Cueing Tape

N

naavt

Well-known member
I'm trying to convert HDV footage to ProRes for the first time.

I'm using my MBP 2core to import 1 hour of footage but the moment I hit capture in the small window FCP says: Cueing Tape, press "esc" to cancel and all I see is a black screen. The tape's running in the camera (past the first 30 minutes of it), but no files in the capture scratch folder though.

What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks
 
Dick Campbell said:
Try setting FCP to "uncontrollable device" (or something like that), then put your cam in VCR mode and manually start it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for helping but it didn't work. However... I could finally manage it to work today after many many hours of net browsing for an answer. And the answer is...

There's an incompatibility due to proprietary stuff between Canon and Sony, and I was tempting to import the footage with my Sony but had shooted with my XH-A1.

Ok. That's the good part of it. Half problem done but now I faced all the issues many mates are experiencing when trying to import footage from XH-A1 to FCP, that is "Unable to find HDV device".

Well... After some 45 minutes of brainwashing the tape is being imported at REAL TIME!!!! No lag!

So I don't want to mess it right now but I'll update this post with my configurations when it's done. Who knows, it may be helpful to someone out there.


EDIT: So here's what I've done to make it work:

- Disconnect the firewire cable form the XH-A1. Navigate to "signal setup" from the menu and run it as follows:

- playback std: AUTO
- comp. out: 1080i/576i
- av-dv: OFF
- HD down-conv: OFF
- letterbox: OFF

- Connect the cable to the computer with the camera ON
- Open FCP and navigate to FCP/audio/video settings...
- In the capture presets pane choose HDV_apple ProRes 422 (or 422 HQ) depending on your preferences
- MAKE SURE you select the RIGHT device control preset. In this case it was: HDV 1080i50 Firewire BASIC. Note that I've put BASIC with capital letters. This is know to be the best preset for Canon cameras whereas Sonys do seem to work best without Basic selected.
- Don't mind with the sequence preset. FCP will assume it as soon as you trow one captured clip in the timeline.

NOW THE TRICKY PART!

Even with all this FCP continued unable to find the camera. For what I've read it seems that the "Playback std" option as AUTO does confuse FCP hence it's difficulty to recognize the camera.
The issue is that I've tried A LOT with the "playback std" in HDV and nothing happened as well. For what it's worth, even the normal Log and Cap window fail to recognize the camera in that mode, when it were no trouble finding it in the AUTO mode. So...

- The trick bit is to manually start the camera, let it role for a second or 2, and stop it (you will notice that your XH-A1 shows the HDV logo on the top right corner now).
- Navigate to FCP/view/refresh A/V devices
- Navigate to view/video playback and make sure that your HD device is listed (in this case it was 1440x1080 1080i50) DON'T MIND IF IT IS GRAYED OUT. It will work that way.

- Press cmd+8 and your done :)

Hope that helps
 
Last edited:
good that you figured it out.

the only thing I'd recommend against is plugging firewire to the cam while it is turned on, that's good way to fry your 1394 port on the cam.
 
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