sony f-350

[Ian Planchon]

Got a couple questions regarding the F-350.

first, I thought it was a 35mbs camera, but someone was trying to tell me it was a 50. which one is it?

second. we are having issues with the deck that was purchased with the camera, the pdw-f70. we can get our laptops to see the deck, and transfer the video to our NLE's (both sony vegas and grass valley Aurora). The problem comes when trying to transfer our video back to a Disc, nothing works.

I don't know enough about the deck to really diagnose the problem, so I was hoping someone would have some pointers.

thanks!

edit--

I should add, I just read the 350 is actually 1440x1080, not 1920, if we are trying to write 1920x1080 files back to the disc, would that cause the error? we did format the disc, so I just assumed the disc could take any format.

[Anton Strauss]

how are you transferring the mxf files to the disk?

in my case, I create the files, then copy/paste the clip files only to the XDCAM drive using windows explorer

is the XDCAM disk formatted?

yes, the F350 is 1440x1080 and 35mbits/sec max

[Ian Planchon]

sounds like we are trying to make things too complicated than. thanks!

[Ian Planchon]

Originally Posted by Anton Strauss

is the XDCAM disk formatted?

we had the disc in the deck, and in the deck menu selected "format" and it deleted all the clips on the disc. I assumed thats all we needed to do. did we miss something?

[Ian Planchon]

ok. got the deck figured out.

now on to the next question.

I mounted the camera to the laptop to try using it as the deck (which will probably happen a lot on the trail) but the laptop won't find the camera. So obviously I can't pull the clips off.

These are windows based laptops, is there software we should have installed? I have clipbrowser for my ex3, but it won't see the camera either.

thanks!

[Doug Jensen]

Just so you know, Clip Browser will never see the F350. Clip Browser only works with EX clips.

There are so many things you could be doing wrong, it's hard to troubleshoot it for you. Are you sure the camera is in FAM mode instead of AVC?

Have you consulted the workflow guide for your NLE?
Sony | Micro Site - HD Tapeless Workflow

[Steve Phillipps]

The 350 is 35mb/s. It's the PDW700 and 800 that are 50mbs.

The image recorded to disc is 1920x1080 AFAIK, the chips are 1440x1080 but with horizontal offset (basically rectangular pixels I think?) to make it into 1920.
The 700 and 800 have "full raster" 1920x1080 chips.

Steve

[Ian Planchon]

Doug.

thanks for that link. I will check it out.

Unfortunately, now we are back to square one with the decks. I successfully exported a short clip back to XDCAM, but when I try a longer clip it fails.

this is ending up kinda forced, as we are on a deadline, and that is causing us to not think straight I guess.

tech support with the stations editing NLE wondered if firewire was one way (import only) but that can't be, right?

EDIT.

new development, I can transfer HD downconverted to SD just fine....whats up with that?!

[Doug Jensen]

You haven't given enough details for anyone to really help very much. The advice to use Firewire is correct. You have to use Firewire for both AVC and FAM modes.

I know this won't help, but I feel I need to say that it should all be extremely easy. If it is not easy, then you are doing something fundamentally wrong.

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Ian Planchon

new development, I can transfer HD downconverted to SD just fine....whats up with that?!

Like I said, you are doing someting fundamentally wrong. When you transfer (import) clips you can't convert to SD because you're just moving files from one location to another. There is no transcoding or conversion.

Sounds like you are batch capturing the old fashioned way like you'd do with tape. In that case, you're headed in the wrong direction. Go back to square one and start over by checking Sony's workflow documents or the camera's operation manual.

[Ian Planchon]

sorry, I think I am talking too fast to actually explain the situation.

we have three crews, the news crews are using grass valley Aurora, and I am on a different crew using sony vegas.

I import the clips using the exact system that the tutorial shows ("import XDCAM disc") and when I am done editing, I select "export to XDCAM disc". it renders the file, then starts to transfer it to the disc. makes it to about 75% every time and then stops.

however, if I choose export to XDCAM, and change the format to SD, it will transfer just fine.

[Doug Jensen]

Sounds like it's a Vegas issue, and I haven't used Vegas for many years.
Maybe a Vegas guy will pipe in with answer.

[Ian Planchon]

yeah, i think I am going to call in and see. its killing me!

[Ian Planchon]

in theory, shouldnt I be able to render a file (as long as it meets the same specs of the disc) and just drag it onto the disc using the windows explorer?

when I open the disc, I get the files clip, edit, general, sub.

none of them will let me add a file.

the F350's manual makes is sound like the i link firewire cable is for SD only (which corresponds with why it only works when we transfer SD), but the vegas site makes it sound like I can send the HD files to the disc using the cable.

[Anton Strauss]

I have a feeling that it stops at 75% because you are exporting more than what fits on the disk, remember that the disk needs a few GB for proxy and other xml content

when you copy and paste with windows explorer, it works fine here providing I name the clips correctly such as C0001.MXF C0002.MXF etc and paste to Clip folder

I never tried copy/paste to the actual camera since I have a PDW-U1 deck and use that instead

the cameras FAM driver needs to be installed on your PC before you have any success and there is no FAM driver for 64bit OS at this stage

this is why I use my deck which works fine with Win7 64bit

also, I think the camera needs the latest firmware update before you can copy/paste back to disk