Final Cut Pro does not seem to work with JVC Pro HD at DVinfo.net

Ben De Rydt · May 16th, 2007, 02:16 AM

I was under the false impression that Final Cut Pro had problems capturing JVC Pro HD material at the beginning and the end of shots but things turn out to be much worse.

We shot about 10 hours of material with a JVC HD200 in 720p25 and captured it with a JVC BR-50 deck into Final Cut Pro 5.1.4 . About half of our takes have one or several breaks in the middle of the take where a few frames or even a few seconds are missing. These are not drop frames: the footage plays fine on a monitor connected to the deck. We will be required to recapture everything with DVHSCap and recompress all footage to AIC in MPEG Streamclip, losing timecode in the process.

Frankly I don't understand why Final Cut Pro even bothers to mention support for 720p25 HDV material if it doesn't work at all. I also find it hard to understand why none of these problems turn up with Sony HDV, which I've been using with FCP for more then a year.

Steve Benner · May 16th, 2007, 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben De Rydt

I was under the false impression that Final Cut Pro had problems capturing JVC Pro HD material at the beginning and the end of shots but things turn out to be much worse.

We shot about 10 hours of material with a JVC HD200 in 720p25 and captured it with a JVC BR-50 deck into Final Cut Pro 5.1.4 . About half of our takes have one or several breaks in the middle of the take where a few frames or even a few seconds are missing. These are not drop frames: the footage plays fine on a monitor connected to the deck. We will be required to recapture everything with DVHSCap and recompress all footage to AIC in MPEG Streamclip, losing timecode in the process.

Frankly I don't understand why Final Cut Pro even bothers to mention support for 720p25 HDV material if it doesn't work at all. I also find it hard to understand why none of these problems turn up with Sony HDV, which I've been using with FCP for more then a year.

This is actually an issue with the camera. Look here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=93647

We HD100/110 owners are still waiting for our firmware update.

Drew Curran · May 16th, 2007, 04:28 AM

I've had exactly the same problems. There seems to be no reason for it. I'm suspecting its a firewire blip or mpeg2 stream problem. No one seems to know.

Lets hope the firmware revision will be made for the HD100 series.

I use DVHScap and MPEG Streamclip to avoid this problem.

Drew

Ben De Rydt · May 16th, 2007, 05:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Benner

This is actually an issue with the camera. Look here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=93647

We HD100/110 owners are still waiting for our firmware update.

I've seen that thread and it looks to be for American (HD-xx0U) models only. Plus, noone has confirmed that this update actually works.

Robert Castiglione · May 16th, 2007, 06:03 AM

Ben, I understand your frustrations with this issue all too well.

I think that JVC needs to make it clear to potential users that there are problems with using Final Cut Pro at this stage so that people can make informed decisions about what camera to buy and what NLE to use before they start major projects.

Despite the issues with FCP capture I have to say that I love the look of the JVC in 25P mode too much to abandon the camera at this stage.

The DVHSCAP and MPEGstream route is time consuming but at least it is a workable solution.

Rob

Neil Rostance · May 16th, 2007, 06:16 AM

I know exactly what you mean. I've had to capture with HDVxDV which has knocked the hour long clips out of sync with the audio at completely random places. That's another 2 hours re-syncing audio.

I don't regret buying ProHD, but this is terrible workflow.

Ben De Rydt · May 16th, 2007, 07:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Castiglione

Ben, I understand your frustrations with this issue all too well.

My frustration with the issue is that nobody ever said - in plain english - that it doesn't work. I knew there were issues and I did my research before using the camera but if you look for instance in the firmware update thread, you'll find what most people people are talking about is pre- and postroll problems which I understand and accounted for while shooting. Now it turns out that nobody, at least nobody who answered this thread, is actually using the JVC with Final Cut Pro the way it's supposed to work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Castiglione

I think that JVC needs to make it clear to potential users that there are problems with using Final Cut Pro at this stage so that people can make informed decisions about what camera to buy and what NLE to use before they start major projects.

I think JVC has a major problem in Europe: how can you sell a semi-professional camera when it is not supported by/doesn't work with the 2 major NLE's, Avid and Final Cut Pro?

Eric Darling · May 16th, 2007, 07:41 AM

The workaround that we've got going, and it works rather well, is to use the Kona LHe card in conjunction with our BR-HD50 via RS-422 for deck control and component for video. That way, you can digitize directly to either uncompressed or DVCPRO HD. Sure, you're transcoding, but the results are very good, and it works for us. Plus, you get to move to an i-frame codec, which helps out in post production.

It would be nice for JVC to fix the bug, though.

Neil Rostance · May 16th, 2007, 08:56 AM

Does anybody know if the firmware upgrade for 100's 110's is on it's way at all??

What i can't understand is why are the breaks in time-code so very random, what makes it happen??

Djee Smit · May 16th, 2007, 01:35 PM

Does this problem only occur when you shoot hdv 25p? Because I'm considering buying one, and besides some hdv shootings, a lot for 'plain' sd filming..

William Hohauser · May 16th, 2007, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben De Rydt

Now it turns out that nobody, at least nobody who answered this thread, is actually using the JVC with Final Cut Pro the way it's supposed to work.

I think JVC has a major problem in Europe: how can you sell a semi-professional camera when it is not supported by/doesn't work with the 2 major NLE's, Avid and Final Cut Pro?

Perhaps nobody is able to work with it in PAL as advertised but I am working with it in NTSC and except for the dropped footage at camera pause issue, it has been working fine for me. I use a DTD device when shooting 30p but only tape when shooting 24p.

Antony Michael Wilson · May 16th, 2007, 05:11 PM

FCP works fine with me on 720p/25 material capture from the HD100. There is the expected issue around shot breaks but apart from that everything is as I would expect. If we shoot with a safe margin of 5 seconds after hitting rec, everything is fine on capture so far. SD (DV) 25p shooting should present no problems whatsoever.

Steve Mullen · May 16th, 2007, 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben De Rydt

These are not drop frames: the footage plays fine on a monitor connected to the deck.

I'm not sure that the fact the monitor shows no glitches tells you what you think:

1) DOC always tries to conceal errors and the JVC "may" use this on analog output.

2) The glitch could be the loss of TC data.

3) Have you tried an Immediate capture with NO VTR control? Use Scene Detect to allow the tape to play.

4) Because there have been few reports -- one thinks of tape and or head problems. What tape? Heads cleaned?

PS 1: It's amazing to me Avid STILL does support 720p25. Did they simply write off Region 50?

PS 2: Avid claims 720p30 TC can't be used for Batch Capture, but 1080i TC can be used. Interesting.

Gary Williams · May 16th, 2007, 08:05 PM

How about it Carl when is JVC going to fix this we brought them into the game and now thier going to leave us out to dry?

David Knaggs · May 17th, 2007, 01:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antony Michael Wilson

FCP works fine with me on 720p/25 material capture from the HD100. There is the expected issue around shot breaks but apart from that everything is as I would expect. If we shoot with a safe margin of 5 seconds after hitting rec, everything is fine on capture so far. SD (DV) 25p shooting should present no problems whatsoever.

I'm glad to see your report on this, Antony. I'll stick my neck out and hazard a guess that you are capturing to a very adequate rig (CPU speed, lots of RAM, probably Intel, plus the drives you are capturing to have plenty of free space and so are not struggling to find space to write to) plus you probably have only ever used one brand of tape (probably Pro HD, possibly Sony) and if you ever did happen to change tape brands in the past you gave the heads a very thorough cleaning.

I'm guessing this because of a post made by Tim about two weeks ago (which, oddly, seems to have been largely ignored) explaining the nitty-gritty of what FCP is doing when capturing the JVC stream and the factors which, if addressed, will increase the result (CPU speed and type, RAM, tape, etc.) and help eliminate the "mid-stream break" problem:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....25&postcount=2

Although he's talking about 720p24, I feel it's equally relevant to 720p25 capture.

And lastly, just for my own personal curiosity, were the tapes recorded with the TC GENE switch set to REC or to REGEN?

May 16th, 2007, 02:16 AM	#1
Ben De Rydt Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 139	Final Cut Pro does not seem to work with JVC Pro HD I was under the false impression that Final Cut Pro had problems capturing JVC Pro HD material at the beginning and the end of shots but things turn out to be much worse. We shot about 10 hours of material with a JVC HD200 in 720p25 and captured it with a JVC BR-50 deck into Final Cut Pro 5.1.4 . About half of our takes have one or several breaks in the middle of the take where a few frames or even a few seconds are missing. These are not drop frames: the footage plays fine on a monitor connected to the deck. We will be required to recapture everything with DVHSCap and recompress all footage to AIC in MPEG Streamclip, losing timecode in the process. Frankly I don't understand why Final Cut Pro even bothers to mention support for 720p25 HDV material if it doesn't work at all. I also find it hard to understand why none of these problems turn up with Sony HDV, which I've been using with FCP for more then a year. __________________ Please keep in mind that English is not my native language.

May 16th, 2007, 04:28 AM	#3
Drew Curran Major Player Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: N. Ireland Posts: 370	I've had exactly the same problems. There seems to be no reason for it. I'm suspecting its a firewire blip or mpeg2 stream problem. No one seems to know. Lets hope the firmware revision will be made for the HD100 series. I use DVHScap and MPEG Streamclip to avoid this problem. Drew __________________ Pixol www.pixol.co www.facebook.com/pixolmedia www.twitter.com/pixolmedia

May 16th, 2007, 01:35 PM	#10
Djee Smit Regular Crew Join Date: May 2005 Location: Breda, Netherlands Posts: 141	Does this problem only occur when you shoot hdv 25p? Because I'm considering buying one, and besides some hdv shootings, a lot for 'plain' sd filming.. __________________ www.wanah.nl

May 16th, 2007, 08:05 PM	#14
Gary Williams Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Rocklin, California Posts: 287	Question for Carl Hicks How about it Carl when is JVC going to fix this we brought them into the game and now thier going to leave us out to dry?

May 16th, 2007, 06:03 AM	#5
Robert Castiglione Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Fremantle, Western Australia Posts: 253	Ben, I understand your frustrations with this issue all too well. I think that JVC needs to make it clear to potential users that there are problems with using Final Cut Pro at this stage so that people can make informed decisions about what camera to buy and what NLE to use before they start major projects. Despite the issues with FCP capture I have to say that I love the look of the JVC in 25P mode too much to abandon the camera at this stage. The DVHSCAP and MPEGstream route is time consuming but at least it is a workable solution. Rob

May 16th, 2007, 06:16 AM	#6
Neil Rostance Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Lace Market, Nottingham, UK Posts: 194	I know exactly what you mean. I've had to capture with HDVxDV which has knocked the hour long clips out of sync with the audio at completely random places. That's another 2 hours re-syncing audio. I don't regret buying ProHD, but this is terrible workflow.

May 16th, 2007, 07:41 AM	#8
Eric Darling Major Player Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Savannah, GA Posts: 463	The workaround that we've got going, and it works rather well, is to use the Kona LHe card in conjunction with our BR-HD50 via RS-422 for deck control and component for video. That way, you can digitize directly to either uncompressed or DVCPRO HD. Sure, you're transcoding, but the results are very good, and it works for us. Plus, you get to move to an i-frame codec, which helps out in post production. It would be nice for JVC to fix the bug, though.

May 16th, 2007, 08:56 AM	#9
Neil Rostance Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Lace Market, Nottingham, UK Posts: 194	Does anybody know if the firmware upgrade for 100's 110's is on it's way at all?? What i can't understand is why are the breaks in time-code so very random, what makes it happen??

May 16th, 2007, 05:11 PM	#12
Antony Michael Wilson Major Player Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: London, UK Posts: 343	FCP works fine with me on 720p/25 material capture from the HD100. There is the expected issue around shot breaks but apart from that everything is as I would expect. If we shoot with a safe margin of 5 seconds after hitting rec, everything is fine on capture so far. SD (DV) 25p shooting should present no problems whatsoever.