HELP! Going crazy!!

P

powerdog

Veteran
Help an old man preserve what little sanity he has left!

I've got the DVX at F6, and I've got FCP set for NDF, DV NTSC 48 khz - 23.98, capture DV NTSC Advanced (2:3:3:2).

I connect a QuickCapture drive that's set to capture QT MOV files, import the clips to FCP, and I get this warning about the files not being optimized and I should recapture (never captured to begin with) or use the Media Manager to fix them. They look ok, but always need to be rendered.

Should I just ignore the optimization warnings and render everything? Seems like I've checked all the relevant settings. :P :P :P :P :'(
 
Re: HELP! Going crazy!!

I should add that the drive is advertised as "render free" so rendering isn't normal.
 
Re: HELP! Going crazy!!

Load a sample clip into QuickTime player.

Do a get info -> Video -> format and check to see what it says the movie file is.
Do a get info -> Sound -> format and check to see what it says the movie file is.
If these don't match what's expected it will need to re-render.
Any more details on the QuickCapture? Can you change it's capture settings?
 
Re: HELP! Going crazy!!

Scott,
Hmmm...now we're getting somewhere. For some reason, even tho I checked the camera and it's set at F6, QT shows the clip as 29.97 instead of 23.98. (My sequence setting is 23.98.)

One thing I could change on the QC, but I don't know if it would help, is to switch from capturing MOV files to AVI Type 2 files.
 
Re: HELP! Going crazy!!

Aha! Just realized, from tape I would capture with advanced pulldown removal. With the QC, I'm not capturing - just dragging clips from a bin on the drive -- so I haven't been removing pulldown either. Guess I need away to remove PD before or when I import into FCP.
 
Re: HELP! Going crazy!!

One more clue: when I tried to apply the advance pulldown removal menu item in FCP, it started a progress bar and then said it couldn't find media with advance pulldown.

Maybe I should just use F5?
 
Re: HELP! Going crazy!!

Yes, it should still show 29.97 since it comes fro mthe camera in that format.
If tool -> Remove advanced pulldown doesn't work then you may be starting on the wrong cycle (are you pre-editing from the camera before import) or it doesn't keep timecode with the captured footage.
Have you tried capturing to tape andd then importing that to make sure everything else (includign camera settings) is correct.
 
Re: HELP! Going crazy!!

Thanks, Scott, but what do you mean "wrong cycle"?

I should add that I tried a couple of tests:

1. Reset the DVX to F5 and FCP to 29.97. Same warning on import into FCP but no render bars this time. So I guess that's progress.

2. Built a two-clip project in iMovie. No warnings, no problems.
 
Re: HELP! Going crazy!!

Scott, I think I've had a breakthrough! FCP seems to want me to use Media Manager -- not to recompress the files (as I tried before), but to make them offline. I'm guessing the media performance warning had something to do with my trying to edit with multi-megabyte clips. But since I start by dragging the clips onto the computer, it wouldn't be a matter of capturing the full clips. I guess I just need to relink to them eventually. Sound possible?
 
Re: HELP! Going crazy!!

It's possible that FCP doesn't care for long clips clips but it still seems very odd. It's possible becuase of the size and the need to be able to quickly play from one section of the mvie to another section means that it can't run at full speed.
To test this open up a clip in QT player and cut it down and save it as another file. (You might want to duplicate cli pfirst so you don't accidently overwrite your original) Try creating a few clips (right at their break points of the actual takes) and then import those into FCP. That will tell you if the extreme length of the clips is the problem or something else.

You can also ask on 2-pop.com since there are a large number of FCP users there.
 
Re: HELP! Going crazy!!

They're not long...10 to 30 seconds, maybe.

I may end up ignoring the warning for now. The clips seem to work fine and look good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top