[Jim]

When I have done this in the past, I made sure that I had a FW to PCMCIA card in the slot. I attached the camera to that I/O and an external HD to the Laptop’s FW port. As I recall, when you go to the log and capture function, you need to select Non-controled device.

Cheers,

[Jim]

Jeremy:

Do you have reference going to the beta and your aja?
Yes

Do you have both ltc and vitc selected in your capture device preferences?

No. An interesting point, I had assumed that when I selected the AJA IO LA Beta to DV codec that the settings would include both LTC & VITC. I see now that they may not, and have created a new Easy set up for Beta. However, since 3 betacam decks did not see VITC on their TC reader I am assuming that none (or at best intermittent TC) was there.

Do you get any errors on the deck when you are playing that tape?
No

I ultimately, diged with “warn me after if TC was bad” (which it did on certain segments of the tape) edited the segments and output to DVD without incident.

I will keep looking into this matter and will get back to you with any pertinent info

Thanks again,

[Jim]

1.5Ghz Laptop, (1.25GB RAM), OS 10.4.8
FCP 5.1.2

AJA IO LA, (v2.1

[Jim]

Jeremy:

I’ve got the control panel and firmware upgrade and will install tomorrow.

Thanks,

[Jim]

<I>Could be, or that your drives aren’t keeping up. How are your prefrences set up? Do you have abort capture on dropped frmaes checked? Do you have the make new clip on tc break checked? If you log and capture and break the capture up into 15 minute segments, i bet you won’t find these problems. It’ll be less strain on the system too.

I had access to another Powerbook Laptop 1.67 running 5.0.4 same hard drive, same basic set up. No problems. It recorded several 90 min Betas without incident. So I am assuming the hard drive (a raid 0 FW800 was able to maintain the DV stream, and that the proble is with the IO.

Typically I set the preference to create new clip on drop frame, but in this case I now have it set to warn after digitize. I haven’t seen any broken timecode, but just for this project this setting seems to be working.

You should also download the latest control panel with the bundled firmware if you haven’t done that already as well. It’s v 1.1.

I believe that the firmware is up to date, but worth checking. Although I have the control panel for my Kona 3, I didn’t realize there was one for the IO LA. Could you point me in the right direction for the IO LA control panel? (In the meantime I’ll see if I can find it on the AJA website)

Thanks so much for your input.

[Jim]

Jeremy:

Thanks for the quick response.

(To add more detail to the problem, the actual picture freezes, in the digitized footage, the audio keeps going, this puts everything afterwards out of sync.)

There doesn’t seem to be a break in the timecode at those points. I am able to go back into the tape, lift the segment where the picture froze, digitize it and put it into place. Also, I’ve done the digitize 2x and (I believe) it happened at different locations on the tape. (I will check this this morning)

Regarding digitizing shorter segments, I am doing 1 hr DV tapes without a problem. I am sure I’ve diged long segments from the AJA IO in the past. This first freeze happend at 34min, the second 24 min later, the third about 12min after that. I wouder if this is really a matter of file size?

BTW why would the universal binary driver not be necessary for the powerbook running FCPs (5.1.2)universal binary software?

Thank all for your insights.

[Jim]

Another advantage of digitizing the entire tape is that, after it is in the computer, you can scan your footage at 2 or 3 times speed. So watching 10 hours will only take me a few hours and not the whole day. Also, I use that time to create graphics, audition music or record VO etc.

In addition, I often will create timecode dubs for clients/producers at the same time that I am digitizing. (they often want to see everyting that was shot.)

Cheers,

[Jim]

With my betacam I’ve been using a Schactler 18+ with 2 stage carbon legs. These sticks are my favorite. But for the little cameras,(PD150, HVX200, A1U) I have yet to find something that fills all of my needs. The major problem is finding sticks that are light weight, folds small, mid spreaders, and extends high enough.

It is the tripod height that seems impossible to find. The sticks for the little cameras typically top out at 60 to 64 inches. There are tripods like the Miller Solo that extends higher, but the legs do not lock. I feel that without some kind of spreader, if you bump into them the legs will tuck in and the camera will go down.

I’ve found a Manfrotto 75mm bowl 351MVB2 (503 head) that is very reasonably priced, has 2 stages, a mid spreader, but only goes to about 64 inches. I am looking for a light weight hi-hat or some other way of raising the height another 8 to 10 inches (when situations require).

If anyone has any insights I’d love to hear about then.

Thanks,

[Jim]

I too thought the ferrite core was for connecting the firewire cable from the cam to a pc, but It’s worth a try. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Thanks again for your insights.

[Jim]

Jeremy:

Thanks for the quick response re: ground lifter.
Good thought, but didn’t work. The hum is still there.

Yes, I did try powering the LH900 with both an NRG and and Aspen power supply.

Also, Just for grins I pluged the camera composite out to the LH900 video in and there was no hum. However, when I touched the XLR connector there was a tiny click and a slight increase in white noise.

So, major spotlight on the component cable system, and still a shielding problem.

Thanks again,