Neil Patience
Forum Replies Created
-
Gotcha, I cant find an HDMI to Mini Display port adapter. I did stumble on this article that says they are illegal ! Seems harsh. https://www.slashgear.com/hdmi-to-mini-displayport-cables-declared-illegal-08164010/
So perhaps your issue will be finding a way to connect an I/O to Mini Display. Agree with you about the Matrox and FCP7, never owned one but the odd place I worked at that had that combination I always found the Matrox to be flakey compared to Kona or BM.
Sorry I cant be more helpful, you would have thought it would be a pretty easy thing to do.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
So you are using the camera, in effect, as the analogue to digital converter. I assume that is via firewire from the camera and capturing in a DV codec ?
This should certainly be up to capturing the original VHS quality without loss.As you obviously know the alternative is something like a Canopus ADVC110 https://www.grassvalley.com/products/advc110
I think some models have a TBC inbuilt that can help, you would have to check out which.
You would still be using the same VTR for playback substituting the Canopus for the camera. I am not sure it would make a massive difference to the quality of your digital capture but its possible the Canopus has slightly better circuitry than your camera. VHS is inherently noisy and grainy so are you saying that the digital files are much worse than the original VHS ?
Short of just buying the Canopus and trying it I am not sure how you can really test though.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
Hi Michael
The Matrox with the Samsung HDMI offers you a true video monitoring solution, without an I/O and just using the cinema display you are just using a 2nd computer monitor which does not give proper video monitoring.
An I/O like the Matrox or similar is always going to be a better alternative than any computer display alone for monitoring.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
Hi Tom
Most UK Pal DVD players will play NTSC DVDs equally most TVs, unless ancient, will switch to NTSC. If your TV has one of those on screen displays that pop up and say “1080p” or “Pal” etc then it should tell you your disk is NTSC. You can laos play it in your Mac but thats really all the testing you can do.
[tom bailey] “It seems like it is possible to change the frame rate but get it ‘wrong’: for example I’ve been told in this thread that is wrong the just change the frame rate in FCP”
OK to do a proper standards conversion from PAL to NTSC you would use a hardware standards convertor. You will see names like Snell and Wilcox and Tennerex mentioned in this regard. This correctly adjusts the frame rate and line structure of the signal to go from 625 PAL at 25 frames to 525NTSC at 29.97 frames in the case of standard def TV which your DVD will be. It is more complex than simply changing the frame rate.
FCP is incapable of doing this conversion correctly on its own. It does not process the frames in the correct way so although, in theory, you are changing the frame rate the structure within that is all messed up. You will not get a smooth playback it will be obvious.
This is why you need additional software like Nattress or Compressor in order to make this conversion correctly. In doing this the audio is also correctly adjusted so that it remains in sync. These software convertors will never be as good as a proper hardware conversion but they do an “OK” job some slightly better than others.
Cinema Tools is a kind of odd one in that all it does is to change the flag that controls the frame rate in the quick time file. It literally tells it to play at a different speed. While this does not result in any problems with the picture, apart from the obvious speeding up or slowing down, which may or may not be acceptable. It also changes the pitch of the audio. So you need to correct that.
I hope that helps
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
If you have cinema tools ( I perhaps wrongly assumed you only had FCP to do this) you can conform the frame rate. You will need to first make sure you have a ProRes master file. You can use Compressor or download MPEG Streamclip (free) to create this. This file will still be 25fps. You can then use cinema tools to conform this file to another frame rate. Its instant because all it does is re-write the metadata in the file that controls the speed. The conversion will be clean in terms of picture quality however the audio will change pitch.
So you are then in a situation where you need to re-pitch the audio without changing the duration so it stays in sync.It is possible to do this, I think Logic can do it and there is also a programme called Audacity, which I think is free, that can alter pitch. I have not actually tried this but there will be posts here having done it for sure.
I have never had to make an NTSC DVD from a PAL file so I cant advise you on the workflow for that sadly or if this is going to be a proper way to attack it.You should be able to test the NTSC DVD by playing in on your Mac. I believe it should be 29.97 frames/sec and 720×480 in terms of frame size. However Compressor will have a preset for an NTSC DVD that should work just fine as long as the file you use to create it is correct.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
Hi David
To be honest the 99.7% for the alpha was a made up number, I can’t remember now exactly what it was but it turned out the alpha channel was causing the key to be slightly “transparent” and was not totally keying out. I am not an AE guy but coincidentally the week before I had some still images with a separate matte sent to me and that matte was not quite 100% white so it pretty much had the same effect. So I figured the alpha was possibly the issue, just called up the guy that did the AE and he realised straight away the problem was able to pretty quickly adjust and all was good.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
Hi David
I have had this happen a couple of times where the luminance changes with the addition of the super. Both times it turned out that the matte (alpha) was not quite 100% white but something very slightly off like 99.97% – making that 100% fixed the issue.
I hope it is something that easy.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
Hi Tom
Compressor is not that hard to work out, there are many tutorials available.
Which version of FCP do you have ? If it is 7 then Compressor should be bundled in that software its not a standalone purchase the version for that is 3.5.3
I would have thought Compressor 4 would work as a standalone App, although it is designed to be integrated with FCPX not FCP7 – what probably wont work is the ability to simply “Send to Compressor” from FCP7 directly.
As I said though I am not clear on that so maybe someone else can confirm.
Here is a link to how to use the frame controls in compressor 3 for standards conversion
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
I have had Compressor do some crazy things from time to time and in most cases Digital Rebellions Compressor Repair has worked.
That said in this case it does seem that perhaps something else is at play with other icons being corrupt etc.
However its a free App so worth a shot https://www.digitalrebellion.com/compressorrepair/
I hope it helps but not 100% confident on this one, it cant hurt though.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
[Steve Eisen] “Compressor can do it but Nattress plug in does a better job.”
Totally agree with Steve, the only reason I did not mention Compressor in my post was that Tom said he did not have it.
It would be even cheaper to buy Compressor 4 at £34.99 however it is designed for use with FCPX, While I am pretty sure it does not directly interface with FCP7 maybe you can use it as a standalone App ? I don’t know the answer there again others will.
If thats a possibility make sure your hardware is up to running it first though.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7