[Michael Peele]

I think you might also need to uncheck “Use clip settings” in the batch digitize window.
Otherwise it will just redig with the video again.

[Michael Peele]

select all your photos in the browser.

right/command click the aspect ratio column (the actual column, not the header).

you should, iirc, be able to change the aspect to square.

now, when you drag them to the timeline they should be all good. beware, this will not update clips on the timeline. there may be a way to do this to the clips on the timeline, but im not sure.

good luck!

[Michael Peele]

1. Add your clip to the browser/bin first. Check the aspect ratio column. It should say square. If not change it now.

Now, drag your clip to the timeline. It should show correctly.

Imported .psd files always seem to get the aspect ratio of the current setting applied to them, annoying.
IIRC, there is also something about importing clips whose resolution matches the sequence – again FCP tries to be smart and applies an aspect ratio correction to a square pixel image.

2. When you actually go to Batch Capture, you will see an option to add handles, it’s not part of the standard Log & Capture window, or part of capture settings. Beware of tapes with timecode breaks and large handles interfering with (overly) long pre-roll settings.

[Michael Peele]

Just a side note on transcoding the NX5U AVCHD to ProRes…

I have an Octo-core with 12GB. Transcoding was really fast – 3x realtime for clips under 2 mins or so.

Transcode time for longer clips increased incrementally with their length, with 8 min clips taking 20+ minutes to convert. Totally not acceptable.

The culprit? PCM audio. Stick to AC3. I would only use PCM if the content/client dictates it, the clip length will be short and transcode time is not critical.

AC3 audio is transcoding smoothly at 3X realtime, 20min clips transcoding in under 7min! Yipee!

Otherwise our two NX5U’s are shooting beautifully. Lens is awesome – but we might get wide angle adapters for them. Working with a ~22mm lens has spoiled me and our tight shooting location would respond well to wider angle.

[Michael Peele]

Figured it out.
The Sony NX5U has two audio recording modes – PCM and AC3.

PCM (higher quality/less compression/larger file) takes about 3-4X realtime when the clip is over 5min – making the import about 20min – no good.

Using AC3 I am able to convert 13.5min to ProRes422 in about 3.75min – awesome.

So the long and short of it – use AC3 audio. At least in the meantime, especially for LONG clips, situations where audio quality is not absolutely paramount or for time sensitive editing.

Cool.

[Michael Peele]

Well I can understand that the color would be off, or that it might try to stretch or compress a signal to fit the screen.

In my situation, the display is cutting off an arbitrary amount of pixels from the signal, then stretching it back out to 1280×720 (it is showing exactly 1280×720 pixels in 1:1 mode).

Just seems odd, especially on a computer monitor with Dual DVI’s, HDMI, Displayport, Component and SVideo – you would think it knows how to handle resolutions correctly.

What is the specification that denotes whether a display will show the full image?

Mike

[Michael Peele]

Thank you Gary!
I thought for sure those flags were gone.
I’ll give it a shot – this should be a lot easier than my last stop-gap solution of manually pulling out the redundant frames! LOL
Mahalo,
Mike

[Michael Peele]

Thanks for the tip, although I think Matt Larson beat you to it.

Our software versions are:
FCP – 5.0.4
QT – Latest
AE – Latest
Kona Drivers – 3.0 (latest for 5.0.4)

We will be upgrading to 5.1 in the near future, however I doubt it’s going to fix anything. All this seems to point to AE not handling the DVCPROHD codec correctly, but only when the AJA Kona card is installed. Let me know if you are on FCP 5.1 with the AJA 3.3 drivers and still experiencing these issues.

Thanks for the tips guys!
Mike

[Michael Peele]

As we added this card in to our system half way through a project (I know, I know, bad idea…), we don’t have the luxury of exporting our clips as anything other than DVCPRO HD – our AE comps are half done.
I think there is something else weird with the aspect ratio/resolution for the video preview in After Effects.
My only current solution is an uninstall of the AJA drivers while we render in After Effects – and then to reinstall. Not exactly my preferred way of working.

[Michael Peele]

Arghhh!
Thanks guys, not what I wanted to hear, but at least there is a workaround and I know it’s not just my setup.
Is there a known reason why it doesn’t work?
Anybody got an extra HD out card laying around? 🙂
Mike Peele