[John Pale]

Sounds like your settings are fine. Looks like you will be stuck manually resyncing. Too bad there was no guide track. plural eyes would have been a big help.

[John Pale]

There may be more going on that just the video problems.

What format is the audio?
Files or tape? AIFF? WAV? something else?

What is the sample rate?
What is the bit rate?

What were your project setting when you imported?
What are your current sequence settings?

[John Pale]

The step by step directions are on the Nattress website…. which part of this are you having trouble understanding….?? If you don’t know how to nest…select the clips you want to convert, then go to the Sequence Menu and select Nest Items.

NTSC to PAL conversion

1) edit the NTSC clip to an PAL timeline

2) nest the NTSC clip to allow the plugin to scale the converted clip. Because the pixel dimensions of NTSC video are smaller than PAL, the clip will appear shrunk down in the timeline canvas viewer. This is normal. The nesting of the clip will allow the plugin to correctly scale it to PAL pixel dimensions. (select clip and go to the Sequence Menu and select Nest Items – make sure the pixels dimensions of the nest are PAL sized)

3) apply the G Converter plugin to the nested sequence in the PAL timeline. Make sure the plugin goes onto the nest itself, not the clip that it contains.

4) open the nest in the viewer (control click on the nest and select “Open in viewer” or select nest then press return)

5) select the filter tab in the viewer

6) set the correct settings for the desired conversion. In this case, we select Source Pixel size to be 720 x 480 (NTSC), lower field order for source (in this case a NTSC DV clip) and destination (PAL DV timeline).

7) if you desire the PAL output to be de-interlaced, this can be performed in one step by selecting progressive output

8) if you would like to experiment with the conversion algorithm using “Smart De-Interlacing” then this can be selected in the De-Interlace options. The Tolerance
control affects the smart de-interlace and it’s effects can be seen by selecting “View Smart Mask” in the De-Interlace Options.

9) the original NTSC clip that was edited to the PAL timeline must now be dropped from the project browser onto the Source Clip image well in the filter. The plugin will use this video clip for all the image data for the conversion. This is the important step that makes this plugin different from any other, and is vital to it’s successful
operation.

[John Pale]

FCP usually does fine with an “item level” render. Its when you let it try to do it on-the-fly without render, where problems sometimes arise.

[John Pale]

What is the sample rate of the audio file? What is the bit rate of the audio file?

If it is not 48k, this is likely the problem. FCP attempts to convert on the fly, but has difficulty sometimes. Use Compressor, Quicktime Pro, iTunes, Soundtrack Pro to convert it to 48k.

FCP can handle 16 and 24 bit files well…even if you mix them (usually). Other bit rates may cause issues.

Also…AIFF files are normally uncompressed, but it is possible to create a compressed AIFF file. FCP does not like compressed audio (this also includes MP3 AAC). Use one of the above programs to convert.

[John Pale]

Either you accidentally hit delete with the sequence selected or you had 2 projects open and the sequence is in the other one.

Anyway, I can’t think of a reason why you would turn off Autosave…so make sure that stays on.

FCP has auto save, the OS has Time Machine…. Turn them both off and you are on your own.

[John Pale]

Not sure if it was you I said this to you awhile back, but on an Avid job not long ago we had great difficulty transcoding a sizable portion of our footage. It appeared the last frame of each media file was corrupt in some way.

We did find a workaround…but unfortunately, there is no way to do the same thing in FCP.

I might suggest using Compressor and setting an outpoint a few frames before the end of the clip.

I think the problem is in the camera firmware, but it’s just a theory.. I don’t have a great deal of experience with the Alexa.

[John Pale]

Is there a green dot on the clip?

This means a motion adapter has already been applied….as the ama clip does not match your project settings.

[John Pale]

Use the ProRes 422 preset in Apple/QuickTime

In the Geometry Pane of the Inspector, under Dimensions Select 1920 x 1080, then for Pixel Aspect select Square.

[John Pale]

That’s how DVCPRO HD creates such a small file size.

It uses non square pixels. the playback device scales the image to fill the 1920 x 1080 frame.