the display size says 1440 x 540, instead of the 1440 x 1080 for your normal speed (and fast motion) XDCAM HD clips.

FCP can’t handle the 540-line clips directly for RT editing which is why they show up as a different codec, and they need rendering as you found. I guess that usually only a small proportion of a sequence will be slow-mo so that this isn’t often a big price to pay.

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

We havn’t tried putting it back to disk yet via our Sony F30 but I’m guessing the conforming still needs to be done

Yes, FCP still needs to conform the edits, which takes some time, but FCP shouldn’t have to render the whole sequence.

Best to upgrade to XDCAM Transfer Version 1.1 though if you haven’t done already, as it is faster all round, including for export.

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

Standing to attention 😉

So… if you ask XDCAM Transfer to add a lonely Sub folder, it shows placeholders for all the clips but doesn’t show the proxies or thumbnails. Doh!

It does let you import those “clips” and as you discovered you get proxy movies you can play in QT player. Unfortunately, as was said in a previous thread, even though the movie contains a correct timecode track, QT player always shows time running from 00:00:00.00 (and that also seems to be hundredths of a second rather than frames).

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

Nate, you’re right.

If you’ve got QuickTime Pro installed, open up the exported QuickTime movie in QuickTime Player and do Show Movie Properties. There’s a Timecode Track! Now why doesn’t QuickTime Player have an option to show it??

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

Just tried installing XDCAM Transfer V1.1 on a shiny new Mac Pro straight out of the box.

Sure enough you do get the “Pro Codecs Required” warning message when the software starts up, but I can see thumbnail pictures, metadata and proxies for all clips. My HD clips have the little NO CODEC overlay on the thumbnail and those clips can’t be imported but I can play the proxies just fine.

Are you directly connecting an XDCAM camcorder or deck to your Mac, or have you just got individual MXF files on a hard disk? XDCAM Transfer doesn’t show proxies if you’ve only got the full-quality files around.

Someone else on the list reported that you sometimes you don’t see proxies and/or thumbnails if you’ve got the sucky DivX MPEG-4 component installed. If you’ve got that, try uninstalling it.

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

If you connect your XDCAM directly to the Mac and fire up the XDCAM Transfer software, it will slurp all the proxies and clip info in the background while your producer starts to review the material.

I’d just recommend having a play with the software and seeing if it can work in a way that works for you.

P.S. Yes it is odd that QuickTime Player doesn’t display timecode. Strange.

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

I’m not sure if I’ve understood exactly what you need.

XDCAM Transfer does show the timecode with the proxy. This is the same timecode you’d see on the camcorder or XDCAM deck, and the same as you’d get when you import the full-quality.

There’s no doubt that’s the easy part! 🙂
What other functions are you looking for?