[Greg Newman]

Thanks, Jerry. I thought that’s what you meant, and I’ve tried just that. Match Frame pulls up the clip with Video in front.

Interestingly, “Match Frame to Source” does pull up the clip with audio in front, however A4 is the track that shows in front no matter what clip I select in the timeline and no matter what track it’s on, even when I know the clip came from A1.

I’m still feeling stupid, but I want to feel stupider by finding what I’m doing wrong…

[Greg Newman]

Thanks, can you elaborate on that?

[Greg Newman]

SOLVED! Sort of…

Keith at AJA sent me steps to trash preferences, reboot and reset Kona and FCP. I’ve copied those instructions at the bottom of this post.

These steps helped, but the process illuminated what was actually the main problem: In FCP my video playback settings were:

Kona LH 1080p 23.98 8 bit

If I switched those to:

Kona LH 1080psf 23.98 8 bit

then playback was in sync. However, the image on the monitor was jittery and splotchy, as if compressed.

If I switched FCP playback settings to:

Kona LH 720p 59.94

then playback was in sync and the monitor looks fine.

SO… unless the Flanders people have another suggestion, I’m concluding that the monitor was causing too much processing delay at 1080p to stay in sync with the audio.

Also, I’ve set my Frame Offset to 3. All seems to work fine now.

Except for another oddity I’d like to propose here for review:

If I load a clip into the Viewer that has a distinct audio hit, such as a camera slate, and I view the audio waveform in the viewer while playing the clip, the audio plays out of the speakers about 5 frames after the cursor passes the slate’s waveform in the viewer. This is problematic when making precise audio edits.

If I view that same clip in a sequence, the audio playback perfectly matches the position of the cursor in the timeline, syncing with the waveform perfectly.

If I switch my external video to OFF, the clip in my viewer now shows to be in sync with the sound in my speakers. I switch it back to All Frames and the audio is now again about 5 frames behind the waveform in the viewer.

None of this involves viewing the external monitor at all, this is just viewing playback on the computer monitor and running audio out to the external speakers.

This oddity is unaffected by any frame offset, or video playback setting. It is merely present when external video is set to All Frames, and gone when external video is set to Off, even though the oddity only occurs on the computer monitor, in the Viewer.

If anyone has any suggestions on this one, let me know. Meanwhile, here are the reset instructions from Keith at AJA:

1) Delete the Kona preferences:
a) Go to Mac HD: /library/preferences/ and delete all the com.aja.* files.
b) Go to Mac HD: /users/username/library/preferences and delete com.aja.KonaControlPanel.plist.
c) Reboot
d) Restore the AJA Control Panel settings.
2) Reset the computer PRAM:
a) Turn off the computer.
b) Turn on the computer and immediately hold down:

keys.
c) Release after the third boot-up alert.
3) Delete the Quicktime preferences:
a) Go to Mac HD: users/username/library/preferences/
b) Delete com.apple.quicktime.plugins.preferences.plist.
c) Delete a file called: “quicktime preferences.”
d) reboot.
4) Delete the FCP preferences:
a) Close FCP
b) Go to Mac HD: users/username/library/preferences/
c) Delete com.apple.finalcutpro.plist.
d) Drag the FCP user data folder to the desktop.
e) Restart FCP and setup with a AJA easy setup.

Then
1) Go to FCP system settings -> playback control:
a. Set video quality to HIGH.
b. Set frame offset to 1
c. Uncheck scrub high quality
2) Go to FCP user preferences -> and make sure audio quality is set to LOW (48Khz sampling).

[Greg Newman]

Thanks David, let me describe a test I’m doing here to see if I explained things accurately in my original post:

Frame Offset = 0
Press Play
Canvas plays immediately and in sync
Timeline plays immediately and in sync
Audio Mixer levels visually match timeline and the sound from my speakers
Video on my external monitor appears 4-6 frames behind video in my canvas and the audio I hear.

Frame Offset = 30
Press Play
Canvas does not begin to play for 30 frames
Timeline does not begin to play for 30 frames
Audio Mixer levels play immediately and match the audio in my speakers, which also plays immediately.
Video on my external monitor plays immediately but still appears 4-6 frames behind the audio I hear.
30 frames after pressing Play, the canvas and timeline begin playing, though the audio and external video are already 30 frames ahead of them.

My conclusion from this test is that the frame offset delays playback at the canvas and timeline, but still sends video and audio out through the Kona card without delay, and sends them together.

If you repeat this test on your system and get different results I’d love to know them, and figure out why I’m getting these results. Or, if my original post or this test reveal something I’m fundamentally wrong about I’d love to know that too – all I want is a solution and to understand what I’m doing wrong.

Thanks!

[Greg Newman]

Ya know… that’s not so bad… I can develop that habit. Thanks for pointing this out, I should have spent more time analyzing the functionality of it before posting.

Is it possible the pebble is gone?

Many thanks.

[Greg Newman]

Frustrating. But thanks for confirming.

Anyone have a connection with the FCP development team? This is such a simple feature and is the last lingering addiction I have to my old AVID keyboard, and it is nothing short of the pebble in the shoe. It changes my workflow throughout the day, every day…

[Greg Newman]

My confusion continues…

In FCP I can change the field dominance of a clip in its Item Properties. Makes no difference.

I’ve also captured a short segment from one of these tapes with the bad interlacing in several ways, with absolutely zero change in the resulting clip. I tried DV 23.98, DV Advanced Pulldown, DV 29.97 starting at a variety of frames to see if it catches a cadence differently and gets rid of the interlacing…

Nothing changes the resulting clip. Very strange. It’s simply interlaced to the extreme on the tape and I can’t seem to do anything about it.

[Greg Newman]

Hmmm.. are you saying it could have been recorded in the camera incorrectly? Or captured incorrectly?

[Greg Newman]

Thanks for the review.

I do know that all DV is recorded at 29.97, so all of these tapes are 29.97. I do suspect that the tapes with the interlaced frames were shot at 24 (and recorded at 29.97 with 3:2). My issue is that I dont remember seeing such awful interlaced frames in this instance.

The interlacing spans 3 or 4 frames and is extreme at its peak. It leads me to believe something is wrong, and I’m trying to figure out what it is, or if this is normal and I simply forgot how it looked.

And I’m trying to decide if I need to do anything to these clips, or recapture them with a different setting, or just accept it as normal.

[Greg Newman]

Hey Mike –

This problem ended up being linked to FCP 5.1, or a combination of 5.1 and a Quicktime upgrade, not sure. But we discovered that if we used FCP 6 the problem went away completely.

With FCP 6 we now use the Log and Transfer function which does a great job of importing P2 media (and r3d media from the Red camera as well.) No more of the above problems at all. This was tested on three machines with the same results: similar problems in FCP5.1 and no problems in FCP 6.

I’m assuming you’re on 5.1?

Greg