[Tim Johnston]

Just talked to Canon (didn’t reallize you could call and actually talk to a real person — AWESOME!), and they said that we’ve already tried all the things that they recommend. They’re starting a case and will keep me posted.

The cameras we used were rentals, so we could not try the following:
7) Copy the CF card image back onto a CF card and insert it into the camera. Upon insertion, often, the camera will identify that there’s a corrupt clip and will fix it.

One more note to add:
8) We often have corrupt clips from this camera, about 3 out of the 300-or-so clips that we’ve shot so far, and most of the time the clips will simply not play or be recognized by any software, including Canon XF Utility. What’s unique about this one, is that it does play in the Utility, barring any scrubbing on the timeline.

-Tim

[Tim Johnston]

Thanks, Dave. I forgot about the ‘Paint on Transparent’ option within the Paint effect. If I do it on a solid, instead of adjustment layer, adding the Drop Shadow effect after it gives me the look I want – no need to PreComp.

FCS 3
AE 10.0.1.19
ProTools 8.0.4cs2
Mbox2Pro
Matrox MXO2 mini
OSX 10.6.6
MacPro 2×2.7GHz
8GB RAM

[Tim Johnston]

Haha, yeah I was actually using 23.98 as shorthand! My comp and settings are all 23.976

Thanks for the help!

FCS 3
AE 10.0.1.19
ProTools 8.0.4cs2
Mbox2Pro
Matrox MXO2 mini
OSX 10.6.6
MacPro 2×2.7GHz
8GB RAM

[Tim Johnston]

Wow, thanks for doing the leg-work to figure that out! Where might one find the 1.9.1 drivers? Probably not relevant for me, since I need to use it with Avid.

I did figure out, though, that is looks fine as long as all of your alpha layers are matted. Any alpha layer that isn’t on top of another solid or video layer will just look scrambled and like garbage. Once it’s matted over something else it looks fine through WYSIWYG. Think I’m going to just carry on with latest drivers, and keep in mind that I need to mat everything to get a decent preview.

[Tim Johnston]

OK, after tooling with it a bit, I have another clue. It seems I can control the output setting by changing the preferences here:

System Preferences > Matrox MXO2 Mini > WYSIWYG > Video Format

But changing the output within AE does nothing. This seems like odd behavior to me (that you can’t control the output from AE directly), but maybe there’s something I’m not understanding here.

Also, here are my system settings:

Mac Pro 2×2.27GHz
8GB RAM
OSX 10.6.6
Matrox MXO2 mini (desktop)
fw 11.1
sw 2.1.1.0050
AE 10.0.1.19

Thanks again in advance!

[Tim Johnston]

OK, well that settles it. Changing the composition frame rate to 23.976 fixed it. I’m upset that FCP inaccurately reports my clips’ frame rates to be 23.98, when the HVX actually shoots them at 23.976. Are they running short on decimal places or what?

FCS 3
AE CS4
ProTools 8.0.3
OSX 10.6.3
MacPro 2×2.8GHz Quad
4gb 800mhz DDR2

[Tim Johnston]

Ah, thanks for the correction! It’s refreshing to know AE calls a spade a spade. My comp says 23.98 in AE, so now I’m *convinced* that’s the problem. Will try and report back.

[Tim Johnston]

Yeah, that’s too bad. Seems tedious to do things that way. More HDD space, more time, more steps, more to keep track of…

FCS 3
AE CS4
ProTools 8.0.3
OSX 10.6.3
MacPro 2×2.8GHz Quad
4gb 800mhz DDR2

[Tim Johnston]

Well, I guess if AE isn’t reporting 23.98 properly, what’s to say FCP, or even my HVX200 is reporting it properly. I’m just assuming the footage all works in the same time base, regardless of whether it’s

Plus, what I’m rendering is 15-seconds long, and the error occurs at 5 seconds in. I’m not sure that’s long enough to feel a discrepancy between 23.98 and 23.976. Well, but I suppose it could be 2000-or-so frames into the original clip…

I suppose a simple test would be to chop the original clip down a few frames and see if the error happens in the same place, or that many frames later?

At this point, I’ve solved the issue by chopping the beginning of the comp down 20 frames or so. It renders just fine — completely seamless! So I guess that makes it even more of a mystery.

FCS 3
AE CS4
ProTools 8.0
OSX 10.5.8
MacPro 2×2.8GHz Quad
4gb 800mhz DDR2

[Tim Johnston]

The self-contained version didn’t work — same problem. Odd…

Rebooting didn’t work, either. Guess I’ll have to try trashing prefs, then. Weird that it’s so persistent.

FCS 3
AE CS4
ProTools 8.0
OSX 10.5.8
MacPro 2×2.8GHz Quad
4gb 800mhz DDR2