Jeff, are there similar capture problems with PAL video on FCP 3? Or is this a dropped frame in NTSC issue only?
Will I be forced to capture only 20 mins of footage at a time in PAL?
Best,
Ram

Daniel:
...Would be delightful if you could post those uncompressed-options-with-FCP links you mentioned. The Kona card sounds interesting, I hadn't heard of it till your response.
Also: When's FCP 4 coming out? Should I be getting FCP 3 now? :-) [Plan on getting my NLE setup within the fortnight!)
Best,
Ram

It's not a drop frame issue. Read the link to Adam Wilt's page that i posted above. It's a mini DV problem of sorts. Normally, the sync adjust box takes care of it. I believe there is another issue involved with PD150film's setup. I'm going to post a reply for him this morning.

Jeff

I have purchased the Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge and I'm having several issues, both capture and playback. I'm not sure if it's the Dazzle Product, FCP, or me.

I am running an iMac G3 500MHz with 256RAM. MAC OS 9.0.4
My capture/edit software is Final Cut Pro 1.2.5

1) footage previously captured directly via firewire plays back through Hollywood DV-Bridge with severe flickering of color. I have switched monitors, firewire cables and RCA cables and still have the problem. Also, thinking it may be a PAL issue, I tried resetting default of the DV Bridge to NTSC and still have problem.
(A recommended fix on Dazzle.com)

2) footage captured through Hollywood DV-Bridge seems to capture and playback fine on computer, however DV-Bridge will not play new clips to external monitor. Green LED turns orange when captured clip is loaded into FCP playback or record window.

I have the same questions posted to Dazzle, but this site is usually pretty fast with info.
Any help would be great.

Thanks
Kev

Hi Kev,

I've used Dazzle units, not recently, but not with a G3. The Dazzle unit worked fine with a G4 and FCP 2 in OS 9.x.x I used it to get video in and out for a client. No problems. If Dazzle doesn't have an answer I'd say send it back. I just checked Apple's site and the Hollywood Bridge is not on the Qualified Devices list for FCP 1.2.5 and that sure could be your problem. I'd certainly ask Dazzle about it.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60885

Jeff

I shot my footage on Sony PD-150 wih the DVCam option. Now i am editing on FCP 3.0
My question is: can I capture my tapes using my JVC miniDV dual deck (model # HR-DVS2U) or should I use my Camera to finish capturing to he hard drive? Is ther a difference in using either to capture to FCP, since I filmed using the DVCam option on my camera as oppose to the regular miniDV option?
I rather use my mini DV deck so I don't have to wear off the head on he camera !

I don't think the JVC can play back DVCam. I think you would want to use the Sony so you'd have locked audio and avoid your other problem, even if the JVC could play it back.

Jeff

well jeff, I have the "audio playback quality" set on high. So whenever I play the footage that is 48001.2 hz I get a beeping. BUt if I play it on low or medium then I don't get the peeping when it's played. Not sure if this info wil help.
Also, is there a way to check when I am capturing to see if the audio capture is being done at 48.0 khz?

Hello:

I agree with Jeff. Perhaps, in the future, you should shoot without using the DVCAM option since JVC uses DVCPRO. I relly don't know if any harm is done.

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

umm, what's a DVCpro? Although the quality stays the same between mini-dv and DVcam, I was told to use the DVCAM mode to prevent dropouts! Suxh a life fo a newbie lol :)

DVCPro is Panasonic Broadcast's proprietary response to Sony's proprietary DVCAM.

How many real time audio tracks do you have slected for playback? This is a preferences setting. While we're on preferences I would suggest that you delete them. This is the article on The Knowledge Base at Apple that covers deleting preferences, #31197. Go to the support section, Knowledge Base, and enter that number. In OS X Preferences folder (~/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data. Delete this file and restart your computer and try your captures again. DO NOT do this in the middle of a project unless absolutly necessary. All your settings will be lost and need to be entered again. Once I get my preferences the way I like them, I make a copy of the preference file and rename it Spare File. That way if I have to trash them, I don't have to set everything over again.

Other things to look at are what Firewire control are you using? How are your files setup? For optimum performence the OS should be on one partition, FCP on a second partition, and capture to a second drive. If you are running everything and capturing to one large partition that could be part of your problem.

Jeff

Thanks for your help.
I think I have figured out some of my problems.

I upgraded my OS to 9.2.2 and that made the output MUCH better but still not acceptable. The color still won't sync up. Someone said the DV-Bridge is not very stable and recommended a converter from Canopus, which I have used with Avid DVXpress and never had trouble with.

As for the input issue, I was using DV aspect 720x640 and when I switched to square pixels 640x480 it showed up fine. However, now the clips need to be rendered.

Now for a new set of questions.

1) If I upgrade to FCP 3.0 will I still have to render.
2) can I mix the different clips into the same sequence?

Thanks

Kev

When I used the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge it required no rendering in FCP 2.02 I believe. It did what you would expect and the color and everything closely approximated the original footage (VHS). I think the clips could be mixed after rendering. Try one clip if not it can always be deleted. Has Dazzle responded to your questions yet?

Jeff

I just did another test. I captured VHS composite to FCP at 640x480 and it played in the timeline without rendering. Even though it still had the red line over the clip. I imported a DV captured clip and put it in the seq. and then had to render the VHS clip. But now my color won't lock again.

Dazzle has not gotten back to me yet.

I'm returning the product and going with the Canopus one instead,

Thanks for all your help.

Kev

The Canopus product is very nice also. I think you just got a defective Dazzle unit. Sorry for your luck and let me know how the Canopus works out.

Jeff

I just installed OSX on my Mac. After re-installing FCP 1.2.5 (I know, I know, I need to upgrade) it doesn't recognize the firewire and gives me continuous errors. I went back into i-Movie and I can import footage just fine.

Is there a setting somewhere I can get FCP to start seeing that I do have firewire and everything is working fine?

All the settings are basic : R/T is 8 tracks, Audio quality is set on High. I just did a capture and I checked the audio rate on the browser after it was done and it is 42:0000.6 HZ I can play it from the browser at high quality but it beeps! The sync is NOT affetced! again, it is in sync until the last frame! But I was told the beeping when I play it in high quality is due to the discrepency of the capture! I am not rying to stomp u guys I swear :) It's just annoying why I can recapture the same footage and get a perfect 48.0 khz and do it again and get an odd HZ number!

Reduce the number of RT tracks and see what happens. What G4 are you running it on? Are you using FCP 3.0.2?

Jeff

Forgive my confusion, but you ARE using FCP in OS 9 right? Not in OS X via Classic?

try opening the capture device prefs and set the firewire preference to firewire basic. Or maybe you have Media Cleaner installed, that will have given you extra extensions that will mess with FCP, extensions for another capture card.

BTW, why did you reinstall FCP. Please tell us a little more about the system you are using, what other video software do you have on there as well.

Only FCP 3 will run in OS X, FCP 1.2.5 will not run in Classic (if it does it will be buggy). FCP 1.2.5 is designed to run in OS 9.x.x (I recommend 9.2.2 for maximum stability). Basically FCP 1.2.5 can't find the FireWire extensions it needs. Run FCP in 9 and you should be good to go.

Jeff

http://www.aja.com: Kona 10bit uncompressed card

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage.asp?Product_ID=108: CineWave series of uncompressed cards

http://digitalvoodoo.net: 10bit uncompressed cards

http://www.auroravideosys.com/Pages/igniter.html: Aurora Igniter card

My advice to you is to purchase FCP 3 now and then upgradde when the next rev is released, which is not in this quarter.

For a nice review of uncompressed options with Kona, here ya go:
http://www.lafcpug.org/review_kona_card.html

Happy filmmaking!

Your JVC miniDV dual deck (model # HR-DVS2U) does not support DVCam. However, for your info, the Sony DSR-11 does. This deck is a fav of mine since I just used it to digitize some PAL footage in FCP with no probs whatsoever.

Hello, hoping someone might be able to give me a hand. I just upgraded to 10.2 today and I cannot capture video off of a non controllable device using capture now. Anyone have any ideas?

I get a black screen that says that it is allocation drive space. After about 40 minutes I used force quit to kill FCP. Checked out the scratch drives after I noticed it was still writing something and one of them had almost filled up with unreadable files. The 120 gig in question had 23 Gig left.

Everything was working just fine until I upgraded today.

G4 733, 1.5 Gig Ram, 380+ Gig drive space, was running 10.1.5.

Upgrading to Jaguar I chose the upgrade option so all of my Pref's would stay the same.

Help is much appreciated.
JayT

<<<-- Originally posted by Jay Thompson : Hello, hoping someone might be able to give me a hand. I just upgraded to 10.2 today and I cannot capture video off of a non controllable device using capture now. Anyone have any ideas?
JayT -->>>

Wow. Very interesting.....

What were you trying to capture from and how were you connected?

I just upgraded myself today and just tried a capture now off of VHS deck and experienced no problems as of yet.

We'll get to the bottom of this!

Here's a new thread to see how members are doing with the latest and greatest upgrade to Mac OS X, JJaguar Mac OS 10.2!

Here's my story:

Last night I went to the 10:20 Jaguar party at the Cambridge Apple Store. Approx. 800+ people stood in a line which wrapped around the mall from the entrane of the store to the back of the food court. Amazing number of people, full of energy. I was imagining that everyone was to buy a copy of Jaguar!

Installed it today. Flawless upgrade on both my iBook Dual USB 500mhz and my dual 1gig FCP suite. Experienced no problems, although the install on my iBook was sslloowwwww....

Digitized PAL footage and NNTSC footage today from deck and from FireWire drive. Working in the timelines on mmy project. Opened up a couple of past projects. Rendered timelines, applied Timecode print. NO problems.

I do not expect to be interrupted in my editing workflow at this point. Sure, there may be some issues that arisse, but I feel very comfortable that Apple and the FCP team have done their work to make this latest OS upgrade a charm to use.

Floating very highg at the moment, this is truly a new level of usability for the Macintosh. My wife, a PC Network Admin/Manager, is taken by the OS and has become a "switcher." I am hoping this is a cascading effect across the base of Mac users.

Enjoy the upgrade, please share your experiences and issues!

Daniel,

I'm using a JVC SR-VS20U for bringing in VHS media via firewire. Since it's a DV deck and a SVHS deck combined I can use the Firewire port to bring in the media, I just cannot control that portion of the deck with the Firewire protocol or if you can I have not figured it out yet ;) so I use capture now. I did notice a post on Apple's support page of someone having the a similar issue but no responses to that yet. I was thinking of completely rebuilding my computer to see if that helps, but I kinda hate to do that without figuring out what the problem is first. This is the only thing I have ran into, I can do anything else in FCP, except Capture now.. Weird.. I really like the new features in 10.2, and my 733 has new life.. Wow what a difference.. Hope this helps.

Thanks again for your help.
JayT

Just as a test I connected up a Sony Walkman GV-D800 Digital 8 recorder, Popped in a tape did capture now, Guess what, captured media just fine..

tried the JVC, same problem, I did try different media just as a test and no difference. Hmmm,

Again, thanks for your help.

JayT

Do me a favor and don't rebuild your Mac just yet. I do not believe that to be the issue. Rather, I believe it to be an issue pertaining to the deck in question. I'll have to ask some of my friends who use it to see if you can control the VHS portion of the deck, my feeling is that you cannot and that you do in fact have to do a Capture Now. The issue to resolve as well of course is why you are experiencing your Captue Now issues.

Allow the weekend to passs and I'll get word straight form the source (JVC).

Otherwise, others, please chime in.

Ok, will do.

I cannot say thanks enough. This forum is an invaluable tool. Hope I can return the favor someday.

Jag Rocks.. I gotta tell you, I am impressed. I did not want to spend the cash for it first, but I'm glad I did.. This FCP deal will work out I'm sure.

If it's not a Mac, take it back..

See ya,

JayT

Here in Albany, there were about 300 people in line, in a mall where everyone else was wondering why people were standing in line at 10:20pm to get into a computer store. I could here many people in line say self deprecating things about their "geekiness", and when asked by a passer-by what was the fuss, they were clearly embarrassed to have spent their Friday night in such an endeavor. We're a self conscious bunch here in the Capital. I myself, fully aware and slightly proud of my MAC propensity, entered with only the intention to pick up a copy of Jaguar, but then looked at the coupon I was handed by the friendly Appleworker and saw 10% Off Everything Till Midnight (if you buy a computer). So, while I was going to wait for the 1.25, I simply had to pull the trigger (what's .25 anyway?). Throw in a 23" Cinema Display and a Lacie 120GB ext. HD, I rolled out of there well under $6,000 (after $500 rebate). Got to bed at 4am that night, my geekiness in full throttle! Spending about every waking moment transferring stuff from my Powerbook without incident. Haven't had the time or need to run FCP yet, I'll go at it next week. Righ now, I just need some sleep.

I ordered mine from Apple Store on line. On line is the only way to get the education discount (I teach and my son is in the 4th grade). FedEx arrived Friday around noon and I immediatly installed Jaguar on my G4 dual 450 that I do most of my editing on. I worked most of the Friday on it, finishing up a web site in Golive 6 and worked a little in FCP yesterday. On my older G4 it seems quicker the 10.1.5 Windows open in a snappy fashion. Graphics look better and I can't use Quartz Extreme. The improvements to mail are nice and the address book are nice. Played a little in Sherlock last night and it seems OK (still probably use Watson).

I have had a few problems. Microsoft Office is broken. It quits at the loading fonts and then crashes. Excel does the same and Powerpoint does it sometimes. I've posted on several boards but no response. I've reinstalled twice, but it does exactly the same everytime. My Corel Graphics 10 suite does the same. It looks like I'll be on the phone to Microsoft on Monday. I really need Word to work.

Overall I'm very pleased and it seems to have resolved a couple of issues I was having with Quicktime 6. Overall I'm very pleased and I've noticed a nice speed improvement on my machine.

Jeff

Can anybody tell me how to make a cd/rom autoplay? I dont know much of programming, is it possible that toast can do this? or will anybody who will play my video have to enable this on his or hers computer?

The Canopus ADVC-100 showed up this morning. I plugged it in and it worked great! Same price too.
Another nice feature is it has a toggle switch on the top allowing one firewire cable to be in or out.

Thanks for your help Jeff.

One more question:
If I upgrade to FCP 3.0 is it backwards compatable to my projects in 1.2.5?

Thanks again
Kev

If you have a project not finished on FCP1.2.5 still on your drives i would complete any unfinished projects before updating. Sometimes media can't be easily recognized and other frustrating problems occur after updating. I'm glad the Canopus is working well for you. I just received a Dazzle Hollywood Bridge that I'm reviewing for another site. I'm curious to see if my results will mirror yours.

Jeff

I can tell you howto do this for a Windows PC. But not for a
Mac. If you need to know for PC let me know.

yes rob i need to know for a pc as the film will be played mostly in pc. So if you know how..
thanks,

I am running FCP 1.2.5 on an iMac w/256 RAM.

1) If I have a capture device plugged into my firewire port on the Mac, I can not hear audio through my built in speakers. Is there a setting to get around this?

2) I have a Canopus ADVC-100 converter. The clips captured through the converter need to be rendered. If I upgrade to FCP 3.0 would I still need to render?

Thanks

Kev

Jeff:

Your problems with Office X is enough to make me wait. I exchange too many Word documents and Excel spreadsheets with others to risk incompatibility. If MS advises on a fix, please let us know.

Doug

Well, I haven't run scripts on PCs in a long time, but I believe all you need is a file called autorun.inf and have code similar to below (just create this in a plain text file):

[autorun]
open=autoplay.exe
icon=war3.ico

I got this 3 lines of code from my WarCraft3 CD.... I don't think the icon part is necessary. Correct me if I'm wrong Rob...

Like every other OS upgrade I've performed for the past 20 yrs (mostly on MS systems) this one has been less than thoughtful or trouble-free. After what seemed to be an extraordinarily long update process (approx 40 mins) I discovered all the usual droppings of this process. Specifically, so far "Jaguar"
- broke my Wacom tablet driver,
- broke both of my print drivers (HP G85xi and Epson 2000P)

Unlike Jeff, my Office seems to operating correctly, as does my Airport and FCP3 (so far).

The wreckage is not yet cleared (4 hrs later) since I'm still having a nasty time getting my HP printer running again. But I took a breather and toured the new OS a bit. My impression: Big deal. Aside from features such as AOL kiddie chat, incremental enhancements to Mac Mail (which I don't use) and a handwriting rec utility (who cares) I see -absolutely nothing- of added value so far. Performance is unchanged from any practical perspective. All in all, "Jaguar" looks mainly like an enhancement to Apple's 2002 earnings rather than an enhacement to Mac users' computing experience.

Ante-ing up to update your computer's OS is inevitable if you plan to stay current with your applications. It's the perennial financial wind beneath the software industry's wings. But I'd recommend that anyone contemplating a "Jaguar" upgrade ignore the hype hurricane and put it on your Christmas list. At least that way you will not have spent your own money for this "upgrade" and, perhaps by Dec 25. 2002 peripheral vendors will have some 10.2 drivers.

Microsoft, Apple...not much difference on the OS upgrade front. I like my Macs but personal computing is personal computing no matter whose brand you use.

Summary: Disappointing.

Jeff,

Looks like you'll have to do the ole' add fonts one-by-one back into the fonts directory routine to find which is the culprit (be sure to leave the base system fonts in, though...I'm sure you know that, but figured I'd better say it just for "public posting" sake). If you have any font names beginning with a period or a number sign, take those out first and give it a try. Usually that does the trick.

Thanks John. I tackeled the job last night, with some 2000 fonts I didn't relish the task. I rounded up the usual suspects, but to no avail. So, I just kept taking half out until I got Word to run. What was strange was I did the install that made a copy of your old files. So when Word didn't work I suspected the fonts and just replaced the new fonts with the old. It still didn't work. I've got it narrowed down to about 100 fonts. Under 10.1.5 Word loaded slow and didn't have a snappy feel to it. Now, with the bad fonts out, it loads in less than 2 seconds. But I find it a little strange that something in 10.2 makes Word more selective about font files. I wonder if it has to do with Quartz Extreme?

Jeff

2,000 fonts! Wow! I thought I had a lot...

Just wondering if you've checked out the downloads on the Mac OSX site--they have these programs that might help:

FontDoctor - for diagnosing font-related system and software problems
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/imaging_3d/fontdoctor.html

FontAgent X - organizes fonts into libraries
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/imaging_3d/fontagentx.html

Font Reserve - souped up version of the above
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/fontreserve.html

Also, I can say from experience that Extensis Suitcase works pretty well. I used it to manage my fonts pre-X. Just never got around to getting the new X version since making the switch from classic...but I've missed it. They have a demo at
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/extensissuitcase.html

Soooo...having 2,000 fonts...you wouldn't happen to have the type of font they used for the title on "Sleepy Hollow" would you? Kind of a creepy, rough-edged, Victorian script. I have about 1,000 fonts...let me know if you ever need anything. We can swap!

I loaded Jaguar last night and everything seemed fine until I tried to run Illustrator. Each time I tried to load the app it would hang. Other than that things appear to be fine.

Looking forward to digging into the OS.

mark has it partially right. You need to create a PLAIN TEXT
file in the root of your CD called autorun.inf. Now there might
be two ways to get your movie to play, i suggest you cut a CD-RW
first to try which one works (i used an mpeg file as an example,
ofcourse do not include the dashed lines, only what is inbetween)

--- first try ----
[autorun]
open=movie.mpg
-----------------

if that does not work:

--- second try ---
[autorun]
open=start movie.mpg
--------------------

either two of these should work. If that does not work, send me
an e-mail (to make sure i notice) and I'll find a solution that does
work for you. Good luck.

I've always had problems with Illustrator. The installer still won't update 10 to 10.0.1 I think it's on the third installer now. GoLive 6 was updated today and posts are up all over about the installer not working. However, Photoshop 7 updated just fine. I think Jaguar has a more noticable affect on the older systems. My dual 450 seems much more responsive, snappier. I was at a studio today running a dual gig with FCP and it didn't seem all that different. Quartz Extreme is very nice. It won't run on mine because of too little video memory and being PCI based.

Jeff

ken+any one w/ gripes,
check out the new coreaudio implementation. we finally have some incredible audio/MIDI capabilities in OS X, which will, w/ the release of Logic, most likely soar above and beyond that of competing Windows systems.

in general i'm extremely pleased w/ Jaguar. i've found performance to be much snappier, and i do dig the new Sherlock. i even get better airport range. i have had no trouble w/ any applications whatsoever, and have plugged into numerous USB printers and run the drivers fine. all the "little bugs" are fixed. boot up time is WAY faster (like 3x faster)... time from hitting power button to opening my first application is around sixty seconds. this is all on a 667 mhz G4 tibook w/ a gig of ram.

i wouldn't say that i think jaguar is oh so uber kick-ass, i would say that i'm glad we finally have a real OS. even 10.1 was essentially a beta OS or very close to it.

sorry you've had so much trouble ken. is that still keeping up? i was quite displeased w/ the 40-50 minute update as well.

Dave,
Well I'm glad to hear that 10.2 offers you some features of value. Expanded MIDI capabilities are not my cup of need.

Yes, indeed, I've since discovered that HP does not yet support Jag for its multifuction peripherals (such as my Officejet G85Xi). In response to my email inquiry HP (to its credit) has already told me that they do plan to offer support "...at some future date.". The scanner of the G85 seems to work fine, but the printer belches jibberish.

To lurkers: Make sure that your printers and other peripherals are supported with 10.2 drivers by their vendors BEFORE you install this update. Apple seems to have changed some of its driver architecture...for reasons only they will know. My earlier recommendation to ask for it for Christmas seems even sounder today.