C100: How many frames does the C100 MKI drop between spanned clips?

puredrifting

puredrifting

Major Contributor
I recently rented a pair of C100 MKIs to shoot a live event. Each of the cameras ran for about two hours straight, shooting AVCHD with the exception of my C100 which ran into my Ninja Blade. So my camera has a continuous two hour Quicktime while the other two have multiple clips that are 11:11:10 long. I have converted the AVCHD to Prores for the editing and the missing frames between the continous clips are quite a nuisance. I would imagine this is some FAT32 thing or something with AVCHD? I don't normally shoot weddings or events so I am not familiar with this issue as I rarely do two hour takes.

I am setting up a multi-camera edit in Final Cut Pro and I need to know if anyone knows how many frames are lost between the clips? There was music playing in some of the clips and the "skip" between the clips seems to be at least two frames? How do those of you without an external recorder deal with this? What if you are doing a single camera speech and the missing frame(s) right at a crucial moment? Thankfully I have the Blade so I don't normally deal with this on my camera but on the other two rented cameras, I do have to deal with this and it's going to make syncing the multiclip a PITA. If I know the offset and it is consistent, not that big of a deal but if it's not consistent, big PITA. Did I have something set wrong on the cameras to prevent these missing frames? Is it a consistent amount like 1 or 2 frames each time or does it vary? For all of the trumpeting of how AVCHD is a usable format, this is quite a downside. I can't imagine event or even interview shooters having to put up with this. Love the Blade but I thought I could get away with not renting two more of them for this shoot. Guess I should have.

Thanks for any advice.
 
I use Canon's Data Import Utility application (which is included on a compact disc that comes with the C100) to move all clips to my computer. The benefit of this is that the software consolidates any spanned files into single clips, so there are no gaps.
 
When I've shot spanned clips in the past, the Media Browser in Premiere seemed to combine spanned clips without any dropped frames. At least I don't recall ever experiencing what you're seeing with the C100. Sorry I can't help more here, but it might be more of an FCP issue than a camera thing. What version of FCP are you using?
 
I, too, have never noticed any skipped frames on the C100 doing multicamera sound and camera syncing. I've used clipwrap and fcpx without noticing issues. The 1DC has Canon software that combines clips, and that camera and software also doesn't skip frames during combining, even when you are combining files every minute at 4K.
 
If you copy just the clips without the AVCHD folder structure on the memory card then you lose a few frames between clips. If you copy the folder structure, then it will merge the clips when you import them into your editor without lost frames. It also creates duplicate clips in your editor which can be a pain and also mess up Plural Eyes.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
If you copy just the clips without the AVCHD folder structure on the memory card then you lose a few frames between clips. If you copy the folder structure, then it will merge the clips when you import them into your editor without lost frames. It also creates duplicate clips in your editor which can be a pain and also mess up Plural Eyes.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that Eric. I purchased Clipwrap and so far, it's seamless and works great. Am on a project deadline so no time to experiment. First time I have ever actually edited with long AVCHD clips, it;s always been short stuff.
 
I held back from purchasing clip wrap for awhile but ultimately ended up buying it because it was the easiest way to deliver 30 1080p clips to clients off of the C100. It recognizes pf30 content and encodes it correctly. It's a nice little program so I haven't regretted the purchase.
 
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