[Mark Spano]

You can turn on character inserter on the deck itself like the other folks said. In the menus of the deck you will find H-position, V-position, and display characteristics such as time code only or time code + status display, etc.

For the movies you’ve already captured, or another solution entirely, check out QT Sync – where you can add a text timecode visual overlay to any quicktime file. Super easy and free and doesn’t have to render.

[Mark Spano]

[tyler Granlund] “how would I go about laying off the 29.97 SD from the 5500?”

Right. In order for your 23.976sf tape to play out as 29.97fps SD in the 5500, you need to make sure you have the Format Converter option board installed in the deck. Sorry for neglecting that info before. The FC board allows the SRW to add the correct 2:3 pulldown and achieve correct interlacing on output for both crossconversion and downconversion.

Assuming you have the FC board installed, you just need to enable the correct format conversion in the system settings.

SFT+DIAG
SFT+Maint Check
Others Check
System Menu

There you will see the full panel for video output and conversion. Set the system playback to 1080, Psf, 23.976 – then set FC to 422 1080 59.94i. Hit SFT+F9 (EXEC) and the machine reboots, ready to go.

[Mark Spano]

[tyler Granlund] “HDCAM Deck has no analog outs”

what everybody else said about the KONA 3, *plus* the HDCAM SRW-5500 does have composite video output and analog audio outputs…

[Mark Spano]

[Aj Koch] “How do I achieve keeping my splits sounding identical to the Full Mix without having them adding to each other, going over the broadcast legal -10db?”

Here’s where it went wrong:

[Aj Koch] “Our audio sweetener limited the Full Mix and all split tracks to -10db.”

You can’t separately limit the split passes and have them subsequently have any relation to the mix anymore. The mixer should not have limited the split passes. Theoretically, like you tried, the split passes added together at unity levels should equal the mix. When they are limited separately, the balance changes and when added together, it won’t sound right and will sum too hot.

What should normally happen is the split passes should be layed down at mix level – not limited again. If the mix has a bus limiter on it, then that bus limiter setting will have to be applied once the split passes are summed together to get the mix exact.

[Mark Spano]

When I was doing massive testing to figure out similar problems I had with conversions and delays with KONA 3, I figured it out. I corroborated my findings with AJA as well. From my notes:

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.

If you aren’t getting this exact result, then perhaps you need to configure your Capture Offset in Device Control settings. This number can be set in increments of half frames (fields). For KONA 3, I came up with -1.5 as the number. Also, I have noticed weirdness with it set to read via LTC+VITC, so I set to LTC only and haven’t had any issues since. Good luck.

EDIT: as the above probably leads you to this conclusion: video and audio will be out of sync. The only true solutions to compensate for these types of conversions is to either do a separate edit for video (at conversion) and audio (with no conversion), OR slide the audio by one field (if it’s a single clip in your timeline, open in viewer and shift-click-drag to park the play head one field early and mark in, then edit back in to sequence. If it’s not a single clip, then do two passes.)

[Mark Spano]

[Will Fleisher] “It looks as if it’s playing in slo-mo”

Had the same problem. The card must be in the right slot in the computer in order for full bandwidth throughput to be optimal. Check out this page for more info:

https://www.aja.com/support/kona/kona-system-configuration.php

[Mark Spano]

Chad’s right – the VITC is different, causing your in point setting to be wrong. You should be able to force it to read only LTC with the switch under the panel. Set both decks to LTC and try setting the points again. Otherwise, I’d go with Chad’s CTL point setting.

[Mark Spano]

[Eric Olson] “Is it easy to transfer .omf files between the programs?”

You can make very basic OMF files from FCP to import into Pro Tools. When you do, make sure you do not have any clips on your timeline that are “inactive” or muted – this is the easiest thing to trip up the import into Pro Tools.

FCP will not import OMF files from Pro Tools without Automatic Duck.

You can import and export OMF files in and out of Pro Tools provided it is either Pro Tools HD with DigiTranslator or Pro Tools LE with DVToolkit.

[Mark Spano]

Your best bet would be to ask them – find a contact at the station who can put you in touch with whoever’s going to have to ingest and broadcast this. They will tell you exactly what they require, and then if you need, come back and we can help you figure out how to do that. It’s not much use to guess what they’d want.

[Mark Spano]

Not using the exact same source as you (1920×1080, 29.97fps) but using Quicktime conversion from FCP, I was able to get a letterbox DV file. Using these settings:
Export using Quicktime Conversion
Quicktime Movie – settings:
Compression: DV/DVCPRO – NTSC
Quality: Best
Scan Mode: Interlaced
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Dimensions: 720×480 NTSC 4:3
Preserve using Letterbox

Took the HD sequence and made a DV quicktime 4:3 letterbox. If there’s a bug somewhere it may be in the sequence settings or something. I can’t think of why it wouldn’t work.