Michael Escher
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Well, I admit that I haven’t had the chance to use their phone support which I will Thursday (got a shoot Monday through Wednesday).
If anyone out there who knows how to set up the sheer codec to work on FCP would be so kind as to recommend an easy setup I’d really appreciate it.
For the time being, I need a setup that will allow me to capture material shot on the JVC HD100 camera in HDV at 24fps, progressive, playing back from the JVC BR-HD50 deck into a 3ghz dual core intel mac with a Kona LHe card and 5gigs of memory. I’m running the newest OSX 10.5.3 and the latest Final Cut Studio versions.
When I try the KONA easy set up provided with the sheer software, during log and capture my preview on the computer is disabled and my external playback monitor (through my kona card) is likewise a bunch of pink lines. Same thing happens when I choose the generic template.
Even when I change the playback output video settings in the “audio and video settings” to “AJA Kona 720p59.94 8 bit (1280×720) (the one I normally use) and leave the sheer codec as my capture settings, the same thing happens, pink lines and preview disabled.
The sheer codec that I thought was logical and I have been trying to use is the “Kona2:720p60df Sheer Y’CBCr 8bv 4:2:2p”
I’d like to try the codec out and find a way to get it to work. I’ve heard rave reviews and want to have something that I can easily export to a windoz machine without transcoding.
If anyone has a suggested set up or knows about something that I need to do to get it to work (change settings in quicktime pro?) please let me know.
Best,
Michael Escher
Los Angeles, CA -
I beg to differ. There isn’t a real manual for using the software with final cut pro, it’s a generic one for anything mac. I’m still trying to figure out what codec out of the many that they supplied could be the proper one for my JVC HD100 camera and BRHD-50 deck with material shot at 24p. The one I tried to use told me that my capture size would be 250 gigs for less than an hour of HDV. At that size, I’m better off with the ProRes codec. It won’t be cross platform but I can at least get more than a hour on my external drive.
Regarding the Sheer software publishers support, they need to make it simple (spelling out what codec we might need for specific applications) and they need to make is specific (a real manual for Final Cut Pro users or Premier users, not just a generic one for Mac or PC applications.)
Rather than listing what the meanings are of the “keys” of the individual presets are (it’s like deciphering hieroglyphs), why not just give us a clue to the proper one to use for our specific needs (i.e. use codec “so and so” when editing HDV 720p 24fps). That’s what dolts like me need.
If you want to see real support, look at the Aja website. Everything is spelled out in plain terms, even for idiots like me.
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I think I figured it out. When you download the software the installer is in a folder, and in addition there are a couple of other folders with the titles “for Adobe After Effects, “For Adobe Premier Pro” and finally “For Apple Final Cut Pro”. If you open one of those folders you’ll find a document that tells you that it is nessesary to load the files in the folder to your Final Cut Pro (or After Effects or Premier) presets folder.
Seems silly that they don’t have a document in the main folder to tell you that you need to put them in the presets folder. Perhaps it’s taken care of when you buy the product…
Anyhow, thanks for the advice Richard.
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I must have re-posted it last night just before I went to bed and didn’t remember when I got up this morning.
Apologies for the double post.
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No, “I” didn’t. That is unless I was hallucinating last night. Could one of the other editors re-posted this from the other forum?
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Good to know Kevin. Thanks.
Mike E.
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BTW, I neglected to mention that I have an Aja Kona LHe card installed. Is there any cool/special Aja workaround for this sort of thing. Does the card make any difference whatsoever with the problem that I had?
Thanks,
Mike E.
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Yes, I have P2CMS installed. My solution is a bit of a bear, but it’s free. If I get another P2 job I’ll for sure spring for Raylight.
Thanks for all the help everyone!
Mike Escher
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For some reason the re-created “lastclip.txt” file solution isn’t working. I tried and I tried and tried.
But I did find a workaround. It’s awfully kluge-y but it anyone else gets up against it, this might work for you.
In the finder I opened the folder that included the individual clips (all of them minus the lastclip.txt files, natch) and then I selected them all (apple key-A) and with final cut running dragged them all onto the logging bin. Final Cut asked for a “translation file” for each of the individual video clips and since I didn’t have one, I just clicked on “cancel” each time Final Cut asked. I then was able to access the video and all four of the the individual audio channels (only channel one and four had any content on them). I then created a whole bunch of individual timelines, dragged the video and audio channels 1&4 on to each of the timelines, lined up the video and audio tracks to synch them and re-named each timeline to match the names of the P2 files. I’ll export them as 720p quicktimes (the same as what they were shot at) and use them as my masters.
A huge, huge pain in the butt, nonetheless a workable solution to my dilemma.
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Yessir, it went just fine. I had to do a “save as” in quicktime pro and change the checkbox that said “little endian” to convert them to big endian as they requested, but with that file that Kona provided, the capture went just fine.
Thanks again for your help Jeremy!