Waiting for timecode?

Jared Meyer

Jared Meyer

Veteran
I'm still learning FCP and trying now to figure out why my audio is drifting out of sync.

I've read Noah Kadner and Graeme Nattress's papers on the topic, and I think everything is ok on the setting side. I use 24pa, so I've been using the easy setup that removes pulldown for cap and 23.98 fps timebase for the edit sequence setting.


So, I'm still trying to isolate the problem.



When I capture from the dvx via firewire, I always use capture now and get the whole tape. However, I get the message waiting for timecode and then have to press play on the dvx to get things going...Is this normal? Is this how it is always done?

I'm wondering if this is causing the audio and video to be captured out of sync.

Any ideas?
 
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Also:

Even though I used the capture preset to remove pulldown as well as the 23.98fps editing preset, I still have to render the footage when I drop it into the timeline.

The item properties for the clip says the fps is 29.97, and sure enough, when I make a new sequence at 29.97, I no longer have to render.
What was the point of capturing with remove pulldown if it's still 29.97???????

But then:

I brought the same clip into Cinema Tools, used the analyze clip function and it says the clip is 23.98 fps.
So which is it?


The audio is a good 5 seconds off throughout the entire hour long capture....I feel like all of these issues are somehow related but I cannot for the life of me find a single error I've made along the way.
 
I'm having a dialogue by myself at this point, but maybe this will help someone else...or if they're having similar problems they can add to this thread.

I was able to fix the audio being out of sync. Evidently you cannot press "Capture Now," and then press play on the VTR (my dvx). The footage must be already rolling before you can start capturing. Both ways "work" and will result in an uninterrupted capture but one will put the audio 5 seconds out of sync.

As to the other problem - I still don't get why Final Cut Pro's "Remove Advanced Pulldown" capture preset doesn't work, or why it works the way it does.

On capture, it produces a quicktime movie on my scratch disk. Within Quicktime, the movie properties read 23.96 fps. Within Cinema Tools, a "Clip Analysis" reveals the same fps. BUT back in Final Cut, in the browser, the item properties for the clip show 29.97, and it will in fact, only play without needing rendering in a 29.97 timeline. WHY would this BE?????

The way I fixed it is by conforming to 23.96 fps in Cinema Tools EVEN THOUGH it already states that as the FPS. It almost looks like Cinema Tools isn't even doing anything, the "procedure" is instantaneous, and it's an hour long clip. But it does for some reason, finally convince Final Cut that the clip is 23.96 and not 29.97 once I've done that in Cinema Tools. Again, I've captured this with advanced pulldown in FCP. It should ALREADY be 23.96!!! Right??

I guess I should be glad I've figured out workable solutions, but Good Grief, is it really supposed to be like this??????

I know I've gone on for quite a while here, but I wanted to document this and I would still really love an expert's confirmation that I'm either nuts and doing this in a completely roundabout way or that this is a bug or something like that.

Jared out.
 
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Ok, are you reading the "Compressor" data in FCP, or the "Vid Rate" data in FCP?

What are the audio settings in your camera?
 
Hi Ben -

I've been looking at the Vid Rate under the Format tab of Item Properties.

Camera audio settings are 48.0 KHz/16-bit.
 
I'll assume you turned on your camera and verified the sound settings, and not just assumed.

Not sure what to tell you without being there to actually look at the screens. There's no reason QT Player, Shake, and FCP would read different frame rates. I've never actually seen that first hand. Seems really odd.

It has to be a setting somewhere. Just got to retrace your steps.

And yes, you HAVE to start the deck rolling before hitting the capture now button, it's in the Owners Manual, a story of a Mexican guy and his computer... Thing is, once you hit the Capture Now button, FCP needs to have time code rolling at that very moment. Even when you Log & Capture, you have to have a minimum of 10 seconds of blank tape with TC at the start of the tape.

Use FCP Rescue to trash your prefs? Not sure. This is a first for me. I think you broke it...?
 
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