[Jesus Ali]

I found this:
https://www.sony.ca/hdv/files/white/HDV_Progressive_Primer.pdf

On page 12 it claims that NATIVE Progressive recording is part of the HDV spec. (Recording 12 frame GOPs to HDV tape, twice per second). I never knew that.

It also says that “some cameras” called this 24F Mode.

On page 18 it goes on to say that this 24P or 30P 1080P signal can be captured over iLink (firewire).

This is news to me. Does it jibe with what other understand to be true?

Again, is there a recommended FCP workflow?

Does the XL-H1 embed any “flags” in the footage that FCP or COMPRESSOR can read to capture or pull down the footage correctly?

Thanks,

Jesus

[Jesus Ali]

I found this:
https://www.sony.ca/hdv/files/white/HDV_Progressive_Primer.pdf

On page 12 it claims that NATIVE Progressive recording is part of the HDV spec. (Recording 12 frame GOPs to HDV tape, twice per second). I never knew that.

It also says that “some cameras” called this 24F Mode.

On page 18 it goes on to say that this 24P or 30P 1080P signal can be captured over iLink (firewire).

For the sake of the IoHD, would this still be considered PsF?

[Jesus Ali]

John Dinh Doan has hit upon something here.

I am having the exact same problem and came to this Thread after Googling my error messages.

10-Bit Footage placed in a DV NTSC Sequence, Then Nested into ANOTHER DV NTSC Sequence is causing my FCP 6.0.5 to FREAK.OUT.

I have a Sequence (Easy Setup “DV NTSC 48khz Anamorphic”), with matching DV footage inside of it.

I used Apple’s Podcast Producer program to record a screen movie of me using a website. The entire clip is 10 minutes long.
This was the solution to this hilarious thread: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/150/859889

Podcast Producer saved the clip as MPEG-4, with only 10 frames per second, but it looked great.

I put the clip into Compressor and converted it to Apple ProRes 422 (HQ), because I thought (probably wrongly) that the Animation codec would give me problems in FCP.

I wanted to resize and crop only a window of my screen capture, so I put the footage into a new Sequence, resized and cropped it, and then put a Color Matte behind the footage which matched the grey I used as my desktop color during the capture.

That way, the cropped and resized (and off center) grey desktop and browser window weren’t just plopped on a black FCP background.

So then, I took the Sequence (consisting of 10-bit pro res screen cap and color matte slug behind) and Nested it into my main Edit Sequence.

Then I started chopping up the Nested screen cap sequence.

Things were fine for a day, then today, I double-clicked the Nested Sequence, double checked some Motion Numbers, then tried to jump back to my main Edit Sequence.

But NO DICE.

FCP hung and waited, and eventually said “Error: Not Found”.

Then I double clicked the Edit Sequence again, and FCP said: “Error: Out of Memory”

So I think the problem is as I stated, the allignment of:

10-bit footage
placed into a DV (or 8-bit?) Sequence, which
is Nested into another DV (or 8-bit?) Sequence.

an additional element MAY be,
DISPLAY AUDIO WAVEFORMS
is turned ON.

Perhaps when FCP tries to display waveforms for the main sequence, but then sees the ones pulled in from the Nested Sequence, it can’t handle it?

Hmmm… I think instead, there is probably some Memory Leak occurring caused by Nesting 10-bit footage.

Right now I am using Compressor to Convert the original Pro Res HQ to standard ProRes, Animation and Uncompressed 8-bit. On Monday we’ll see how those do.

btw, I AM periodically able to open the main timeline again. About 1/10 times I double click it. Usually, after I do something with Rendering in the 10-bit timeline, then double click back the parent timeline, it finally opened.

I quickly selected All, copied all the clips and edits, and made a new FCP Project and pasted them into a new DV Sequence. Saved that Sequence and CLOSED IT.

Then I came back, deleted the 10-bit nested clips from the parent Sequence, then also copied all those Clips and Edits out to a new FCP project.

Copying just the parent Sequence to a new project DID NOT work. It would generate the same errors.

Phew! Sorry this is so long, but maybe it will help somebody in the future! It should have all the Keywords I searched for!

Thanks, Jesus

[Jesus Ali]

Thanks for clarifying things for me, guys!

I appreciate it!

Yeah the most confusing part was that the consumer HDTV would play the Mac’s screen. That’s what made me assume it was “speaking” a general video signal language.

* * *

In the end, I looked around and found Apple’s program called Podcast Producer and used it to record the screen.

You need a computer with Leopard Server (setup the Podcast Admin service) somewhere on your LAN to use Podcast Producer on a separate station, but it does indeed record your screen and save it on the server as a QT Mpeg-4. It records audio from the Mac’s Line Input, but not sounds generated from programs on the Mac, so I ran a stereo headphone to stereo headphone cord between the Mac Pro audio output and input and all went well!

Thanks again,

Jesus

[Jesus Ali]

In another, snark-free, universe, Bob posted:

“Hey Jesus. That IoHD can do a lot things, and even though it offers many different formats of video signal cross-conversion, what you’re looking to do would require a distinctly different piece of equipment called a ‘Scan Converter.’ Here are some links to Scan Converters…

…and while I’m at it, I bet you’re confused as to why the Mac Mini (computer display signal generator) can successfully use the Sony HDTV (video signal display device) as a monitor, when the IoHD (video signal display device) can’t understand the same signal.

It’s an easy misconception to make, let me explain the distinctions, for your (and others’) benefit…”

[Jesus Ali]

Just a follow up post:

The first time I tried it over DVI to HDMI In with this adapter:
https://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10419&cs_id=1041902&p_id=2029&seq=1&format=2

Just now, I tried it with a DVI to Component adapter, but the page says it’s for ATI cards only and the Mac Mini has the Intel Shared Graphics card, so I can see why that doesn’t work.

https://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10419&cs_id=1041901&p_id=2398&seq=1&format=2

However, flipping the pins to different locations ALMOST works, when I Screen Share over the network with the Mini, I can set its monitor to different values and watch as the HDTV connected to the AJA IoHD, flips out and cycles through different pixel distortions.

When the Mini is set to 640 x 480 @ 60 Hz, the IoHD sees a 1080i signal coming in over Component.

I can force that signal back down to 525i, and shaky ghost images appear on the HDTV.

So yeah, since this converter says it’s for ATI cards, I’ll abandon this route.

I lost of box of VGA to Component RCA cables that shipped with a big order of Dell projectors, finding that box is my only hope right now. I know there are no dip switches on those cables, so I hope that they’ll work sending just the raw RGB.

Again, any IoHD tips or free screen capture hints are appreciated.

Thanks! Jesus

[Jesus Ali]

The absolute best keys come from 10-bit footage. 8-bit footage has 256 levels in each RGB channel, 10-bit footage has 1024 levels of gradation in each RGB channel.

I pulled some 10-bit Apple ProRes 422 HQ footage into Keylight in AE CS3 and it literally nailed EVERYTHING with 1 click. Perfect matte, down to strands of hair blowing in a fan!

Of course, this involved a Canon XL-H1 with HD-SDI out going into an AJA Io HD box, converting from 1080i to 720p on the fly. So yes, it’s a lot of gear and expense. But I would expect similar results from an HV30 kicking it’s HDMI output into the Io HD.

So that’s around $3k for the box and little cam, not counting a computer.

Here’s a low quality YouTube of the Original footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2INyaqf_0Mo

Here’s ONE CLICK in Keylight later (plus after following a “Sin City” effect tutorial). Remember he’s keyed OVER a black background. Those aren’t the original pixels!

https://www.youtube.com/v/DxznVvgNawQ&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1&

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[Jesus Ali]

incidently, I just found this guy diagnosing the Error on Windows:

https://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/23/35OPstrategic_1.html

His findings are that it’s a general parameter error, but in his specific case, the program is using Relative Paths to locate a file vs. absolute paths and the program gets lost.

Could “var/spool” and the temp directories Compressor creates while encoding be considered relative paths? Maybe the solution would be to turn off QMaster while job chaining or to always indicate, COPY SOURCE TO CLUSTER?

Might be worth a shot for people having trouble. Again, I don’t have time right now to experiment.

Good Luck!

[Jesus Ali]

So far as I noticed it seems like a permissions issue when it tries to pass one QT file off to another. I only get it when I try to do Job Chaining in Compressor. I get a lot of HDV Long Gop files that need to be scaled down to stream into H.264. I found that going from HDV to H.264 resulted in choppy playback. So I tried converting into ProRes and scaling down first, then using the ProRes file to make the H.264. Playback seems much smoother at lower data rates.

But the Job Chaining never works. Tried it on different files. Converting the HDV to ProRes takes a bit, but works, but then when it tries to pass it along to convert to H.264 it always fails with a Quicktime Error -50.

I suspect that it’s an issue of the Compressor Temp drive having one permission, and Compressor itself may not have permission (“authority”) to take the resulting file?

I am basing this on what I skimmed once in the Compressor error logs, but I apologize, I don’t have time now to research this more. I was hoping to find a solution with this search.

@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

Jesus Ali

[Jesus Ali]

Are you mastering the DVD? The final mastering house might want the file in a native format for THEM to compress to MPEG2. You could output it to tape if you have access to an uncompressed format tape deck, or deliver it on an external hard drive.

Otherwise, if you have Final Cut Studio 1 or 2, you have Compressor, which has default presets for DVD, depending on size. Choose the smallest time setting, which will have the highest bit rate per second. You could also crank the bit rate up all the way as well.

Also, if you have FCS2, you might try to export a version in Apple Pro Res 422, it won’t be as “perfect” as completely uncompressed Animation codec, but it might look decent and knock down the size enough to fit as a computer file on a dual layer data dvd (8.5GB, even though it says 9.4GB).

Good luck. Please let us know what you end up doing.