Deck control and time code issues

[Sean McHenry]

Capturing and editng, we can do that. Once again, the issue is deck control and TC by extension.

We were able to capture the first day we had the gear. We are looking for deck control and TC so we can batch digitize a major PBS program using 2 of the JVC cameras as secondary shots for Varicam primary shots.

Without TC and control, this is a major problem for us. I can't say exactly but it sounds to me like Panos can capture on the fly but is having issues keeping it running, like us, when attempting to use control, hence his mentioning the errors and having to restart his PC.

Stephen, Certified Avid hardware. XP Pro, SP2.

Panos, I look forward to hearing more. I know 24p will not work. Very disapointed about that. We all want to have 24p. Looks really nice.

Thanks all,

Sean McHenry

[Panos Bournias]

I copied the tape with the drop outs and the representative of JVC in Jakarta will send it to Japan to let us know why this is happening. I bought the computer that is a HP 3,2 Xeon 2 gb ram with the avid from avid Jakarta.
They cannot understand where the problem is. I will try to export it using the Pro HD tapes because i think that might come from the spooler-tape. Any way the camera, if used with normal tapes, creates many drop outs, so why not the spooler...
I also visited canopus and the edius for HDV does not support, equally to the Avid Xpress Pro HD 5,20, 24 fr, does not support 25 fr either. For you guys in the US supports the U models appart from 24fr
I think that we have to wait and see when the editing systems will give full support to the camera. It is useless to invest now in half solutions unless you are in an emergency situation as i am.
The movie that we have done is supposed to be projected with a JVC spooler and an HD projector. Does anyone has any ideas? How could we get the tape out product as good as possible?

[Sean McHenry]

Panos,
The only method we could find that seems to work for us is to play out of the camera to another more universial (re. Sony) HD deck. Then ingest the footage from the HD deck with TC and accurate 422 control. An expensive proposition and especially painful if you are in a remote part of the world.

Sorry for the difficulties. I hope we all find a path through this jungle one day.

Sean McHenry

[Steve Mullen]

Sean,

Ignoring the TC issues and control issues because they are non-issues for many:

1) Do you have to manually start the camcorder playing or does Xpress Pro HD start the deck playing via 1394?


2) When you capture 720p30 via 1394 -- does Scene Detect operate during capture?


3) When you capture 720p30 via 1394 -- is the Scene Detect a function you apply after capture to a clip?


4) Can you transcode to DNxHD during capture?


5a) IF YES -- DURING CAPTURE: Can Scene Detect be performed during Capture WITH Conversion?

5b) IF NO -- POST CAPTURE: Assuming Scene Detect is a post capture function -- does the Transcode function work with with a Bin of clips or multiple Bin of clips? (i.e., is it a Batch process?)


6) During a 1394 export back to an HDV camcorder, do you have to start the Recording manually, or does the export function start the record via 1394?

Thank you,

[Sean McHenry]

The thread is about TC and control issues. I don't think I would be so cavalier about dismissing these points as they are more than just a wish list for professional post houses, they are a must.

Scene detection does not work on HDV in Avid from everything I have heard. It does not work for us.

For the few seconds I may actually have deck control I can start, stop pause or play from the deck control panel in Xpress ProHD 5.20. I never have enough time in one shot to try more than 1 or 2 buttons before it errors out.

Sean

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Sean McHenry

The thread is about TC and control issues. I don't think I would be so cavalier about dismissing these points as they are more than just a wish list for professional post houses, they are a must.

They are not necessary! Scene Detection replaces logging and provides a Bin full of clips. Preview and toss out the ones you don't need. You only need 10GB of free space to capture and hour! Edit your clips and record to HDV tape -- or make an NTSC DVD. Your done!

Frankly, since Scene Detect I haven't logged and since I've never had a disk crash from the days of the Amiga -- I don't worry about crashes. And, few need EDLs because they finish online. Offline is simply not needed for editing HDV as you have full CC.

I'm not saying YOU don't need it, and others don't need it, but you are in the minority amoung HDV and DV users. Ask yourself how the first generation of HDV camcorders could have been used when they didn't even record TC! Yet they were!

In fact, although it seems clear deck control is not working -- it is not clear that if you capture via 1394 that TC is not captured. I don't remember if you said you were able to perform a capture of HDV. With iMovie HD and FCE HD you don't even go to a log/capture window for HDV. You go to a separate function that simply starts the deck and captures a tape. Can you do that with your Avid?

If you can do that -- then many folks can use the the Avid for HDV editing.

The bigger issue is if the HDV recording is broken.

[Jiri Bakala]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

They are not necessary! Scene Detection replaces logging and provides a Bin full of clips. Preview and toss out the ones you don't need.

Depends who you are talking about and what product. DV and HDV is widely used as main or secondary format on broadcast productions and most networks request as one of their deliverables some sort of EDL or project file. Most will never look at it again but they want it in case that there is a need to recut, conform, use exerpts for another program, etc. TC and deck control are a must for most people working on these kinds of shows. Even non-linear acquisition/recording (XDCAM, P2) uses TC and will use it for a long time.

I know what you are saying about a lot of DV/HDV production that goes directly from acquisition to final master skipping any kind of offline/online. Just like most people here I do it on certain projects too. But that's not the point and neither is the fact that hard drives don't crash as much as they used to. The point is that for a large segment of this market TC and deck control are important and necessary.

BTW, Avid is coming (on the Mac side) with an update in December and they may address some of these issues (there is also a Mojo firmware update included). Keep fingers crossed.

[Steve Mullen]

I found tis post on the Avid wbsite:

I've batch captured HDV footage from an M10 - deck config as FW via OHCI. Mojo had to be turned off, not just out of the loop to stop it conflicting with the FW connection off the deck.

If batch capture works, then HDV TC is supported by Avid.


However, someone else pointed out: I can't get an HDV batch capture operation to work with 5.2 and the HVR-M10U. Has anyone successfully done this?

Someone else responded: had the same problems. Somehow the machinetamplate does not work properly. I changed the device to Sony 1800 DV-Cam machine with firewire and it worked suddenly...



Which makes sense if JVC emulates a traditional Sony deck.

[Jiri Bakala]

Actually, we've been using the Sony HVR-M10U deck since June and it works WITH Mojo through FW. We have used various Avid templates and it works with just about any (ours were DSR-11, DSR-45, generic and others).

However, as the deck doesn't have RS-422, the TC gets sometimes unstable and (I suspect) it is because of the long GOP. When the footage is batch captured for an online session, some clips are off by as little as 2-3 frames but also as much as 11 frames and need to be manually adjusted. So it's necessary to capture with 'handles'. Also, Avid sometimes behaves as if there was a TC break, while we know that at that very spot there is none, and the capture needs to be re-set. Not too bad, out of say 10 60-minute tapes it may happen 5-6 times. Still annoying.

BTW, the systems are Mac-based, AXP 4.6 with Mojo and MC.

[Sean McHenry]

OK, last time I'll say this part then I am giving up on the thread. We are a professional post house. We do such silly things as multi camera shoots, logging, media management and other things some guys, including my little side operations don't need. Like those I just mentioned.

When I am at home working with only a few tapes and I know the material, no big deal, I can go with out TC as I know the good takes from the bad, I probably shot them.

In the professional world... we will be attempting to sync cameras based on the gen locked TC in all 4 decks/cameras. If I don't have TC, and I am shooting 8 episodes of a 1 hour broadcast HD program, how the heck am I going to get all those shots lined up and be efficient in my editing with out a way to match them all up? You think I am going to blindly capture 2 cameras out of 4 without TC and try to line them up by clapper board or by site or audio cues? Not a chance. The clapper board would have to be in view of all cameras each take to be effective and that isn't going to happen as 2 of them are locked down, one in the ceiling, and so on. See the issues here?

If TC was dead, pro cameras wouldn't bother with Gen locked TC, but it's there. Even the new Canon will have it.

For Jiri,
It seems to be a non-issue with the Sony decks. This is about the JVC gear not working. I am glad it is working with some devices as the JVC deck, for those of us that need outdated technology, like accurate TC, is not going to cut it in it's present form.

For Steve, once again, the topic of the thread is TC and deck control on the JVC hardware. I am glad it's working for the guy in the Avid post. I've been there too, but as you can see, that deck is a Sony, not a JVC. The JVC is supposed to emulate 7 different types of RS/422 and 1394 deck control. None of them are working for us and I have never heard of them working for anyone else either. Not in the configuration I continously mention.

The camera, the JVC HD100 can be used over 1394. We don't want to put a camera in every Avid suite to use as a feeder deck. We bought one deck, a JVC BR-HD50 as a test deck for the tape room, remotely located too far away to use 1394. That's OK because 1394 control doesn't work either even if I am only 4 feet from the PC. We must use RS/422, as the deck says it can, WITH TC.

Am I not making sense here folks? It really was a simple question. Is the BR-HD50 deck working for anyone with an Avid Xpress ProHD 5.20 system via either RS422 or 1394 for deck control and TC captures?

I don't want to hear how it works with other brands or other applications. I just want to know if this works, as I described, for anyone. If it does, reliably, not most of the time, then I would like to compare notes with that person.

Sean

Sean McHenry

[Steve Mullen]

Your problem is you never described your situation and sent everyone down differnt paths. All you said was:

"Is anyone able to control this camera as a deck via firewire? We are unable to control the camera as a deck via Avid Xpress ProHD 5.20 software."

The answer to the question you asked was YES. And since Batch is suported so must TC.

You further asked:" Is it controllable via FCP or Vegas?"

Again the answer is YES!

Then you asked: "We have the BR-HD50 companion deck and are unable to get 1394 or RS/422 control of the deck from Avid. Anyone using both of these with Avid software?"

Again, you asked about 1394 where the answer is YES. Now we learn you only really have the option to use RS422.

So, since you must work via remote, you should have asked about REMOTE analog component capture via Kona or DeckLink with RS-422 control!

If you want help in the future, please ask the question you REALLY want answered. And, I think the answer is NO so you have two options: Give up or try FireWire Control which we know does support TC. Or, wait for Avid to provide a fix.

PS: Those that have reported a control problem -- report trying Sony presets. Of course, you have tried all these, right?

[Jiri Bakala]

Don't give up, Shawn. I have the deck and I am very much on an Avid and I will be able to test it in a few days. I understand your frustrations, though.... been there too.

I also posted the question of RS422 control of the deck to Marianna on Avid discussion board. I'll let you (and others) know when I get a response,

[Panos Bournias]

Now again, the BR HD 50 works with the Avid. It worked before with a lot of problems, for TC capture also controling the deck from the avid capture4 window. Now i found a setting at the remote screen menu- controller SEL and i set it at "type 7" which is configured for Avid Express. At the VIDEO SCREEN as well - OUT FORMAT the deck must be set at 720p, not native, and the MONITOR SELECT at OUT FRMT. Now it works fine, no problems up to now.

I tried capture with the cineform in adobe 1.5 today for some footage that i shot in 24 frames and it was a disaster.
We are supposed to use the 60 frames setting as 24 frames is in the category of 30 - 60 frames.
Everything was blocked. I managed to capture half a clip and the rest failed. At the end the spooler stop reading the time code of the tape and blocked. This 24 frame clip (the small part captured) was exported from adobe as HDV avi and imported to my project in Avid HDV 720p 30 frames. No problem. Plays correctly in the timeline, i cannot see on the descktop the quality loss.

Conclusion: The BRHD50 works with the Avid 5,20 for capture, records time code (Non drop) - can be controled from the capture remote of the Avid for play - stop - write - ffw - rw - pause. I think that we can configure more actions, as search etc., but we have to go carefully through the setting of the JVC spooler and the Avid capture. The document that follows the Avid upgrade has some interesting info as well.
Panos

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Panos Bournias

I tried capture with the cineform in adobe 1.5 today for some footage that i shot in 24 frames and it was a disaster.

Are you using the free HDV-plug-in from Adobe? If you are it does NOT support 24p.

I have used the lastest version of AspectHD with 24p and it worked perfectly with 24p!

If you need 24p HDV -- contact Thad or David at CineForm as the beta of the next version will record 24p HDV back to the camera. It is the only complete solution I know of. And editing will be much faster than Avid.

QUESTION: Have you tried transcoding HDV to DNxHD?

Do you know if you can transcode during capture or must you transcode the HDV clip after it has been captured?

Does the Scene Detect function work during transcode.

Glad you solved you VTR issues! I assume your clips are geting TC?

[Brian Busher]

Ok, I'm new here and all, but does anyone else want the off topic argument to take it outside for a bit? Sheesh! Just answer the bloody question!!!

Anyway Sean,
An "ON TOPIC" response to your question:

We just bought both the GY-100 nd the BR-HD50 and have been using them with Avid XP Pro HD 5.2 for a few weeks now. Here's what I have learned:

I cannot control the deck from the rs422 connection. I didn't try to fiddle too much with the deck settings besides the obvious ones. I am intrigued by the "CONTROLLER SELECT to TYPE 7" option, but will save it for another post. Similar chatter on the Avid forums has led me to believe that there is an issue here with deck control for a lot of people. Hopefully avid will address it soon.

However, I have been able to connect via fire wire on both the deck AND the camera, but I needed to jump thru some hoops to do it. This is what worked for me, so sorry in advance if you have tried it already:
First, Make sure the deck/camera is on when you launch avid. This helps a lot. (Sort of like the old days before "check decks" was so easy) Second, under settings for avid, go to Deck Configuration and delete whatever settings are in there so you can start from scratch. Add a channel and make it Firewire with the port set to OHCI. The avid will probably ask you to autoconfigure, so go ahead. Then with the deck, pick the BR-HD50 in the JVC menu. With the camera, though, the setting that held up for us was to tell it you have a JY HD10U. That seemed to work out a lot of the bugs, and I had both deck control and time code on the firewire. With the deck, I would occasionally lose controll, but if you cycle the power at the deck, and hit check decks, it comes right back and ask what tape is in the deck. I don't have 100% confidence in the timecode, but I never did with DV either since it tends to shift in a rebatch. (I think someone spoke to this earlier) But it's beter than nothing!

One other small issue I had is that the avid does not sense hard stops in the recording (i.e. whenever the heads come off the tape as with power off or past the 3 min standby mode) and it causes a strange "hiccup" that adds a few frames to either the video or audio and punches them out of sync. This accumulates each time this happens, so over the course of an hour tape, you could be a second or more out of sync. If you start a new clip manually at this point during capture, it locks right back up, so keep an eye on it, or pre-log your tapes before you capture them. I'm not sure if this happens to everyone, but it's something to watch out for.

that's my $.02. I hope some of it helped.