[Joni Church]

Thanks a lot for your help and for double-checking.

I’m considering reverting back to my full version of FCP 5 on this machine to see if it helps, but I really don’t want to do that. I’ve got the deck rented for one day and you know how it is when you’re eating up time. I haven’t had to work with DVCPro50 before, it’s always been HD so this is new. I assumed it would be simpler. Ha!

[Joni Church]

That’s what’s so weird about it, I did run them through Cinema Tools to conform to 23.98 and it didn’t help. When I first ran them through the FRC I conformed to 23.98.

A mysterious mystery.

[Joni Church]

Since I can’t get a deck until next week, I figured I’d try a few new ideas (credited to my co-worker as well).

He wondered if exporting a full-res Quicktime of the original material captured at 59.94 and then bringing that file back in to FCP and re-running it through the FRC would do anything. It didn’t.

However as a last ditch attempt, I exported the files (simple EXPORT> QUICKTIME MOVIE) that I had already run through the FRC to convert to 23.98, and reconnected the clips using that media, and it worked. No sync problems whatsoever. All is well in the world. I still can’t explain technically why this would be (which still drives me crazy), but there it is. A solution.

I wanted to post it in case anybody else ever encounters this mess of a problem. Thanks again for your input!

[Joni Church]

No, it wasn’t updated at all so that’s not an issue. I actually sent the deck I rented (Panasonic 1400A) back last week, so I’m going to try to get another one in this week and recapture a few clips to see if it helps. It’s our only hope!

[Joni Church]

Hey Jeremy,

I’m sorry I dropped off the face of the earth- our server went down for a couple of days and then we moved offices so we just got back up and running today.

I did some more tests this morning, and after rendering it appears the actual timecode of the clip doesn’t change. The video most definitely shifts to another point in the clip, but the timecode reads as if no change has been made. So the only way for me to bandage it is to guess how many frames the clip shifts, bump it out of sync by that many, render, and check it. Less than ideal, of course. I did find that it only shifts once after rendered, so if I adjust it, render, and adjust it and render again, it doesn’t keep shifting (I hope that makes sense).

At this point I’m not sure where else to go with it. I think I might need to quit editing and open a flower shop. Flowers never need to be rendered.

[Joni Church]

Yeah, they all stay in sync if the filters and opacity adjustments are removed.

I was also thinking when I got home tonight about whether or not the sync would shift the same amount after multiple adjustments and renders- I hadn’t considered that before, so it’s a good question. I’ll do some tests tomorrow, and let you know what I come up with. I’ll also post a clip when I get back into the suite.

Thanks again!

[Joni Church]

It’s true, it does seem like something easy is missing, which is why I wasn’t worried about it at first. Now I’m not so sure.

When I render one clip on its own, it goes out of sync alone, the rest of the un-rendered clips are fine.

I’m working in DVCPro HD, and I did try resetting my Easy Setup, which didn’t change anything.

Leaving the sequence un-rendered and exporting a QT doesn’t help, because the force-render FCP applies before the export makes the clips go out of sync in the resulting QT file.

The abnormality in all of this is that it’s only the clips that have a filter applied to them (any filter, doesn’t matter which one) or an opacity shift that go out of sync when rendered. It’s not like the whole timeline is out of sync, or the sync drifts. It’s not even related to the audio at all, actually, that’s just how I first noticed it. Even with no audio present, if I pull the opacity on a video-only clip down to 60% and render it, it shifts. It’s puzzling.

I figure if I can’t get to the bottom of this before I need to show my client the video, I’ll have to figure out how many frames each clip shifts, and knock each of them out of sync manually before rendering so they line up once they’re rendered… but I hate band-aids and prefer to find the source of the problem, (as I’m sure you do as well).

Thanks again for your input, it helps having another brain checking in on everything.

[Joni Church]

No apologies necessary, thanks for all your questions so far.

I captured via SDI through a Kona 3. However I’ve used this exact workflow a hundred times before and have never encountered this problem.

Rendering one clip at a time doesn’t help.

[Joni Church]

It’s an AIFF, 48 KHz, which is what the sequence is set to.

[Joni Church]

You betcha. I’m not mixing any formats, and everything on the timeline is 23.98.