Anyone Using HV30 to Capture Back to Tape?

[Travis Cossel]

I am able to capture FROM my HV30, but can't seem to capture a project BACK TO TAPE on the HV30. Is anyone able to accomplish this, and if so, what are your settings in FCP and on the HV30 and how are you initiating the recording proceedure (Print to Video, Edit to Tape, etc.).

ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!

[Travis Cossel]

30+ views and NOBODY is using this camera to capture back to tape? d:-(

[Bill Mecca]

HI Travis,

expecting my HV30 to arrive from B&H tomorrow, but I did peruse the manual on-line last night, seeing if I could use it to convert my old 3/4" tv news days (my "baby pictures" so to speak). I didn't look that closely but know that it will do what I want by not to HDV, only DV via the recorder function.

don't know if that helps you or not, but figured I wouldn't leave you alone out in the wilderness. lol

[Tom Tomkowiak]

I haven't tried recording HDV in, but unless I'm reading it wrong, the HV30 manual seems to indicate it can be done.

Here are some quotes from page 73 of the manual:

Digital Video Dubbing
You can input video from other digital video devices and record the input video on the tape in the camcorder. Video input will be recorded on the tape in the same standard of the original (HDV or DV).

Dubbing
1. Load a blank tape in the camcorder and load the recorded (source) tape in the connected device.
* If "AV->DV" appears on the screen, set [AV->DV] to OFF
* When the connection is recognized "HDV/DV" will be displayed. When the video input starts, the display will change to "HDV-IN" or "DV-IN" depending on the video signal.
2. Press FUNC.
3. Select REC PAUSE and press SET
4. Select EXECUTE and press SET
5. Connected device: Start the playback
Then it goes on to steps 6, 7, 8, and 9

Of course, the above are the directions for recording video in from a VCR or another camcorder. However, it seems this also should work recording Print to Video via firewire from FCP.

This'll give me something to play with when I get home tonight.

[Travis Cossel]

Thanks, Bill and Tom. The good news is that it DOES work. It just took me about 7 hours to figure out what I was doing wrong. I'm going to list all my settings here, as well as the "fix", so that no one else has to go through the hell I just did.


My project was shot in 24F on Canon A1's. I captured into Final Cut Pro using the HV30 with the following settings in the "Audio/Video Settings" menu:

Sequence Preset: Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 1920x1080 24p 48 kHz
Capture Preset: HDV
Device Control Preset: HDV Firewire Basic
Video Playback: None
Audio Playback: Default


I then edited my project, and used the "Print to Video" option to export back to tape via Firewire and the HV30. In Final Cut Pro I used the following settings in the "Audio/Video Settings" menu:

::under the "Summary" tab::
------------------------------------
Sequence Preset: HDV - 1080p24
Capture Preset: HDV
Device Control Preset: HDV Firewire Basic
Video Playback: None
Audio Playback: Default


::under the "A/V Devices" tab::
------------------------------------
Playback Output
Video: None
Audio: Default

Different Output for Edit to Tape/Print to Video (checkbox): checked
Video: HDV (1440 x 1080) 24p
Mirror on desktop (checkbox): checked
Audio: HDV
(both checkboxes at the bottom were left unchecked)


On the HV30 I used the following settings (setup before Firewire was attached):

::under "REC/IN SETUP"::
------------------------------------
DV REC MODE: SP
DV AUDIO: ---
AV->DV: ---


::under "PLAY/OUT SETUP1"::
------------------------------------
PLAYBACK STD: HDV
TV TYPE: 16:9

::under "PLAY/OUT SETUP2"::
------------------------------------
AV/PHONES: AV
COMP.OUT: 1080i
DV OUTPUT: HDV/DV


After the HV30 is setup properly, turn it off and plug in the Firewire cable. Turn the HV30 back on and start up your project in FCP.

In Final Cut Pro open the sequence you want to export to tape. Go under the "File" menu and select "Print to Video". Under the "Leader" section I suggest having at least 5 seconds of "black" (make sure you check the checkbox). I also had a 5 second black trailer. In addition I had the "Automatically Start Recording" checkbox checked. Now hit "Okay" and let FCP process/prepare the sequence (it took about 10 minutes for my 10 minute video).

Once this is done FCP will show a prompt for starting the playback. Now, before you do anything else, go back into the menu on your HV30 and go to the "REC PAUSE" selection. Select this and you will be prompted with "Cancel" or "Execute". Select "Execute".

Now here is the trick that got this to finally work for me. Do NOT start the camera recording BEFORE you hit "Okay" on your computer. Do it the other way around. Hit "Okay" on your computer and then immediately push the Play/Pause button on the control bar under your HV30's LCD screen. The video should start playing on your computer and the camera should record it. You should also see the video playing back on the camera's LCD screen, although it will appear to be off-sync with the computer. It will record fine.

ONE MORE TIME - VERY IMPORTANT!!!

DO NOT PRESS THE PLAY/PAUSE BUTTON ON THE HV30 UNTIL AFTER YOU PRESS OKAY IN FINAL CUT PRO. If you do it the other way around you will just get error after error on the camera (something like "please check the HDV/DV In connection"). I think the camera has to detect incoming data when it starts recording or it will stop because it thinks there is a problem with the data stream.

[Travis Cossel]

I just want to add that you could probably change some of the FCP settings and the process would still work fine. I'm only listing them because I know it works with those settings.

Really, the last tip about WHEN to press record on the camera is what totally screwed me up. I hate it when it's something so simple and benign. d;-)

[Peter Szilveszter]

Thanks Travis, I actually had the same issue with the Avid, press rec just after Avid starts playing otherwise it wont work so looks like an issue over a couple of NLE's.

[Jack Zhang]

It's best to intentionally add color bars with timecode as a preroll just in case so nothing gets lost.

[Tom Tomkowiak]

Travis, thanks for doing all the typing. I was planning to write up essentially the same thing this morning and was very happy to see you saved me from doing it.

After I got home yesterday I tried to record HDV back to the HV30 and came up with almost the same settings as you listed. One difference being that my Sequence Preset was HDV-1080i60, which matched my test recording.

I was interested to see that you checked Mirror on Desktop. I was doing some research in the Apple FCP forum and a suggestion there was to not mirror because it places an additional load on the CPU. Obviously mirroring worked for you, but not mirroring might be something to keep in mind by someone following your steps but still having a problem with Print to Video.

Another thing that caught my attention is that you wrote it took about 10 minutes to process the 10 minute video. I assume you're talking about the "Conforming HDV Video" process. I was working with only a 10-second test video and the conforming process took about 2.5 minutes. If that's a constant, then it would take 2.5 hours to process 10 minutes. I wonder if that's the difference between our presets, or if it just boils down to CPU speed and # of cores. I'll have to check that out.

[Travis Cossel]

No problem, Tom. d;-)

Interesting note on the 'mirror to desktop'. I actually thought about unchecking that, but it was on for the first tape I got to work, so I decided not to rock the boat. Next time I'll try it with that unchecked. There's really no need to monitor the feed on my computer anyways.

Also, I was referring to "conforming HDV video" as you mentioned. My video was 9.5 minutes long, and it took somewhere between 7-10 minutes to "conform" it. I had another video that was similar in length and took a similar amount of time to conform.

My system is a dual-core Intel Xeon Mac (dual 2.66GHz chips) with 5GB of 667MHz ram. I'm curious how that compares to your setup, since your video took substantially longer to conform.

[Tom Tomkowiak]

Travis, you have more horsepower. I have a 1st generation Mac Book Pro with a dual-core that's about .5GHz slower and 3 fewer gigs of RAM.

[Travis Cossel]

Well, it's good to know my extra "stuff" is doing it's job then. d:-)

[Colin McDonald]

Not quite the same thing, but I wanted to put 30 sec of bars at the beginning of several tapes to be recorded on an HV-30. I generated the bars on my XH-A1 and FireWired the DV output across to the HV-30. Recorded without a hitch on HD 50i (will probably be shooting some reasonably fast motion at some point so I avoided the 25f setting).