serious 24p capture problems! HELP!

B

branane

New member
I've been using FCP daily for 5 years. Currently running 4.5 on a G4 dual 1.25ghz w/ 2G RAM. Shot a short film on DVX100 in 24ap mode.
Problem. Tried a 'capture now' function directly from the DVX100, time code kept breaking (more frequently as tape progressed, ** it also started capturing 24p footage as 29. I'd try again and it would capture as 24 (same footage) ** . Eventually it was so Bad I gave -up. I retrieved my DSR-20 and tried logging and capturing from that - the exact same problem persisted. Thinking it was a computer/system issue I tried capturing the footage from the DSR-20 AND the DVX into a different computer system. Then I tried it again on yet another system - same 'ERROR - dropped frame' every time.
I am pretty sure my DVX100 recorded bad TC or cadence info while I was shooting.

QUESTION. IF the problem is inherent to the tape what can I do? I thought about cloning the tape either from the DVX100 to the DSR20 or vice versa. Can you preserve the 2:3:3:2 cadence info in a cloning operation? would I need to clone between two DVX100's? Does the DVX100 record cadence info while in VTR mode or only in camera mode?
 
same thing

same thing

Yes, I only tried 'capture now. when capturing from the DVX100 (don't like using a camera as a capture device) I also tried the DSR-20 and logged and captured the footage. The exact same thing happens regardless. ---- dropped frames....
 
Sounds like you may have a tape problem.

You should be able to dub this tape to another camera without problem. The DVX lays the 24pA down to tape as 60i, so you can record it to any other camera or tape deck. It will still look like 24p.
 
I don't know if this helps, but in the past I have had 23.98fps footage come up as 29.97, even when using the proper capture settings. You can select "remove pulldown" and clean out the extra frames from the clip afterward.

Occasionally, one of the clips will not clean up because the cadence is lost due to a long frame. FCP will tell you if it can't remove the pulldown from a clip. What you have to then do is find the long frame and cut it out of the clip, leaving you two clips with recognizable cadences for pulldown removal.

I have exactly the same rig use are using, and when this first happened, I was pretty freaked out. I wanted to edit in a 24p timeline, but my footage wouldn't let me--at least without clumsily rendering the 23.98 into 29.97, leaving interlacing artifacts all over the place. Made my project look like a jumpy Super8 film. Once I figured out that the capture preset did not automatically remove the extra frames, I bulk-removed them from all my clips after capture. But wait! Several clips would NOT remove the pulldown! A quick inspection revealed an occasional long frame. Once they were removed, everything went peachy after that.

DV is data in a consistent 60i format, so you should be able to make copies from whatever to whatever, although "cloning" a defective tape might only replicate the problem. What makes footage 23.98 instead of 29.97 is a function of your NLE's ability to figure out which interlaced frames are to be paired and combined to make one full progressive frame, and which are extras to be discarded--provided the camera writing the DV is 24p, i.e., writing the frames in a specific sequence to get 24 progressive frames per second from the 60 interlaced frames of the DV format.

Don't panic. You probably have a few dropped/long frames in your footage from the occasional piece of dust or grime hitting your tape heads at exactly the wrong moment, or you've been using wet-lube and dry-lube tapes in the same DVX. The cure going forward is to read Barry Green's tips on cleaning the DVX heads (or having a Pana tech do it), and using only master-quality Panasonic miniDV media. For what you have already shot, capturing everything a piece at a time (between TC errors) finding/removing long frames and then removing the pulldown should salvage quite a bit of your footage as true-blue 24p, provided you shot it that way.

Barry, feel free to correct any assertions I have made here.
 
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