[Joshua Schwarz]

hi thanks for the detailed and thorough answers. that’s exactly what i was looking for. my system is set up with proper blackburst and i have and know how to read a scope. there is in fact a setting in the blackmagic preference panel for adjusting horizontal sync. i just was not confident because i remember years of fighting with linear systems and early avids to get timecode accuracy. i know my avid is perfect but it requires me to pre-roll so i was surprised that fcp didn’t. my preliminary test using visual timecode from my hvr-1500 and comparing it to what comes in over the decklink’s rs-422 do indeed show that they match perfectly. only time will tell for sure. fcp does end the clip at timecode breaks but it seems to get hung up after that and i have to manually start the next clip. i can live with that for now and hopefully i will figure out how to work around the system’s idiosyncrasies. thanks again for everybody’s input.

joshua schwarz, producer/editor | post josh productions

[Joshua Schwarz]

[Rafael Amador] “There is pre-roll when capturing with FW.
Must be somewhere to set the preroll for your VTR, but as i said you need the software to control the RS-422.
rafael”

i have the preroll for the rs-422 set. it works fine when i mark the in and out and use “clip” to capture. it doesn’t do anything when i use capture “now.” “clip” doesn’t allow open ended capture. you must have an outpoint. i haven’t experimented with firewire capture and timecode. maybe this isn’t the basic question that i thought it was. i’m going to start a thread on the main forum. thanks for your help.

joshua schwarz, producer/editor | post josh productions

[Joshua Schwarz]

thanks. maybe it’s me just being old school. i was taught back in the day that you needed pre-roll to have 100% frame accuracy. capture “now” doesn’t use pre-roll so i don’t trust it. am i wrong?

joshua schwarz, producer/editor | post josh productions

[Joshua Schwarz]

thanks, rafael. yes the decklink has rs-422 control. my issue is with fcp. capture “now” doesn’t use pre-rolling so i don’t see how it can be frame accurate. capture “clip” does pre-roll but it requires you to specify an out in advance which is a pain. i’m looking to do an open-ended digitize with pre-roll.

[Joshua Schwarz]

yup, works. be sure to export the aaf from the avid without embedded media.

[Joshua Schwarz]

thanks, jerry. in a sense you are right. i contacted automatic duck support. fcp thinks the media isn’t from the same tape because i’m importing an embedded aaf file. i was doing that so that i would have an audio-visual reference in low rez of the cut before i redigitized it in fcp. apparently, the trick is to import the aaf without the media and then redigitize. i’ll try it tomorrow and post any issues that come up.

from automatic duck support:
Merged clips are created when you have “use existing media” enabled. If you are recapturing you should import with this option Turned Off. That will create offline non-merged clips for your digitizing pleasure.

– josh

[Joshua Schwarz]

thanks, it’s a nice thought but the box isn’t checked.

i noticed something else. when i check the properties of the clip, it says “merged clip”. i brought this clip into the system as an aaf import using automatic duck. i’m wondering, if that has anything to do with it.

– josh

[Joshua Schwarz]

“Coming from a digital workflow myself, I guess I’m confused as to why you’d want to go back to the tape again when you could just Batch Export or Media Manage straight from the digital files.”

there are a number of scenarios. for example, you are reconstituting a sequence from an old project and the media is no longer online. or, you originally worked in a lower resolution and now that the project is approved, you would like to digitize the sequence at full resolution.

call me old school, but i have yet to have an explanation of pure digital workflow that has the flexibility or cost effectiveness of videotape. and don’t get me started about the archival issues…

– josh

[Joshua Schwarz]

i just tried jason schoenfeld’s suggestion of using the 3.1 profile in ae to convert a prores 1280×720 29.97 fps quicktime into the same size h264. it worked beautifully without the error message that was driving me crazy when i tried to do it with the 3.0 profile. i uploaded it and it looks great and is automatically available in several resolutions on youtube.

i don’t get dave laronde’s criticism of after effects rendering. i’ve been using it for years and think it works fine. it would be more helpful if he would specify his workflow and why it’s better. what’s the best way to create h264 files? i’ve played around with apple compressor and qt player 7 exports but i was unable to get proper results.

i wish i could find a good tutorial that explains mpeg4/h264 profiles. i tried the wikipedia entry but i still don’t get it. wasn’t the idea of profiles to make this stuff easier?

thanks jason. the cow community has once again saved my bacon.

[Joshua Schwarz]

ok i should have watched the full demo before i posted. precision editing is way better than what’s in imovie. the learning curve is going to be brutal but it may be worth the trouble. i don’t quite get how it can completely replace asynchronous trimming but maybe i need to rethink the whole thing. clearly, it is better than pro-sumer.