digital cut

S

sean90291

Veteran
I need to export my project today to a miniDV tape. And wouldn't you know it, my digital cut function is suddenly causing me grief. Used to work like a charm. Which makes me wonder if it's the new Quicktime 7.0 haunting me again. Anyway, I'm using Avid Xpress Pro 5.0. And the project is a 23.976 timeline. Plays wonderfully on screen...and then as soon as I hit digital cut, the whole thing slows right down and records a really really jerky picture (sound is fine). Any suggestions, mates?

(Alas, maybe it's my new graphics card? An nVidia NX6600GT Geforce from MSI.)
 
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Does it play fine when you're monitoring through firewire, or does it screw up then too? Bascially I'm curious if it's a general problem with sending video out through FW on your machine, or just the Digital Cut.

Also, try the basics: exit Avid, power down the deck, reboot, power up the deck, launch Avid, try again.
 
Yeah, it plays choppy through the firewire. I think--I'll just check that again. So you think it could be a FW problem huh?

I've tried re-starting all several times.
 
Try replacing the firewire cable. Then do a crash (I think that's what it called, correct me if I'm wrong here). It's basically where you render all the effects in the timeline then play the video through the firewire out and record it to the Mini-DV.
 
I'm getting closer to figuring this out. I'm not seeing the picture in my DVX100A screen though (in VCR mode). I'm just hearing the audio. Yup, video tracks are selected. is VTR mode the same as VCR mode? Or do I have to do something different.
 
Crash record isn't going to work if you can't even monitor through firewire. Make sure that there is nothing else on the same bus as your firewire - no external drives, network cards, etc.

Unfortunately, you'll need to know your motherboard like the back of your hand to determine this.

Did this just start happening or have you never been able to digital cut?

EDIT: By the way, VTR and VCR are the same thing ... mostly. :)
 
krestofre--as always you save my ass. But I do not know my motherboard AT ALL. It's a new computer: thus the headaches and problems. So...I doubt I'll be able to output this by my deadline. It sounds like my firewire card is not talking properly to my Avid, because I am not seeing any picture in my camera's LCD. And I don't know how to fix that. I'll have to get a tech guy over. So...I put a quick hit on Craigslist and a couple guys will let me pay them $100 to come over and output my project from a portable hard-drive to tape.
 
It would seem that capturing from the same FireWire card proves that it is working. Make sure that you are in green/green mode when outputting via digital cut and that you are using the software based DV codec (see capture options).

Michael
 
I switched over to my laptop and captured fine. So it's either the firewire card on my new desktop or some setting within Avid. I'll check to ensure the green mode is selected next time. (Note that I can capture footage just fine with this desktop firewire card...just outputting to tape is a problem).
 
Is the DVX100A able to take firewire in? I use a cheaper camera as my deck which works fine but I recall trying my DVX once and couldn't confirm that you can send DV via firewire to the camera. Are you able to view your timeline on the camera's LCD while in blue mode?

benson
 
Returning to this incredibly scintilating thread: I figured out why I couldn't do a digital cut. For some reason, on this new machine, the default Output Mode is RT DV50 (I'm talking about the output mode in the Digital Cut Tool here). When in this mode, I get no picture in my camera-deck, which means I couldn't do a crash-record/digital cut. However, if I change the output mode to RT DV25, the picture shows up perfectly, and I can do a digital cut no problem. Can anyone (and you know who you are) enlighten me as to why this is? I actually don't even know what the RT DV25 vs. RT DV50 means! I suspect it's a resolution or format for recording, and perhaps the DVX100A only records at RT DV25??? I'm not sure. Cheers.
 
sean90291 said:
I suspect it's a resolution or format for recording, and perhaps the DVX100A only records at RT DV25???
Click to expand...

Yep. That's pretty much it. DV50 is also a different compression rate than DV25. Since the DVX records in DV25 that's all it can interpret.

The RT on the front of that stands for Real Time, which is Avid's way of helping you to not have to render everything on the timeline before going to tape. You can also choose just "DV25" in the digital cut tool and then render everything yourself prior to going to tape. Personally I render everything myself, as it's been a bit more reliable for me. Just play with it and see which way works for you.
 
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