Sony FS100 Spanned Clips & Sync Issues

N

Nate Lindaman

New member
I own the Sony FS100 and while I initially loved it the more I use it the more it drives me crazy. I'm about ready to try and trade it for an EX1R. Let me explain the problems I'm having and hopefully some of the excellent folks on this site will be able to enlighten me.

1) Spanned Clips: When a clip gets to a certain length the camera breaks it in the middle of the recording. So when I log & transfer (L&T) how do I know, which clips are spanned? I have to go through every single file on the camera and check the first and last frame of each to make sure they aren't spanned. If they are spanned then I join them again using clipwrap while transcoding them to ProRes LT.

This is a problem in itself, because how can I preview AVCHD clips before transcoding? It's a Catch 22. I can do it in L&T as long as I didn't shoot using 60fps (because L&T doesn't recognize 60fps AVCHD). If I can't preview the files I can't figure out which ones are spanned and if I don't know which ones are spanned I don't know which ones to join. Absurd.

The problems I've had with this are legion. I've heard a lot of people
singing the praises of clipwrap. However, what I really need is a program that knows intuitively when clips are spanned and will fix them without me having to review all the footage and telling it when and where to do it. Is this possible?

Another problem is that I've noticed sync issues in clipwrap. Sometimes when I try to join spanned clips it throws the sync off by several seconds and there are frames missing. This is totally unacceptable and obviously makes clipwrap useless to me. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there anything better out there?

I just read that apparently a Sony rep told another CC user that it's the LPCM audio (at least on the NX5) that causes the clips to be spanned and that recording in Dolby will fix the problem. Can anyone confirm this for the FS100?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am at a loss about how to efficiently fix these spanned clips. I am about ready to throw the FS100 off a bridge because the codec is such junk. As a long time EX3 & EX1 user it just baffles me that they've made a product with so many workflow issues.

Which leads into my last point: red skin tones. The way the FS100 saturates the reds is insane. I'm still playing with picture profiles to hopefully find a workable look for this camera. Strapping Production posted a decent looking skin tone picture profile on vimeo. I still need to test it out. I love throwing different lenses on the FS100, but good lord do I miss the ease of ENG cameras with more robust codecs and no color issues.

Thanks for your help!
 
Nate;

i have many hour long interviews that have re-wrapped through ClipWrap with out any issues, and definatly no sync issues ever... what is your excact workflow?

Clipwrap automagicly stiches spanned clips together - just as you ask for - are you bypassing that function?

To de-red, i'd start testing with AB technicolor, or GlogA

d
 
Last edited:
Clipwrap import process

Clipwrap import process

Hi Dermot,

Thanks for the reply. I will describe my importing process and hopefully someone can tell me whether I'm obviously doing something wrong, what else to try or if I've simply fallen through a wormhole into a universe where up is down and elephants are pink.

I recorded roughly 3 hours of an event with my FS100 (1080P, 30fps, LPCM audio). Then I made a copy of the card on an external hard drive. Then (using the files from the card which was in a card reader) I transcoded them to ProRes LT via clipwrap. On the card there are 30 mts files. After transcoding there were 30 ProRes files. When I went back through the footage about a third of the clips were spanned. Clipwrap did not fix the spanned clips.

So I noted which clips were spanned and this time told Clipwrap, which ones were spanned and to fix them accordingly while transcoding again from the camera files. Clipwrap reconnected the spanned clips. However, in doing so it threw off the audio sync rendering them useless. Why do I seem to be the only one having this problem? Help!

P.S.- I've used Technicolor AB a little. I like it, but feel that it mostly desaturates the image rather than actually correcting the color skew.
 
Hey Nate;

Not as much help as i'd like to be.... I'm using ClipWrap only to re-wrap into H.264 & join spanned clips, then either use the H.264 directly in my edit system, or if i need to transcode i use the H.264's as sources, and feed them into MetaFuze and let that make MXF and an ALE for me to use either in Media Composer or DS.

But i have not seen any issues with spanned clips when re-wrapping only, but i have not tried your workflow, and nor do i use or really know anything about FCP and how to make a concise workflow for it.

d

I'm testing the new profile posted a few days ago, seems promising, i do prefer AB-tech to the Glog's tho.
 
Hey Nate - I'm one of the developers of ClipWrap, thought I'd chime in here.

The way spanning works, the split happens at a pretty low level. The camera hits the max byte limit for a file size and just starts a new file - it doesn't pay any attention to where that split falls. The problem is that the split will almost always fall somewhere in the middle of a GOP. If the files aren't recombined *before* transcoding, you'll have a partial gop at the end of one file, and at the start of the next. Since GOPs needs to be complete to be reconstructed, both GOPs get tossed, and you get the missing data.

When you join files in ClipWrap, we do the join before the transcode, which means the split GOP is reconstructed and you shouldn't have issues.

When people have sync issues during joins, it's almost always because they've joined at least one file that wasn't actually part of the split during the record. You end up mashing a complete gop and a partial gop together, which throws everything off.

If you drop a complete BDMV (or AVCHD) folder into clipwrap, instead of individual MTS files, we'll read the metadata from the card and automatically detect which files were spanned during record. That lets us recombine them the way the camera thinks they should be combined. (if that doesn't happen, let us know)

If you do that and still have sync issues, drop me a line at dmsupport@divergentmedia.com and we can dig into it.
 
am i missing something? i just shot an event and had clips that were over an hour long. L&T just showed me one clip for each take. i knew the camera splits the files up but i thought that was just in-camera file management. they come in connected. well they did for me anyway.
 
Nate, sounds like you need to drop the whole card on clipwrap as stated, I didn't know that either. Might be a good tool-tip to pop up first time someone uses clipwrap!

As to previewing the footage, I use VLC to take a quick look at the MTS files. Works well.

As for red, it is definitely hot. What I am doing is just pulling down the color a bit in the settings. I am still tweaking it, but I feel it is DEFINITELY needed. I love my FS100, even with its quirks. There is talk of a profile sticky getting started soon which should help a lot of people.

Rick
 
I just read that apparently a Sony rep told another CC user that it's the LPCM audio (at least on the NX5) that causes the clips to be spanned and that recording in Dolby will fix the problem. Can anyone confirm this for the FS100?

Has anyone verified this to be true yet?
 
I would also like to add $0.02 worth of info on the red skin tones subject. The culprit for reddish megenta skin tones that I run into the most is from IR polution. It is really evident when the EX1 & 3 and now the FS-100 are cut with footage from the 5D. I have started using IR ND's and flesh tones have improved a lot. The IR also helps with the darker areas of the frame which without the IR filter tend to look more brownish then actually black, this again is revealed when it is cut with footage from the 5D. By no means do I feel that the 5D is the bench mark it is just a camera that often times shows up on a shoot and I have to color match the different cameras. Getting rid of the IR helped to match the cameras more accurately and at the same time improved the skin tones as well. So for me the IR practically lives on the front of the lens.
 
dtwdit said:
I would also like to add $0.02 worth of info on the red skin tones subject. The culprit for reddish megenta skin tones that I run into the most is from IR polution. It is really evident when the EX1 & 3 and now the FS-100 are cut with footage from the 5D. I have started using IR ND's and flesh tones have improved a lot. The IR also helps with the darker areas of the frame which without the IR filter tend to look more brownish then actually black, this again is revealed when it is cut with footage from the 5D. By no means do I feel that the 5D is the bench mark it is just a camera that often times shows up on a shoot and I have to color match the different cameras. Getting rid of the IR helped to match the cameras more accurately and at the same time improved the skin tones as well. So for me the IR practically lives on the front of the lens.
Click to expand...

i have been reading gobs of info on picture profiles and this is the first time i had heard that it was caused by ir contamination

which ir filter are you using?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top