[Tony Cope]

OK – glad I posted, because I am now completely confused.

I had my camera set to 720p – and the frame rate to 36 fps. It plays off of the P2 card and in FCP as regular speed footage. ??? I know I’ve shot in 36 fps and the playback was slo-mo… but lately it hasn’t worked.

I was assuming I had read it would only work in either 720p or 1080i (one or the other) and since it didn’t work in 720p, I assumed it was suppose to be set in 1080i. (That’s why I was frustrated that I could set for high speed, but the result was standard speed.) I thought maybe the image was hard to tell if it was in slo-mo, but the voices recorded off the camera mic play back normal…

Let’s see, I have the camera set to:
720/24p – 180.0d
frame rate – 36 fps

Any thoughts on what I am doing wrong? Regardless of how I set my sequences in FCP — shouldn’t the footage playback in slomo off the P2 card?

Thanks for the help,
Tony

[Tony Cope]

Forgot to mention – I am shooting on the HVX-200.

[Tony Cope]

Wow… sounds really messed up. Sorry to hear it.

The 8k sounds familiar – because I had that issue when trying to import P2 in FCP… ends up my clip names were longer than the 31 characters allowed. The clips seemed to process in the righ amount of time, but then when I looked at the names of the imported files, there were “#######” at the end of the name, and the clip was only 8k.

Doesn’t sound like the same issues you have, but it sounded a little familiar, so I thought I’d toss it out to see if it might possibly help.

Good luck with it all…
Tony

[Tony Cope]

I think I’d let the look decide what format to shoot. If you want the 24p look, then I’d shoot 24p. One thing to think on… what is the background footage? Is it 60i or 30p or 24p? It looks kind of odd if you key 24p footage over interlaced footage – kind of distracting.

Another this to consider is: take your time before you shoot and think through every step of your work flow when dumping p2 cards during a shoot. Things can get frantic, and you don’t want to make a mistake when continuously offloading and erasing the cards. (It feels a bit like shooting film. I had an AC who got into the dark bag — in a rush — and suddenly forgot whether she was unloading shot film or loading new film. We ended up processing a roll of unexposed film just to make sure we didn’t trash exposed film. Something can happen of the set that will distract you and then when you go back to your laptop… “Was I getting ready to offload the footage? Or erase the card?”)

Anyway, good luck,
T

[Tony Cope]

What setting was the back switch set to? (I’m not sure at all about this, but it seems like it might need to be set to the P2 setting as opposed to the TAPE setting.)

[Tony Cope]

I tried that and could not exit the ONE SHOT mode. I have since found out that pressing the menu button repeatedly will knock it out of that mode.

Thanks,
T

[Tony Cope]

Thanks for the info.

Actually – I just did a test with 4 frame bursts & 16 frame bursts. When you use the 4x or 16x speed (and remove the right number of frames from the beginning… to get the 4th frames in each burst ot 12th frame in each burst) and then layer them all together in progressively increased opacity….

Wow, very cool effect. Everything is quick motion has a blurred/trailing effect, while the static objects are solid, and the clouds move through the frame in a fluid motion.

[Tony Cope]

I ran into a very good reason to backup the original MXF files. I shot an entire day of b-roll, and was logging and importing the shots one by one in FCP (import P2.) After I did this, I realized that some of the files I had renamed, but never clicked on the ADD TO QUE button. So, those files did not get imported/translated. I was lucky and noticed this before I had a chance to delete anything. I easily could’ve assumed I had all my shots and deleted the originals to save space.

Also, I had created quite a few long named (too long) for these logged clips… and they did not translate properly. They came across as 6k files.

IMO – hard drive space is really cheap… so I will play it safe and always save the original files.

[Tony Cope]

Yes – as far as I know (never tried it.)

Set the camera in deck mode on the switch on the back of the HVX… then make sure the input is set to firewire input. You might be able to control the deck from your computer once the firewire is connected. If not, then I’d add 20 sec. or so of black at the head of your show… start it playing on your PC, then hit record on the HVX (I’m guessing you use the record button under the handle.)

Keep in mind that I’ve never done this, and I do not have my camera in front of me – so this might be only partially correct (and completely frustrating.)

Good luck,
Tony

[Tony Cope]

I’ve had this issue as well – took a little bit to figure out what was up. The issue with wanting to make the names longer than 31 characters is that there’s no way of seeing the scene information and take # included with the clip name… the p2 log makes viewing the scene and take info harder to see at once. Kind of a bummer to have such an arbitrary-seeming limitation. I agree that keeping clip names simple is a good rule of thumb sometimes, but with interview content, I really would like free rein to have names truly represent what the response was to make sorting through all of the comments as precise as possible.

Oh well… I just go back through and rename the clips once they’re in FCP.