New FCP user w/trouble capturing XH-A1

FatDaddy

FatDaddy

Veteran
Hey gang.

New FCP user here in a foreign country trying to get my tapes on an external HD in case they take my tapes leaving the airport because I did not get permits to shoot (Morocco). I am shooting 1080 24F HDV. I shot some over the summer and everything was smooth like butter. I used the easy set-up HDV 1080p 24 setting (something like that) and everything went great, now it is not reading it at all in that setting and comes up with a message about trying to capture HDV with DV. I do not have the camera hooked up right now to read the message, but am in a Cyber Cafe in Fez, Morocco. Why has this changed? It was simple before and now does not want to work. If I switch the camera to playback DV through a downconvert it takes it in fine in the DV setting. My hard drive set-up is not great (USB 2), but I am just trying to lay clips in case I run into trouble leaving the country. Any ideas would be great. Is the camera in a wrong setting? (it is switched to 1080i/480i comp out). Does FCP need to be spanked? (settings trashed and/or rebuilt? - I do not have the discs with me FCP 5.1.4). My background is AVID. FCP worked a couple of months ago.

Any thoughts?

Thanks from a tired traveler in Morocco...
John
 
A couple of thoughts...

--Make sure downconversion is off. That changes the stream to DV and will cause FCP to not see the device. (when in HDV easy setup)
--In VTR mode, make sure "Signal Standard" is set to auto or HDV. If you see the little blue HDV light going when playing back a tape, FCP should be able to detect it and allow normal HDV capture.
 
I am now in the hotel using a keyboard in another language at 3 dollars for ten minutes.

Light is blue on camera.

Here is the message=
Unable to initialize capture device
Device is not connected or the capture preset is not setup correctly. you may still be able to log offline clips. This might happen if you play DV footage in an HDV device.

Also, this is the preset I am using=
HDV 1080p24

I do not see one for 24F

Is my setup corrupt?

Like I said can capture DVm but not HDV 1080

Thanks,
John
 
Went through the manaul and it looks like everything is set-up okay. I am leaving for the desert for two days and don't know if I will be able to get a conneciton. Could it be that the setting 1080p 24 is messed up? I do playback from the camera using the supplied component cables, but I don't think it is a camera issue.

Any thoughts?

Help please...

John
 
Yeah, so a little help from the family?

Hanging out at a hotel on the edge of the desert with pouring rain (nothing like rain to ruin shots).

Any help?
 
Hey John,

Can't advise you on your FCP problem but if you're worried about getting the tapes out of the country you might do what I used to do with 35mm film back in the old days. When I had film that I needed to get back to the states, the picture editor needed it asap, I very carefully packaged it up and dropped it off at a Fed-X office. They're everywhere but you'll probably have to ask someone where to find one. UPS would work as well. If you're worried about an xray scanner like the CTX then you might find some lead shipping bags. I don't know, with 911 and all the anti terrorism changes, if shippers are scanning/xraying all packages now. I'd guess there's more of that happening now than when I traveled. You might check with a shipper to see what they're doing now. In all the years and all the countries I've traveled to on assignment I've never once had Fed-X loose or damage a package. Anyway, just didn't know if you'd thought about shipping the stuff back to the U.S.. Best of luck.

Steve
 
Thanks Steve for the heads up. I guess I would trust FedEx more than putting it in the checked luggage. I am still trying to figure out the FCP thing. Would like to dump it all onto a harddrive and be sure that way. I also travel with stuff in small camping bags, so I might mix my Portabrace bag with some clothes and stuff and put the HV-20 on top.

We will see!

thanks,
john
 
Why worried?
Morocco is a holiday country, and flying out with some DV tapes and a consumer cam (like the HV-20 you have) in your handbag is normal behavior for almost everyone on the plane. What is on that tape?
 
The HV-20 is the backup camera. XH-A1, Nikon digital SLR with lenses in a porta brace bag are the ones I am a little worried about, not to mention 30 HDV tapes. Just thought it would be easy to get this to work and lay off while I go, now it is too late and we will see what happens. Will still need to figure it out back in the states. Like I said, it worked before, but something has changed to screw it up.
 
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