[Lars Fuchs]

Yeah, I beat my head against the wall with this one too. But honestly, its a ‘six of one, half-dozen of the other’ situation. Often in avid I wish the keyframes would stay in place when I trim. I think the ‘advanced keyframes’ functionality in Avid offers an option for this but I’m not at an Avid now, so I can’t be sure.

Slightly unrelated, but that’s one of the things I like about Lyric’s PanZoomPro plugin – trim the clip length and the duration changes with it.

There are a whole heck of a lot of things that I stub my toes on going back and forth between avid and fcp (something I do a lot), but I find that its easier just to go with the flow and not get upset about features found in one that aren’t in the other.

I found that eventually I just got to know them both really well and can deal with each on their own terms.

Good luck!

[Lars Fuchs]

Okay, so it turns out that the screws around the viewfinder only hold the viewfinder cover plate (which in turn holds the eyecup) in place. I took it off only to find that I couldn’t get to any of the optical path to the viewfinder. It looks now like I’ll have to do a complete disassemble to fix it.

First I’m going to see what the footage looks like. If its making nice pictures, then the problem is only the viewer part of the path. Then I might just decide to live with it. I’m also going to contact du-all to see what they charge for an estimate and/or repair.

Stay tuned!

[Lars Fuchs]

[Richard Chenoweth] “I cannot find out much about this old (1970s) GAF 8/Super 8 projector. Not adjustable.
I assume it’s playing 24 fps then.”

Don’t make that assumption. Its much more likely to be running at 18fps. That was the de-facto standard for Super 8mm. Only higher-end gear could do 24 fps, and there’s usually a speed selector on those models (both projectors and cameras). As far as I know there are no super 8 cameras that shoot 24 fps only; every camera I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a few) is either 18 fps only or 18/24 switchable. Some have other speeds as well, like 9 fps and 32 or 54 fps for slomo’s; but 18 fps is the common speed.

Go to Onsuper8.org and scroll down to the bottom right. There you’ll find a bunch of diy telecine links.

A common approach is to fix the projector’s frame rate to 20fps (giving you 60fps with a 3-bladed shutter, perfect for ntsc) by phase-locking it to the 60hz household AC current.

[Lars Fuchs]

Thanks for posting that link!
-LF

[Lars Fuchs]

If the Vixia has variable shutter speeds, you should try to experiment with them. You’re dealing with a phase problem – your 3-bladed shutter produces 54 fps and 72 fps when running at 18 or 24 fps respectively, and I assume the camera is running at 29.97. Different shutter speeds can help mininimize the effect. The other way is to use a variable speed projector and manually ride the speed control to keep it as close to 20 fps as possible.

Good luck!

[Lars Fuchs]

[Rafael Amador] “You did answer your own question: Because iMovie is not Time Code based.
You can try to set FC to be less demanding about TC requirements. In your Users Preffs, uncheck:
– Abort capture on dropped frames.
– Set “On TC breaks: Warn after capture”.
– Uncheck “Warn when importing non-optimized media””

tried these settings, still aborted with the same error. I tried QTpro again ( Thanks for the tip btw), but no joy. Got this error:

Recording stopped because the formate of the source media changed.
Media of different formats cannot be recorded to the same file.

So it definitely seems like there are errors in the dv datastream. I would guess that iMovie, as a consumer app, is designed to accept more errors to improve usability for the casual user. It would be nice though, if FCP had a user-variable error threshold; at least one could ingest troublesome footage and decide later what to do with it. After all, some footage is usually better than none!

Interestingly, the audio hits sound different in iMovie. In fcp the tape has repeated momentary lapses of sound – silence. In iMovie there is some sound with digital-sounding noise artifacts. That too suggests to me that iMovie is trying harder to get at least something into the system.

[Lars Fuchs]

Hi Gang,

had the same problem. Tried iMovie before checking the forum, discovered that it worked, but without TC. Then I found this thread.

But can anyone explain why iMovie will capture a tape from the same PD-170 that FCP can’t capture from? (the same camera was used to record the footage.) During playback, audible gaps are present in the audio. In other threads on this topic people have described this phenomenon. They have tried using different decks with persistent problems, so it appears to be tape not machine based. So what is iMovie accepting that FCP rejects?

BTW, I tried to use QT Pro (QT->File->New Movie Recording) and was only able to record from the built in iSight of the macbookpro. Can anyone recommend a better capture tool alternative to iMovie? Preferrably freeware?

Thanks

[Lars Fuchs]

Well, if you haven’t already shot your footage, you could just shoot 8mm film. You can still get film, processing, and quality transfers for regular 8. ( see Onsuper8.org for lots of good links). Typically the flares come from the ends of the daylight rolls which are exposed when the camera is opened. (if you want to use super 8, which is easier to come by, you can flash the cartridge in a couple of places to try and duplicate the effect. Its tougher with super 8 because of the cartridge.) A spring wound 16mm camera might give you the best results.

Or you could buy some stock fooage. Here are two that came up in my first quick-and-dirty search:
https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/114977/film-flash-4.html or
https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/114973/16mm-film-flash-1.html

and I’m sure iStockphoto and the other online stock houses have similar stuff. As previously mentioned in the thread, just put them in a higher video track and set comp mode to screen. You might also want to add some subtle (or not so subtle) speed ramps around the flashes.

[Lars Fuchs]

I don’t know why this should be happening. But my first guess would be stroboscoping. Did you try to run the clip forward, but at %50 speed, in the canvas? If it appears to be running forward when slo-mo’d then that’s probably whats happening. The Viewer and the canvas playback differently; The viewer will attempt to playback as well as it can whatever you put in it, but the canvas has to playback at the resolution, quality, and frame rate set in the sequence settings and RT settings.

You might also check your RT settings.

What are the specs of the clip you’re trying to play and the sequence you’re trying to cut it into (frame rate, codec, resolution?) I’ve seen odd time/motion effects when cutting 30 fps interlaced footage into a 24 fps progressive timeline.

[Lars Fuchs]

I forgot to mention one problem I sometimes get myself into with this system. I’ll make a copy of sequence, say going from Rev B to Rev C, but instead of continuing work on Rev C I actually keep working of Rev B. Then a few hours later, after lunch break for example, I look at rev C and panic, because all of my edits are missing!

After the palpitations die down I realize what I’ve done, rename the two sequences and carry on. THis is usually caused by duplicating the sequence in the bin but forgetting to open it in the canvas.

So its not a perfect system.