Hello, and capture help

[JSchimpf]

Hello, I am new to this forum. I have been working in the music industry for a while mostly recording and producing. I started doing a lot of live recording in the past few years, and eventually bought a DVX-100B to start shooting video as well.

I have been shooting a lot over the last year or so, but I have had mixed results getting a good looking final product. I have been trying a lot of different things in regard to capture settings in FCP, but I have not been able to get a set-up going for 24p footage that looks anywhere close to good. Not just as I am capturing, but afterword as well.

I am really looking for a definitive step by step guide to correctly capturing 24p footage in FCP if one exists. I have been doing quite a bit of searching online, but I have not found anything that has been helpful so far.

I am also wondering if it is generally okay to mix frame rates in FCP 6 while editing. I know that multiple frame rates can be edited by simply dragging everything onto the timeline, but is this the right way to go about this?

Thank you in advance for the help. I am finding the video world to be quite complex compared to the audio world when it comes to these kind of issues.

John Schimpf

 

[Alex H.]

Welcome, John!

For starters, read this: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=23355

Your exact questions have been asked many, many times over in the forums, and there's a whole wealth of good information floating around these parts. Just search, and you'll find a gold mine of tutorials and tips. A lot of it is posted in the FCP forum.

Enjoy the forums! There are lots of great folks around here.

 

[JSchimpf]

Thanks for the quick response! I have seen that post before, in fact that is indeed how I found the forum. I figured that this question must get asked constantly, so perhaps I should be more specific.
First off, I am trying to capture 24p not 24pA. Is pulldown still required for this format? Do I still capture at 29.97 as the post you referenced suggests?
Also, should I be capturing these tape uncompressed? I noticed that FCP defaults to Quicktime conversion on capture.
What I am seeing are small vertical distortions in the captured footage. The source tapes look beautiful coming out of the camera btw.
Could it be a problem with how FCP is outputting to my monitor?

Sorry for so many questions, but this has been eating me up!

For reference, I am using a quad core Mac Pro tower with a 23" apple display.

Thank you!
John Schimpf

 

[Alex H.]

I am trying to capture 24p not 24pA. Is pulldown still required for this format? Do I still capture at 29.97 as the post you referenced suggests?

All video recorded on the DVX is in 29.97 format. If shooting in standard 24p, the camera conforms the pull-down for straight 29.97 to be captured, edited, and output in 29.97. It's only in 24pA that you have to worry about conforming the pull-down in FCP for 29.38 editing.

Also, should I be capturing these tape uncompressed? I noticed that FCP defaults to Quicktime conversion on capture.

FCP uses Quicktime. As for uncompressed, the DV footage from your tape is already compressed to DV. To capture uncompressed, you'll have to have a capture card and a deck that up-converts the DV footage. In other words, don't worry about it. Keep it native to DV and you'll be fine.

Set your FCP capture and sequence settings to DV-NTSC with 48kHz audio. This should be readily available in the easy setup. No need for pull-down, no need for a 23.98 timeline. Bring it in as DV. Edit as DV. Output to, well, whatever you need. If you need to deliver the edited project in a higher format, upconvert after you're done editing and have exported a FCP movie.

Because this has much more to do with FCP than with the DVX itself, you're bound to find many other posts in the FCP forum that go into detail on this. Good luck!