[Gary Hughes]

My DSR-45 is consistently 10 frames off. I don’t know if it makes a difference, but I use firewire for audio and video, but RS-422 for deck control.

Thanks,
Gary

[Gary Hughes]

FYI, I didn’t have that problem with Cinematize. However, free does make up for a certain amount of work.

Hope all goes well for you,
Gary

[Gary Hughes]

Which app did you try, the free one or cinematize? I can’t help with the free one ’cause I haven’t used it. With cinematize, it shows you each Video Title Set on the disc plus the BUP, IFO, and VOB files. Be sure you are choosing the correct Video Title Set and if it allows you to select the VOB directly, be sure to pick the largest one. Otherwise, try another DVD to be sure that it isn’t something with the way that particular DVD was created. So how do you know if you’ve picked the correct VTS? With Cinematize, after picking it and choosing next, there is a preview window that will show you the content of that title set. You can even set in and out points if you want to rip just a section of the title.

Hope this helps,
Gary

[Gary Hughes]

I use Cinematize 2. https://www.miraizon.com/products/products.html It’s downloadable for $60 and it will rip your DVD content to whatever codec you wish for use in FCP, although I’ve only used it with the dv codec. I don’t believe it will let you grab the menus, but it works great for any of the VOB files. Also, it won’t let you rip hollywood titles so there’s less chance of copyright issues. I used it for a project recently where the camera reel was no longer available, it was a REEL lifesaver.

Thanks,
Gary

[Gary Hughes]

New info:
I just came across a clip that (previously) I thought was in sync. Truth is, it was, and is, in sync before a timecode break but out of sync after. Since the timecode break was after 1 minute into this 2 minute clip, it wasn’t until I played it past that point that I realized what was happening. From the timecode break to the end of the clip, FCP generated new timecode so that there was no actual TC break in the “Captured” clip (this makes sense to me). So evidently, what is happening is that either the audio or the video skips some frames at the break, but the other does not skip, therefore rendering it “out of sync” (this does not make sense to me). (Before anyone critiques me on my logging choice here, the producer logged the clips. I would have created 2 clips out of this if I were logging.)

If this is the same issue that caused all the other out of sync clips, the timecode break must be appearing during the decks preroll or during the handles, because they were all out of sync immediately. If this is not the same issue, then I’m still curious what’s causing the other issue.

Any thoughts or confirmations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Gary

[Gary Hughes]

Check out https://www.larryjordan.biz. He has some good articles on project management. I don’t completely agree with everything, but many don’t agree with me either. The main thing I disagree with him on is that he suggests naming the tapes with a code that represents the client and the project, plus a reel number. I have no problem with the client part, but most of my reels will run across several projects for the same client, so I don’t consider marrying the reel ID with a project.

There is also a script that you can download (it’s on his site too), that you can customize, that can setup a folder structure at the beginning of a new project. That way all your projects will have the same folder structure and your archives will be organized as well. I don’t use the script because of it’s lack of sub-sub-folder power. I simply created the complete folder structure inside a folder called “Default Project”. It is locked so I won’t mess it up. I will duplicate it then unlock and rename the duplicate at the beginning of a new project. I did use the script to kick-start my brain in the process of creating my “Default Project” folder structure.

As for most, they suggest archiving everything except for media that came from a reel with timecode that was captured with deck control. Just delete that media because you can simply batch capture from the reels at a later date. As for me, I find the price of a hard drive cheap enough that I don’t mind archiving it as well. I know tape life is good enough and hopefully I’ll never need the archive of the raw media, but I have had a deck eat a tape before so I just archive everything.

I archive all but timecoded media to DVD-R plus to the same hard drive that I also archive the timecoded media to. To save a little money, I bought an Adaptec external case with USB2 and firewire (eBay). The Adaptec will work with IDE drives up to 1,000Gig in size. Then I buy an IDE drive that’s a little larger than I need for a given project, put it in the case, copy all the data over and verify it (there’s some good backup software out there for this too), then I take the drive out and put it in the original anti-static bag and pack it away with other archived drives. I place the DVD-R in a CD wallet with other archives and store that in a separate location from the drives for redundancy.

Some will claim that the copying is too slow, but I don’t mind. I do it while I’m away from the computer anyway. Also, some will claim that the hard drive is totally unnecessary, but again, especially for the price of a drive nowadays, I really don’t mind, and it does give me peace of mind.

Hope this helps,
Gary

[Gary Hughes]

Usually, what Matte is saying is correct. I’ve sucessfully had an Adobe license transferred to me before, from an ebay purchase. However, it is up to the individual software makers to decide whether or not to allow that.

I know from first-hand experience that Discreet’s policy is that the license belongs to the original purchaser and can NOT be transferred to another person/company. The only transfer of license that Discreet allows, is if a company is legally bought out by another company, then they require certain documentation from lawyers proving the corporate changes are real.

I bought an unopened and unregistered discreet combustion on ebay. Discreet even confirmed that it was unregistered, but when I tried to register it, they wouldn’t allow me to because they had a record of who bought that serial number and it wasn’t me. They see licensing and registration as two completely different things. Licensing is to the original purchaser and registration comes later, but still must be to that original purchaser.

The moral of this story is, ebay can have some great deals, and some of them are legit. When it comes to buying software on ebay, always know the software makers rules for Transfer of License (TOL) before bidding. Don’t take the word of the seller, contact the software maker directly to find out if they allow it. Then, be sure that it is unregistered or that the seller is the current owner of registration. AND, never buy Discreet products from anyone other than a legit Discreet reseller.

Thanks,
Gary

[Gary Hughes]

https://www.nattress.com/ has some great articles on DV vs Uncompressed. He explains the differences and what you’ll see (or not see). “Uncompressed”, as a buzz word, is impressive to most, and makes you think you’ll be getting more. It’s important to understand that when you see the difference in the footage examples on his site, he’s not showing you DV that has been upconverted to uncompressed. He’s showing you stuff that was shot uncompressed. Upconversion is a format change, not a quality improvement. In short, DV is as good on a DV sequence as it will ever get. Capturing it uncompressed does not improve the quality at all. Capturing it to DV using firewire is a direct file transfer from the tape to the computer and therefore, is at it’s maximum quality. Uncompressed will only take up more drive space.

“So why does the smoke version look better”, you may ask. It could be a number of things. Not saying anything at all about your skills, it’s probably the eyes and minds and tools of experienced artists. It’s certainly not the fact that it’s uncompressed (since you’re starting out with DV). Bottom line, no reason to go uncompressed unless you shoot uncompressed.

Thanks,
Gary

[Gary Hughes]

Not DSR-1500 related, but I was told by my Apple rep and by Niche video in Atlanta to never use Apple’s built in firewire for both drives and capture, so I added a pci firewire card from the start. Don’t know if that applies if you don’t use firewire drives.

Also, I’ve read in several places that RS-422 deck control is less problematic than firewire deck control, no matter the deck. I’ve read on here where people with sync issues have fixed them by switching to RS-422. Unfortunatly, I can’t quote them exactly, and I’m not speaking from experience. I just took their advice and I use firewire for capture, but with RS-422 control all the time. BTW, I have the decklink card which has RS-422 built in.

Thanks,
Gary

[Gary Hughes]

I completely agree. I came to FCP from Discreet Edit which has Inscriber Title Motion. I never used the motion because I do all motion in Combustion, but you can’t get simpler and you certainly can’t get faster than Inscriber. You can automatically see the frame from the timeline, and if you need to check multiple frames, you don’t have to leave the titler. You just alt+tab back to edit, move the playhead, alt+tab back to Inscriber and update to your ntsc monitor. It’s lightning fast and versitle. But the most important thing for me was the fact that you could create all your titles, while you’re there, simply by dragging a copy down to a new, blank workspace, and modifying the text while keeping the formatting. I did close to 50 namekeys once without every leaving Inscriber. In minutes, I was completely finished.

On another note, because of the lack of title power in FCP, I’m doing most of mine in Photoshop or Motion. I haven’t tried it yet, but I just ran across what looks to be a really cool utility for Photoshop CS2 (not sure if it works with prior versions.) https://www.toolsfortelevision.com/ It looks like you can create your title on layers in photoshop, then open this utility and type in all the desired names and occupations (for example), and it will create and save files for each in an automated process. I’m going to check it out in a few days when I have time.

Thanks,
Gary