FYI: Here's my stab at getting into the movie bizz.

[Aaron Clement]

We're in the process of shooting an independent full featured movie using the 720p 24fps mode of the JVC HD100 ($5,200). Case, tripod, dolly was about another
$1080.

My Hardware setup is composed of an Aspire QPACK case ($80) with an Asus A8N-VM CSM ($80), Connect3D Radeon X1800 GTO (ebay $178) , 2 GB Memory (OCZ dual channel memory $186 2 x 2 x 512MB), 1x250 S-ATA system drive ($92) , 2x250 S-ATA Raid ($184) (Benched at 125 MBytes/sec uncached at www.pcpitstop.com), and an Athlon 64 FX 60 ($840). $1,640 total.

Note: The A8N-VM CSM with 4 DIMMs no matter what size will force the front-side bus to 333Mhz. Some blah blah blah about AMD timing requirements.

Plan on purchasing the Dell 24in Wide LCD (~$750).

My software setup is composed of DV Rack with the HDV Power Pack ($375 @ videoguys), Avid Liquid 7 ($395.90 @ Videoguys), Easy Media Create 8 suit ($100), Windows XP 64 Bit ($100 greatsoftwaredeals) $1050 total.

All capture is by the VTR after shoot via 1394. Figured if we're successfull the VTR can be replaced.

The DV Rack with HDV is great for setup, but have problems with import on some tapes. This is probably due to the fact the the camera needs the A upgrade. Great features with DV Rack. Haven't quite aquired the skill to use them yet tho. But live capture seems to work pretty well.

The Avid Liquid 7 imports the video shot at 24p from disk just fine. When I right click on a clip and select show properties it shows 1280 x 720p at 23.98fps. I've also successfully re-syncd separately recorded audio with the video with no problems.

Initially I used DV Rack to capture from the camera's VTR using 1394. Every so often it would break a clip into many small pieces. I decided to try another solution. The other problem is that it names the clips for you once capture starts. A pain to rename. Also must be careful, because DV Rack puts the captured clips into a sacred directory. The clips can only be moved by the DV Rack god to a safe haven location.

Tried capturing with Avid Liquid's EZ capture. Didn't work. Complained about not knowing the input format.

Tried VLC, but avid would not recognize the video clip. I Prob. doing something wrong.

Then I noticed that Easy creator had a capture capability. To my pleasant surprise it worked great. I could input a destination target file name then hit capture. So far, the tape that DV Rack was having a problem with was played back and captured with no problems. It also correctly captured TC as well. DV Rack did not have this prob., but I've read that some capture Prog.s do. Easy didn't seem to have a problem.

I'm now in the process of importing clips and creating a time sequences. Still have lots to learn about Avid, but for now seems to be working with JVC's HDV format at 24p just fine. I also keyed some blue screen, and looks pretty good for an amateur.

P.S. Disclaimer: I am not an expert and had to do a lot of trial and error to get this setup to work. Any person on this planet who attempts to re-create the configuration given above does so at their own risks with no liability on my part. Just felt I had to say this, so don't holler at me if there are problems getting this configuration to work.

Aaron

[Drew Curran]

Aaron

Sounds good.

I just recieved my Hd101e with Kata case, Me-66 mic and boom pole, Manfrotto fluid tripod head, IDX batterie kit, 10 pro-hd tapes, mic wind covers, etc.

I went the Mac route after being a PC user for years. I prefared FCP over Premiere Pro. I have a Dual 2.0 PowerMac G5, 4gb Ram, loads of external SATA and FW HD space, etc.

Myself and a mate have 2 short films to shot, one still in the planning stage, but I am itching to get shooting. I also have 2 promos to shoot over the summer.

I'm not looking forward to the FCP / 720p workaround!!

All the best with your projects. Don't forget to post some clips when u get a moment.

Drew

[Jay Barnes]

Originally Posted by Aaron Clement

Initially I used DV Rack to capture from the camera's VTR using 1394. Every so often it would break a clip into many small pieces. I decided to try another solution. The other problem is that it names the clips for you once capture starts. A pain to rename. Also must be careful, because DV Rack puts the captured clips into a sacred directory. The clips can only be moved by the DV Rack god to a safe haven location.
Aaron

Aaron, I learned from the DVRack Forum on this site, that if your hard drive is formatted as a FAT32 disk (as opposed to NTFS), then DVRack periodically breaks the capture into different clips when they hit a certain FAT32 size limit. Open "My Computer" and right click to "Properties" and you can confirm that your file system is NTFS.

Another tip is that I've found if my screen saver (or maybe the power saving features of my laptop) kicks in while I'm capturing, DV Rack creates a new clip. So I turn off the screen saver and tell the laptop to not power anything down (if not connected to AC).

DV Rack might also not appreciate any significant background processes such as antivirus scans, etc..

It's great that you figured out about DV Rack's "sacred" directory. That's a rather unintuitive feature that tripped me up because I didn't RTFM. Rather than renaming clips, can't you just copy them to a different location and skip the DV Rack directory gymnastics?

[Jay Barnes]

By the way, here's another thread that contains a discussion of Avid Liquid capturing JVC HDV footage.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=70236