FCP 6.0.4 + FS-C 60GB + Canon XH-A1 = Uh-oh?

[Travis Hart]

to be very honest, i am having a horribly difficult time getting starting up with FCP and my attempt at a tapeless workflow. i can't seem to view playback on my canvas in realtime after i have applied a filter of any magnitude. it simply reads out "unrendered" in a blue and black gradient screen while the audio plays.

i have tried multi, i have tried the new ProRes easy setup (Capturing HDV Into ProRes Via FireWire | Moviola ? Training for Avid, Apple & Adobe | Production & Post Production Rentals & Sales | Los Angeles, Hollywood, Burbank) and i have always made sure i opened a new sequence. i can get realtime playback through my viewer upon double-clicking the clip and then applying the filter, but it won't play in canvas.

in addition, the second i add a filter by whatever method the top bar turns from green to red. now, i don't know if that's normal or not but i felt it was worth mentioning.

please let me know what it is you need of me to help me get from my A1 to FCP. could it be the way i was recording the footage to the FS-C? i have the 'DV' with a Z-shaped arrow on my LCD and VF and as far as i knew, this was the way to get it to the FS-C. does that mean it's not recording HD, but DV?

if anyone could help me out as to how i am supposed to go about setting up my projects with this equipment, i would be utterly thankful and appreciative of their every effort.

thanks for reading.

[Travis Hart]

no takers?

[Per Johan Naesje]

Travis, without beeing any expert nor having your kind of equipment I notice this on the Firestore website:
Focus Enhancements

Look at the section which says: "Product update"
You must have firmware 2.0 to do native HDV editing in FCP

[Travis Hart]

i thought after reading numerous threads on this forum as well that it was possibly a firmware issue, but then i checked the dates of the posts and the FS website.

i bought my FS-C about two months ago so the possibility of me having v1.1 is nonexistent. thanks for trying to help though, i really do appreciate it.

[Travis Hart]

could it have anything to do with RAM, by chance?

[Battle Vaughan]

I'm not familar with the firestore, but couple things: if you don't have a red line when you import your footage and it plays ok, you timeline is set up for whatever you have sent it. If the render problem only shows up after you have added a "filter of any magnitude" then FCP is telling you your computer horsepower is insufficient for it to play back in real time and the time line needs to be rendered first.

If your LCD on the XHA1 says DV you are recording in standard def. If it says HDV you are recording in hidef. See p. 31 in the camera manual. See page 109 regarding playback and downconversion from the firewire terminal on the camera, as I assume that's where you are feeding the firestore, and maybe there is an issue there. But the render thing is either an inconsistency in your sequence setup with the perameters of your clips, or needing more processor power to render in real time. Hope this is some help. / Battle Vaughan /miamiherald.com video team

[Travis Hart]

Originally Posted by Battle Vaughan

I'm not familar with the firestore, but couple things: if you don't have a red line when you import your footage and it plays ok, you timeline is set up for whatever you have sent it. If the render problem only shows up after you have added a "filter of any magnitude" then FCP is telling you your computer horsepower is insufficient for it to play back in real time and the time line needs to be rendered first.

If your LCD on the XHA1 says DV you are recording in standard def. If it says HDV you are recording in hidef. See p. 31 in the camera manual. See page 109 regarding playback and downconversion from the firewire terminal on the camera, as I assume that's where you are feeding the firestore, and maybe there is an issue there. But the render thing is either an inconsistency in your sequence setup with the perameters of your clips, or needing more processor power to render in real time. Hope this is some help. / Battle Vaughan /miamiherald.com video team

battle,

thank you very much for your response. to address the CPU horsepower possibility, i have a Mac Pro that has two Intel Xeon processors running at 2.6GHz. so processing power is probably not the issue, but i do have only 2GB of RAM (6GB more on order from Crucial). do you think that it still could be the issue?

my LCD does say DV, but my FS-C is set to HD and Quicktime. this could be the problem right there. except i have my XH-A1's signal set to HD, 24F, 1080i/480i so i'm kind of confused as to how this is SD.

the icon i see is on the right side of my LCD and has a green square by it when not recording, and a red dot to show when it is recording. are we talking about the same icon here, because i thought this just what it said when it was using the firewire terminal.

i'll refer to those pages you noted and get back to you.

thanks again.

[Travis Hart]

okay, i found out the icon i am referring to is called the DV control and i don't see anywhere in manual to make that a HD or HDV control. i also checked my HD DOWN-CONV setting and it's "---" along with my PLAYBACK STD.

is this normal? why is it that i cannot change these?