[John Rhee]

Thanks for all the info,
As much as moving the media files and templates and other files to the external HD would be easier, my concern is the lack of portability. Depending on the shoot, sometimes, I have to have my laptop on set to ingest and cut on the fly. And although I don’t use DVDSP or Motion regularly, I like the option that I can use those on set or anywhere else if I have to. I think really the only option is to upgrade my internal HD to a much bigger one.

[John Rhee]

Hey, Thanks for the info. Now I understand.

[John Rhee]

Hey Gary,
thanks. The FRC that I’m using is the one from the Panasonic webiste. I believe it is 1.0. I did another test with cinema tools and it is not recognizing the ability to do any reverse telecine. I’m wondering if it is because the footage is at 59.94fps and not 29.97. Either way I just ordered the latest FCP from Apple and am going to try it again with 5.1.2. Thanks again for the info.

[John Rhee]

hey Michael,
Thank you. I’m uploading a 15 sec clip to my server. Once it is uploaded, I’ll email you the ftp info for you to download. I really appreciate you taking the time to analyze the clip for me. Thank you and any help is greatly appreciated.

[John Rhee]

Hey Gary,
Some of us unfortunately don’t have the resources to have a HD deck around all the time like you do to be able to sit there log and capture or even to play and learn. And also who cares about my method for this project – which under the circumstance and situation, I had to capture the entire 6 tapes of 43 minutes each. Understood it is better to log and capture – I do that for all of my other SD/film projects. My question from day one, and you can clearly see from the subject matter, has and always been how to solve this problem “POST” capture. And much as I’m appreciative of you pointing out the work flow and other technical information, I’m looking for answers and fixes. Honestly by you stating that you never had a problem with Kona and Varicam doesn’t help me at all. I appologize if my previous emails sounded complacent – I am a very detail specific person. Unless you have techniques and information that is more useful to me, I thank you for this enjoyable discussion.

[John Rhee]

Hey Gary,
thanks for the info but here is the situation. First of all I’m not using firewire to capture but rather HD-SDI, I would have liked to but the deck did not have that card.

“Had you set the capture to be 720p24 fcp can properly function if the content is all the same frame rate ( ie not using variable frames)”

Second, I did a few minute test at the 720p24 capture setting. The video played in slowmo while the audio maintained its regular speed. The original footage was all shot at 23.98 fps. So no variable frame rate.

You are right that I should have done a log and capture, but that was not an option because we had the deck for one day and also the client wanted a DVD video copy of all of the tapes.

And thanks again for the clarification about the 2:3 pulldown, but I still don’t get why when I brought a clip into Cinema Tools, that the reverse telecine was grayed out (unselectable). I’ve reverse telecined a lot and usually, in fact always, that reverse telecine button is ready to go, except when I bring in this particular captured footage. I’m going to try again.

[John Rhee]

I’ve worked with 24p numerous times. I’ve worked on film transfer that I properly reverse telecined to 23.98 so I’m familiar with the way that 24p looks like. My drives are a 6 disk SATA RAID system that puts out over 200MB/s read and 175MB/s write. This is my first time however working with a shoot that was shot with varicam. This much I do know. The varicam doesn’t use pulldowns when recording 23.98p unto 59.94. It duplicates progressive frames. When I bring it into a 23.98 and render the clip out, it stutters because there are duplicate frames all throughout. With that I’m afraid Cinema Tools is know good because it doesn’t know how to handle duplicate frames. As a test, I’ve tried bringing the clip into Cinema Tools. The reverse telecine button is grayed out (Can’t select it).

As far as content, I pretty much just hit play and used “capture now” on FCP 5.0.4 running Decklink HD Pro (Dual) using drivers 5.4.2. Although this much I was able to figure out. On some of the clips, when I brought it into a 23.98 timeline, it properly converted it so there was smooth motion, but other clips, it was stuttering. So I believe you are correct in the sense that because I logged in an entire content of the tape, the driver was not properly handling the changing flags. Either way somebody needs to create a software that can remove these duplicate frames for situations like this that I’m in.

[John Rhee]

yeah I tried that, but it keeps giving me an error after about 30 to 40% progress bar. I’ll try it using shorter clips.

[John Rhee]

hey Luke,
by any chance do you think that maybe it has to do with Final Cut Pro 5.0.4?

[John Rhee]

Originally I installed the HD Pro in one of the 100mhz PCI-X slot. Even though it was the only one occupying the 100 mhz slot, it was causing major problems. I just switch it to the 133mhz slot and it captured fine. My machine is a G5 dual 2.5 with 4.5gig of ram. Hope this prevents others from making the same mistake.