[Mark Spano]

[caleb crosby] “Frame control area looks like the best way to deinterlace but some of the tests were very time consuming with all controls set to best. Advice would be great.”

Frame controls is the best place to do deinterlacing process in Compressor. “Better” is often as good as “Best” and in much less time. The best way to figure this out is to try the options – you will be the best judge of quality of the encodes.

Often if I am unhappy with a deinterlace coming out of Compressor, I will try JES Deinterlacer. Good options in that program and pretty fast encodes.

[Mark Spano]

You can choose how the pulldown is created in the KONA control panel. In the “Codec” tab…

Set your video output in FCP to the appropriate 29.97 frame rate, then come back here and choose the style of pulldown you require.

[Mark Spano]

Go figure – KONA 3 was the same setup for all three: -1.5 capture, +1 playback offset. This same setting on Friday didn’t work for me though, with duplicate frames and out-of-syncitude. It’s got me laying everything off with a flash/pop now so I can verify. Ugh – I am going to chalk it up to gremlins and call it a night.

[Mark Spano]

Dropped a slug in, had same results. Doing insert edits, if that makes any difference. I started over again. After resetting the prefs and blowing away all of the custom easy setups, I started with a DVW-A500 and the KONA LHe. This was the resulting DCP:

Then I had to set a different one for the SRW-5500:

Then I had to set a different one for the SRW-5500 at 24p:

It sort of makes sense to do this, but a really frustrating task nonetheless. Occasionally, as well, I would get differing landing points on tape for audio/video – I still haven’t found a solution for that, other than restart and sometimes it just fixes itself. I am always going to be suspect about editing to tape with these configs. I’m just not able to be 100% sure this’ll work every time because of the inconsistency. Is there still something I’m overlooking in the setup? I’m going to try in the next day or two to do this whole process over again with the KONA 3.

[Mark Spano]

This one I’ve been testing with only has the clips I captured from tape. No generators, slugs, or gaps. Just solid media.

Sequence: 1080i 59.94 (29.97 fps) Upper First
1 video, 2 audio tracks

[Mark Spano]

Jeremy,

I have read the manual top to bottom. It is still eluding me how to get the behavior to be consistent. I follow the procedures step by step to establish a capture offset with one deck. This is capturing a bunch of times off a striped tape with white pops/beeps at specific timecodes. Great, seems consistent at -2. Now I go to edit to tape some of the footage I just captured. Duplicate frames. I set the Playback Offset to zero (like the manual says) and try again. Count the number of duplicated frames (in this case, 2) and enter that in. Edit to tape again, great, it’s in on the right frame, no duplicate frames. But now, the audio comes in either one field or one frame late. NOT consistently. So here is the rub – there is no way to change audio/video playback offset independently. That, to me, makes Edit To Tape with this configuration unreliable. I would even not mind if the offset were consistently one value, I could factor it into my sequences. But since it’s off by fractions of a frame, and differently each time, it’s useless.

[Jeremy Garchow] “If doing a conversion (up/down/cross) you can pretty much settle on one frame delay.”

These are my results of my prior testing. I ran them by AJA and they confirmed that this is what I should be getting. It’s not consistent, and they agree with my findings. Also – NOT in the manuals…

—
KONA 3 Output – Delay Compensation for Video Conversion

When not performing any conversion on resolution or frame rate, the KONA 3 is frame accurate in edit to tape for video and audio.

—
When upconverting (for example, 525i29.97 to 1080i29.97 – only resolution, not changing frame rate) the output from KONA 3 is frame accurate for audio and 1 frame late for video.

To compensate for this, shift video in sequence earlier by one frame.

When downconverting (for example, 1080i29.97 to 525i29.97 – only resolution, not changing frame rate) the output from KONA 3 is frame accurate for audio and 1 frame late for video.

To compensate for this, shift video in sequence earlier by one frame.
—

—
When converting (1080sf23.976 to 1080i29.97 – adding pulldown only, not changing resolution) the output from KONA 3 is frame accurate for both video and audio.
—

—
When crossconverting (720p59.94 to 1080i29.97) the output from KONA 3 is frame accurate for video and audio is one field early in 29.97i.

When downconverting (720p23.976 to 525i29.97) the output from KONA 3 is frame accurate for video and audio is one field early in 29.97i.

When crossconverting (720p23.976 to 1080i29.97) the output from KONA 3 is frame accurate for video and audio is approximately .4 frame early in 29.97i.

The only true solution to compensate for these types of conversions is to do a separate edit for video (at conversion) and audio (with no conversion), since audio can not easily be shifted accurately by less than a frame in FCP. Or open the audio track in Pro Tools and add the delay time to the beginning of the track, consolidate, and export, then import that into FCP and replace the audio in your sequence with your delay-compensated file.

[Mark Spano]

[Jeremy Garchow] “What is your frame offset set to in your prefs?”

Set to 0 as per AJA.

[Jeremy Garchow] “What is your deck control set to in the capture preset?”

It was set to AJA KONA LH: 29.97 Sony A – been getting some better results due to another suggestion to try Sony B. Noting the only difference between the two is that the Capture Offset in Sony A is -1.5 and in Sony B is -2. I am now assuming that the Capture Offset is really a “TC Read Offset” and that the TC sense coming over 9-pin factors in both capture and edit to tape.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Have you calibrated the deck to fcp and vice-versa?”

I feel like I’ve done this a bunch of times with the A protocol – but since this problem is intermittent, I am never sure if it’s right.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Is the same deck whne laying off also being fed to the input of the Kona?”

Yes.

I wish there was a clear explanation and setup procedure for using AJA’s cards in conjunction with decks. I am thankful to have other people on the net who have come across the same issues as I have and have also figured out workarounds, but these things should be explicit in the manual – specifically how to achieve perfect frame-accurate captures and edits to tape, and how to factor delay times for up/down/cross-conversions. I’ve done a lot of my own research into these areas and every now and then am thrown off by a frame or fractions of.

[Mark Spano]

Use the “Super” out (either composite or SDI), turn on Character (switch under panel), and press Menu. Hours and stuff are the first things in the list.

[Mark Spano]

No worries – the first time I did laybacks in the suite with the FSI, I was going crazy trying to figure out why my audio sounded so weird. Out-of-phase and a little echoey. Only took me a few minutes to realize that the FSI was playing audio in addition to my monitors. Nice feature, but totally unexpected.

[Mark Spano]

[Conan Stott] “Upon capture into Avid MC I would like to remove the pulldown and have it play at 23.976. I havn’t been able to after much playing around so i wonder if it is possible.”

What have you tried? I recently did a job where I needed to edit in 23.976 with HDV footage and it just worked. Created a project 1080/23.976 and captured via firewire. Avid made me 23.976 files from the HDV tapes and it all looked right.

Your other option might be to capture to a 1080/59.94i project, then open a 1080/23.976 project and open your capture bin there, edit with that footage. MC4 will automatically apply the pulldown remove as motion adapters.