So I have an edit due July 31st and once again I am thoroughly stressed out. I was told that the new MacBook Pro, in conjunction with the new Studio 2, would most probably fix my capture problems. However, it does not.

I shot with a JVC HD110U in 720p 30fps. I am using the BR-HD50 deck. I tried using the HDV 720p 29.97fps codec AND the AIC codec to capture. They both have subclipping issues with the capture that in no way correlate to the camera being turned on and off (or the record button being pushed on or off). The tape stock was top of the line.

Anyone, can you tell me if there is a fix or is the answer the ridiculous workaround with DVHCap, etc? I am at my wits end. I need some honest answers. Even if you don't know, that is answer enough for me.

Help Me,
Sharon

720P30 has always worked and should give you no problems at all, so there must be something wrong.

Some things to try (one at a time to eliminate the culprit.)

-Clean the heads with a head cleaning cassette (JVC)

-Check the firmware version of the BR-HD50 (STOP + MENU) The latest is v1.08

-Try setting your scratch disk to the Macintosh HD (internal), capture, and then switch it back to an external FW

-Try capturing from the camera instead of the deck

-Try a different firewire cable

-Create a brand new User (call it something like Final Cut Editor), restart, and login as the new user

-Expand the RAM to at least 2GB

-Try capturing with iMovie (AIC)

If none of those solved the problem then clean the heads of the camera, shoot some more footage on a brand new tape and capture that.

720P30 has always worked and should give you no problems at all, so there must be something wrong.

Some things to try (one at a time to eliminate the culprit.)

-Clean the heads with a head cleaning cassette (JVC)

-Check the firmware version of the BR-HD50 (STOP + MENU) The latest is v1.08

-Try setting your scratch disk to the Macintosh HD (internal), capture, and then switch it back to an external FW

-Try capturing from the camera instead of the deck

-Try a different firewire cable

-Create a brand new User (call it something like Final Cut Editor), restart, and login as the new user

-Expand the RAM to at least 2GB

-Try capturing with iMovie (AIC)

If none of those solved the problem then clean the heads of the camera, shoot some more footage on a brand new tape and capture that.

Heads Clean
Firmware of deck is updated
Different firewire had been used
I guess I can set the scratch to internal but not sure how that should affect anything
I'll try the new user thing but still don't think why that I would help
My Ram is 4GB
I tried AIC on final cut - sad if I would have to use iMovie after that much money spent

I thank you for your ideas. I'll try the ones that I haven't I guess, but I would love to know the reasoning behind them before I spend lots of time on them.

Cheers,
Sharon

My suggestions aren't designed as solutions, but instead a means to determine where the problem is.

720P30 has worked since FCP version 5.0 was released, so there should be no compatibility issues.

I wanted you to test the internal drive capturing capabilities to see if the external drive was creating a bottleneck on the firewire input. If it is, you may want to try connecting the drive to the FW800 port instead.

Starting a fresh user profile should eliminate any third party or startup item conflicts/apps that steal processor cycles.

My suggestions aren't designed as solutions, but instead a means to determine where the problem is.

720P30 has worked since FCP version 5.0 was released, so there should be no compatibility issues.

I wanted you to test the internal drive capturing capabilities to see if the external drive was creating a bottleneck on the firewire input. If it is, you may want to try connecting the drive to the FW800 port instead.

Starting a fresh user profile should eliminate any third party or startup item conflicts/apps that steal processor cycles.

I am actually connecting the laptop to the external lacie harddrive on the FW800 of both the laptop and the harddrive. So probably not the bottleneck problem.

The user profile is interesting? How do I go about it?

I was just asking for explanations of why to do things so I can understand all this better and one day not have to ask someone else for answers when troubleshooting.

I am just so confused that 720p30fps doesn't work with me. I heard that it is fine, that is why I switched from 24fps. But the laptop is new (top of the line), the software is new (top of the line), the harddrive is new (top of the line)...I am soooo confused.

I'll try some more things out tomorrow. If I still have issues would it be best to call JVC, or final cut people for help?

Do you mind keeping an eye out for any posting questions of mine the next few days? My situation is under a mad time pressure.

Thank You for Your Help,
Sharon

Hi Forum,

I just want to know if I am the only person out here who has subclipping problems still with 720p30fps with final cut (and I do have the latest Studio 2 and the latest 4GB MacBook Pro).

I have been told that there is no problem with 30fps since Final Cut 5. I want to know if that is true for everyone because then it really must be in my gear. But if there are others out there with the problem, I will still consider that this is a JVC and Final Cut problem.

Thanks,
Sharon

Update...took same tape which is one interview without starts and stops and captured it using camera instead of deck. I STILL HAD SUBCLIPPING ISSUES. Yikes. And the subclipping happens in different places than when capturing from the deck.

Now I am trying to capture from my camera into the MacHD instead of an external harddrive. If it goes well, then maybe the issue is a bottlenecking at the firewire from the laptop to the external harddrive.

Will keep those who care up to date. Maybe this will help someone else out there...who knows...maybe not.

Another Update...

tried capturing from camera to MacHD and not external harddrive...NO GO...MORE SUBCLIPPING. So the problem is probably not a bottleneck firewire problem.

Any more suggestions?

Sharon
I never had this problem in the beginning and wondered what everyone was talking about. I thought I was one of the fortunate people or that everyone was doing something wrong.

And then it went pear shaped... I was asked to film a friends wedding cerimony and shot it in HDV25p and captured it using FCP 5.1.2 in native HDV 25p (used easy setup). I then noticed that every now and then there was a break of a few seconds - at least 2 during the vows. Of couse I had not stopped recording then. I realised I had the same problem I'd read about on these forums!

Having previously read up on the DVHSCap/Mpeg Streamclip workaround, I captured the whole shoot again using this method and had no breaks whatsoever and edited in AIC in FCP wh ithout any further problems.

I've come to the conclusion that its related to capturing long form recordings with FCP, as previously eveything worked 100% when all I was recording was little 3 or 4 minute clips. Its like FCP comes up for air, and that causes a split or there may be a blip in the firewire stream, or even a very slight problem with the tape (I've always used ProHD tapes) and cleaned the heads regularly. I don't know.

DVHScap has never gave me this problem, and in fact i always use this method as I'd prefare to edit using AIC as its much faster than HDV on my aging G5 powermac.

I don't think there is an anwser to this FCP catpure problem. None of the windows NLE's seem to report this problem. Only when Apple and JVC come up with a fix will the problem go away IMHO.

Sorry this hasn't provided the answers to your problems Sharon, I just thought you'd be glad to hear you are not alone.

Drew

I've come to the conclusion that its related to capturing long form recordings with FCP, as previously eveything worked 100% when all I was recording was little 3 or 4 minute clips. Its like FCP comes up for air, and that causes a split or there may be a blip in the firewire stream, or even a very slight problem with the tape (I've always used ProHD tapes) and cleaned the heads regularly. I don't know.

I've just captured 5 hours worth of footage (over 5 tapes one for each seperate performance/sequence) and it ran through the tape with no breaks at all. However this was shot in SD 25p and not 720p...I look forward to fun and games with that format via FCP/JVC. I'll be sure to report back with the results.
Drew - I understood it that the 720p25 format cannot use AIC (HDV - Apple Intermediate Code 1080i60, 1080i50, 720p30)??

Drew - I understood it that the 720p25 format cannot use AIC (HDV - Apple Intermediate Code 1080i60, 1080i50, 720p30)??

David

I use Mpeg Streamclip to convert the M2T file, exporting to Quicktime setting it to 25fps and AIC codec. In FCP in sequence settings I set it manually the render codec to AIC, size to 1280x720p and 25fps. This seems to work. (I'm not at my FCP setup at the moment so I'm not 100% sure of the exact settings)

Drew

Sharon -
You are not the only person with capture problems. Since switching to JVC PRO tape and using a BR-HD50 for playback rather than the camera I haven't had any problems. I feel that the tape is a major source of problems as well as a more stable playback thru the BR-HD50.
At any rate, I haven't had any capture problems since these changes. I am using the JVC HD100 camera and FCP 5.01.
Good luck.
Ken

David

I use Mpeg Streamclip to convert the M2T file, exporting to Quicktime setting it to 25fps and AIC codec. In FCP in sequence settings I set it manually the render codec to AIC, size to 1280x720p and 25fps. This seems to work. (I'm not at my FCP setup at the moment so I'm not 100% sure of the exact settings)

Drew

Ah ok - I thought AIC was 'forbidden' for us in PAL land...interesting.
I'll take a whirl on FCP later and see if that's another available option Drew.
Cheers.

Re takes splitting into multiple clips on capture.

I did extensive testing with Final Cut Pro 5.1.4 and tapes shot in 720p30 via two Mac systems and two BR-HD50 decks using various tape stocks. What I found most interesting was that the sustained speed of the hard drive had almost EVERYTHING to do with clips splitting in the middle of the take.

Using the Internal hard drive as capture scratch was absolutlely terrible in this regard. I was getting splits every few seconds on a Mac Pro. When I switched to an external firewire 800 drive, no more splits.

So, aside from updates, patches, tape brands and timecode settings, oh and firmware flashes....the drive you are digitizing too makes all the difference. Try it.

Dave Beaty

"I am actually connecting the laptop to the external lacie harddrive on the FW800 of both the laptop and the harddrive. So probably not the bottleneck problem."

Since Sharon is already capturing to a Firewire 800 drive, changing to one isn't going to help unless the first one is bad.

Or too full. What percentage of free space do you have on the LaCie? If it is less than 30 - 35%, you are likely to get slow capture speeds, causing the problems Dave has observed.

What I found most interesting was that the sustained speed of the hard drive had almost EVERYTHING to do with clips splitting in the middle of the take.
Dave Beaty

We (I) came to the concusion that 720p60 -- which forces the system to capture 2X more frames -- causes problems because FCP get's slightly behind and captures a TC "later" than it expects to find. Other software may not check TC.

Why with 720p30?

What comes to mind as an old programmer of realtime applications -- some UNIX process starts running and steals cycles. The obvious are Mail, internet, Calander. But, the are dozens upon dozens processes that run. Many of them started by applications that aren't currently running.

I would remove anything non-Apple you have added since purchase. And turn-off all network connections.

Steve -

Do you think multiple boot partitions on the first hard drive would effect FCP performance?

This was suggested once by Apple support, but I didn't notice any improvement in the problem I was having at the time.

If there isn't any basis for this suggestion, a boot partition for FCP only and a boot partition for a complete system might be worth a try.

Living without Photoshop, Episode, software updates, etc. permanently would cripple an edit workstation a bit.

Living without Photoshop, Episode, software updates, etc. permanently would cripple an edit workstation a bit.

Sorry -- I meant just a trial to see if you could find the problem. Or, do you know anyone you can take VTR and tape to and see if they can capture -- and if they can capture to your FW drive.

Also run Activity Monitor during capture and look for something other than FCP to grab CPU cycles.

Well, for what it's worth...

If you are like me and need to capture whole tapes without breaks the Intensity Pro works perfectly.

Repeat- whole tapes, no subclipping.

If you are lucky enough to have the BR-HD50 and a MacPro- save yourself the firewire headaches. Capture via HDMI as ProRes and move on.

720p60! No problem!

Having two systems to check things on is a god send when you have problems. So many times it seems like it has to be a bug, when in fact it may be system related.

I was lucky in that we have several Mac Pro Final Cut edit rooms that are almost identical.

I was getting lots of split clips on time lapses we were shooting. So I was happy when JVC released an update to address the problem.

Yet the problem persisted. I was capturing on a new Mac Pro that did not have an external drive. A new clip was created every 10 secs or so.

I took the same tape to another edit room and it captured flawlessly- One 20 minute clip. I never did run a speed test on the first Mac Pro HD to see what the sustained read and write was. But apparently the splits were the result of using the internal either speed or system overhead I do not know. I would suspect any drive that has problems would cause issues.

Steve, perhaps you know, I had a producer bring me an external WD FW 800 drive. I was having problems and realized it was formatted with FAT32 from the manufacturer. Perhaps that could be a problem with some of the external drives. I reformatted the drive and all is well. Is there a conversion that happens on Macs when using FAT32 devices or would it be the same as a Mac OS formatted drive...just something to ponder.


Dave Beaty