increase in pixilated footage from tape

HerzogisGod

HerzogisGod

Well-known member
in the past week five of my shots were ruined due to pixilation, or drop outs in the image


what can I do to remedy this. The situation is highly unnerving. How is one supposed to film with an easy conscious when at any moment a shot can be ruined

can this be fixed didgitally in post by filling in the pixilations frame by frame?
 
what kind of service? how would they fix a problem like this!!!

im gonna run a check tomorrow and copy the footage in question over again to tape. It may just be the tape im using. I dont see the pix on the lcd monitor from hvx.


what kind of service?

I need an expert answer here
 
HerzogisGod said:
what kind of service? how would they fix a problem like this!!!

im gonna run a check tomorrow and copy the footage in question over again to tape. It may just be the tape im using. I dont see the pix on the lcd monitor from hvx.

what kind of service?

I need an expert answer here
Click to expand...

You should ask an "expert service guy", not waste your time on forums, if it's critical to your income, have it looked at, if you can't check yourself.
Cheers
TomK
 
HerzogisGod said:
in the past week five of my shots were ruined due to pixilation, or drop outs in the image


what can I do to remedy this.
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Stop using FCP's log & transfer. Or, stop using Finder to drag 'n' drop footage from the card to a Mac.

Okay, seriously, is this pixilation happening on the cards? Can you see it in the footage in-camera? I'd bet heavily that you can't. I've never ever ever ever seen any footage from a P2 card that had any pixelation or ruined footage. Ever.

I have, however, seen many instances where FCP "glitches" the footage after transfer to a hard disk.

So google "mac glitch" and make sure that you're complying with the recommended procedures. Always write-protect the P2 card before putting it in the computer, use P2CMS to transfer the footage over, make sure you have data verification turned on so that it'll do a bit-by-bit verify. And you should never, ever, ever see any pixelized footage ever.
 
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my first guess would be that something is wonky in the way your footage is being written to the cards. or maybe you have a bad card? - either way, if this problem happened more than twice to me id take the problem footage and my camera in for service immediately.

but to counter barrys position , ive been drag-dropping in the finder and using FCPs log and transfer for well over two years and ive not had one single even hint of trouble...
 
I use Speed Edit, not FCP.

and no, when I check out the P2 footage on the HVX LCD screen, there appears to be no pixilation on those clips, bit it's a small screen so hard to notice

Im thinking it might just be a bad DV tape. I down convert to tapes and use these tapes to edit. Might be the tape.
 
HerzogisGod said:
Im thinking it might just be a bad DV tape. I down convert to tapes and use these tapes to edit. Might be the tape.
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DOH! Okay, that changes *everything*. Sorry, I was thinking P2-only, so my response earlier was related to p2-based footage.

With tape, glitches and dropouts have always been there, and it has nothing to do with Mac or PC, drag 'n' drop, HVX or DVX or FZ1 or Z1 or XHA1 or HD100 or any DV camera, etc. It's all down to the quality of the tape you use, and how clean your heads are, and the understanding that sometimes it's gonna happen anyway.

Fixing the sparkly dropouts from tape involves cloning bits from a prior or next frame, to cover up the sparklies (which usually only happen on a single frame, maybe two frames at a time).

Or, try re-capturing that section of footage. If you're not seeing any dropouts on the camera original, then a second pass of capturing might get the footage intact. Sometimes there's a speck of dust or something that affects the tape for that microsecond and if you rewind and re-capture, it won't be there the next time.

Use the best tapes you can get, and clean the heads, and that'll help you avoid dropouts/glitches in the future.
 
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wgzn said:
but to counter barrys position , ive been drag-dropping in the finder and using FCPs log and transfer for well over two years and ive not had one single even hint of trouble...
Click to expand...
I'm 44 years old and I've never had a single hint of breast cancer, but that isn't enough for me to say that there's no such thing as breast cancer. :thumbsup:

Those who have had glitches show up on their P2-shot footage have universally been doing the things above (drag 'n' drop, and/or L & T from the cards). So for some, such as wgzn, it works perfectly. To a rare few, it doesn't work so well and occasional minor glitches happen on a few frames. In all cases, the footage is just fine on the cards, so it really is a matter of "get your computer to stop screwing up your footage", and for those who've overcome the issues, it's usually been through a combination of:
1) write-protecting the P2 cards before the Mac ever touches them
2) not copying to external firewire drives (go to an internal drive instead)
3) using P2CMS's verification to ensure that the footage copied properly.

So if you don't have a sore throat, don't take penicillin. For those who do have the sore throat (i.e., glitching in footage on a Mac), the above prescription seems to heal it.
 
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thanks barry

problem solved

I use the down converted footage to create a rough edit. Don't want to run the risk of crashes while experimenting with my footage

I know it kinda defeats the purpose of P2, but not really. Still got my 720PN footage waiting for me when I finish those rough edits and my hard drives stay nice and safe
 
problem solved. it was the tape I was using. must have gotten a bad batch. I re-recorded on a different and the footage was fine
 
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