[Paul Hillman]

Aha, the sync sounds like it’s clearly my issue. This is my first attempt to capture anything in 1080psf 23.98, so there’s some research I need to do on the engineering end of things. At the moment, I just had the HDSDI signal coming into the Kona 3 card from the Sony HDW-D1800 deck, and I have noticed FCP is capturing (using the 1080i 29.97 preset mentioned above) the 23.98fps material to 29.97fps by writing each frame in a 29.97fps clip, thereby shortening the overall time by 20% and slightly speeding up the action.

So do I need a standalone sync generator to capture this 1080psf 23.98 footage at true 23.98, or can I run sync directly to/from the HDCAM deck and the Kona cards? We are a growing shop, and currently don’t have a standalone generator, but do have other HD decks if those can also serve as sync generators.

thanks.

[Paul Hillman]

I’m in a similar boat as the original poster. I have HDCAM tapes that are recorded in 1080psf 23.98 (archival film transfers), and want to follow this latest suggestion to capture at 23.98 using a Kona 3 card via HDSDI. However, I can’t get a clean picture in my log and capture window when setting the capture preset to anything but AJA Kona3: 1080i 29.97 DVCPro HD?!!? (The rest of the show was shot with a Varicam and we’re editing in a 720p 23.98 DVCPro HD timeline, hence the DVCPro HD codec in the capture preset).

So,

#1: Am I missing any settings in order to capture the 1080psf 23.98 footage into a FCP system with a Kona 3? I’ve tried the 1080psf 23.98 DVCProHD and the 1080psf 24 DVCProHD capture presets, and neither give me a clean picture in the log and capture window.

#2: The issue with capturing using the 1080i 29.97 DVCPro HD capture preset is that FCP keeps detecting timecode breaks since the timecode is 24 based on the HDCAM tape. I’m capturing it now by setting FCP to ignore timecode breaks, but this doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy.

Any ideas on best practice here?