Need Help - error messages on log and transfer

[Mark Ahrens]

I have a 305 on loan from Canon . . . i was shooting a football game last night and thought i'd have enough room on my 16gb Extreme card. 4th Quarter, down 4 points time on the clock reads 4minutes . . . time on my card reads 3 minutes!

So during time outs, i delete a few clips from the pregame to make room.
In the end, i ran out of memory as the opposing team rejoiced on the field.
Now, I can't get the clips to Log and Transfer in FCP. I made a disc image of the card; tried transferring from the card and from the disc image and on both i get the red exclamation mark and error, no data or unknown.
The Camera plays them fine.
CF Utility doesn't recognize either the card or the disc image card.
Clip Wrap won't recognize the MXF; neither will MPEG.

What's happening?
I worry that in my haste to switch back to shooting from deleting clips ( i did this several times) during the game; i may have switched back to camera before deletion was complete - although, i always saw the 'successful' screen - just didn't always hit the 'okay/set' button after that.

Any advice would be MUCH appreciated.

[Mark Ahrens]

I still would like some insight on this . . . but my pressing need was solved by PremierePro.
I simply imported the Contents folder and threw the footage in a timeline to render out my immediate need.

Something tells me i'm going to have to make the switch, eventually.

So . . . do you PP/XF guys cut in native MXF/MPEG2 or transcode?

[Larry Becker]

PP 5.5 - I just work in native MXF - no muss, no fuss...

It would be HARD to make the switch, I would think. and FCX looks like it will be really slick when it supports MXF files.

I can't imagine having to transcode, though. that's a HUGE extra step and a disk space and time user.

I always take a sec to hit the ok button after deleting. To be honest, I don't go through footage and delete much in-camera. I'd rather do that on the big screen. I DO have a button programmed, though, to delete last clip. I do that A LOT! You can do that without going back and forth between record and play modes.

How did the footage of the game come out?

Larry

[Mark Ahrens]

The footage came out good. Not great. Good. (pretty intense finish to the game though)
I'm still not sold on the upgrade from my XHA1. I get equally good results when my focus is working properly.
I noticed a fair amount of grain, as i shot with 12db and wide open in order to bump up the shutter to 120.
And i guess i deferred to the LCD over the Waveform to evaluate exposure, as it's a bit overexposed for my liking. It's a pretty tuff balance between the bright white uniforms clipping and the dark turf overtaking the frame. Plus, the rendered end product always seems a touch darker on YouTube and DVD.
I didn't take the time to implement the lowlight cp that i use with my XH - i wanted to see how the XF did without it. I'll try the CP and 6db gain next week and see if i can hold on to the 120 shutter.

Due to inconsistent light down the field, i frequently change shutter speeds which is easy as pie on the XH.
Is there a way to change the shutter speed quickly on the XF without having to mess with the shutter,select, set sequence of changing it? I thought at one point i was changing shutter speed with the iris ring . . . i was like "Oh god, now what did i do?"

[Larry Becker]

I have trouble in changing light situations - and TEND to leave it on auto - and ALWAYS regret it, so I sympathize. Shooting a game is probably the very definition of changing light and white balance temps. Ick.

I don't generally mess with shutter speed - but for sports I can see that it would be vital to catch the action. Just playing with my XF300, with the shutter OFF of auto (of course), pushing the little SET button/ joy stick on top of the camera forward increases the shutter speed, and, of course, pulling it back lowers the shutter speed. That's fairly quick, I think...

I'm doing interviews and more static things usually right now, so I don't have to deal with that kind of rapidly changing settings much. Getting lighting, exposure and the Custom Picture settings down is my challenge - but I really am enjoying this camera.

Larry

[Mark Ahrens]

I shot on my T2i and had the same problem with my SD card.
Trashed the FCP prefs and now i'm transferring okay.
PIA - tapeless hasn't been hassle free, that's for sure.

Are there any drawbacks to working directly with MXFs in PP 5?

I found it a little annoying that you can't batch export clips in PP. What's up with that?
Nor does it have a proper Media Manager to transcode a project assets to another format.
I had to Media Manage (copy) my timeline to another project, thereby copying all the MXFs to one folder (200 clips) then Media Encoder to transcode to 422 from there. Hassle work around. (this is before i solved the FCP problem).