external monitor and not capturing....
by Renee Scheltema
on
Feb 8, 2008 at 12:03:44 pm
Hi All
1)
Is it true that when editing native HDV (PAL), one cannot see anything on the external monitor?
Intel core dual mac, FCP 6.02 and Sony HDV camera with HDMI cable connected to Sony Bravia external monitor.... ??
2)
Does anyone of you have experience using an "intensity pro" card to be able to see footage on ext. monitor?
3) When capturing footage, FCP sometimes pretends to capture, but actually only captured 2 seconds, and has stopped, saying "searching for media".
Re: external monitor and not capturing.... by Michael Palmer on Feb 8, 2008 at 3:47:49 pm
To monitor HDV you would need a capture card or a device like the Matrox MXO, unless you are using FC 6 and I believe it has the ability to down convert to a DV signal to monitor. I don't have any experience with this.
I have the first Intensity card and all I can tell you is it does work and could be a good low cost solution for you.
I couldn't begin to tell you why you having trouble capturing because there are so many updates to the Apple OS, Quicktime, Final Cut and some Pro Apps that makes it difficult to pin point, but I will tell you it is always a good idea to wipe the system drive and reload the original software twice a year. Files become corrupt and need to be restored. I don't use my editing equipment for any other tasks and keep it isolated from the internet. If you find the right combination of what works you should stick with it and forgo any more updates.
Re: external monitor and not capturing.... by Michael Palmer on Feb 9, 2008 at 4:05:52 am
You won't need the Intensity card to capture to Pro Rez anymore with FC 6.0.2, but you may want it for monitoring with your HD LCD. One thing you might be able to do with the HDMI is capture to 720p if you need to, some of the Sony units can set the output of the HDMI port from 1080i to 720p. Capturing with HDMI will be in real time unlike the delay with the new firewire transcode to Pro Rez, and you can pick the codec you want to transcode to. I think the Intensity card is a good value.
Re: external monitor and not capturing.... by Renee Scheltema on Feb 9, 2008 at 11:36:37 am
Hi michael
I am still a bit puzzled. I can now see the external monitor :), but i gues my settings are not correct to capture via HDMI (and the intensity pro card).
I did the following:
-sequence preset: apple pro res 422-1920x1080 50 i 48 kh (not HQ?)
-capture preset: HDTV 1080 i 50 uncompressed
-device control: non controllable
(Have Sony V1 PAL), but when I go to log and capture, the window stays black: no video input.
What am I missing?
Thanks in advance for your advise
Re: external monitor and not capturing.... by Michael Palmer on Feb 9, 2008 at 3:12:58 pm
Make sure you have the proper drivers downloaded and installed for the Intensity card. Make sure the HDMI output on the V1 is the same setting in final cut,
something like Black Magic ????????? setting. Make sure the name BM or Intensity is included in the setting to direct Final Cut to the card. There should be an HDMI video out setting on the V1 you can set to either 1080i or 720p.
Re: external monitor and not capturing.... by Tim Kolb on Feb 9, 2008 at 3:10:26 pm
I would agree that you'd want to try upgrading FCP as this capture two seconds thing sounds familiar from some time past...
On the viewing monitor:
HDV...an MPEG-based format....can only be captured 'natively' through the FireWire port. This is a data transfer only. The HDV data is simply being transfered from the tape to the harddrive. With HDV project settings, the timeline is working in native HDV mode, which in the case of the V1, has an image size of 1440x1080, non-square pixels. This is not a 'standard' High Definition frame size, it's a compromise to save on some data space. This, combined with the nature of MPEG decoding is why very few general-use HD I/O (HDSDI or HDMI)cards can view HDV native in real time to an external monitor.
The Intensity card which captures via HDMI, or an AJA Kona card or any other HDSDI card doesn't 'capture' HDV as such... These cards capture a 'decoded' (some would use an old analog term and call it 'baseband') signal, which has no inherent compression. It has been decompressed and the card doing the HDMI or HDSDI capture has no idea that it has ever been compressed. It just sees HD video coming down the pipe. When that video gets to your Mac, it needs now to be encoded into something. Many feel that they have advantages going to an uncompressed file, others may feel that Pro Res is fine for their purposes, still others use the CineForm codec, now available on QuickTime (my personal favorite). Either way, the video would normally be encoded to a standard frame size with square pixels, 1920x1080, or for JVC HDV users, 1280x720. In this case, the video would be decoded frame by frame and would show up on an external monitor.
Many capture HDV natively and then create a timeline with uncompressed HD settings for editing. It keeps the source media small and depending on your configuration, a conventional timeline setting can enable external monitoring...
Hopefully there is something useful in there somewhere...
Re: external monitor and not capturing.... by Peter Manojlovic on Feb 11, 2008 at 3:34:48 am
Thanks Tim.....
This helps clear up a lot of confusion.
Tim wrote:
"a conventional timeline setting can enable external monitoring"
Does that mean to say that the original information that came down the pipes, somehow gets padded, or is it a simple matter of a change in the Pixel Aspect ratio?
If so, is there any degredation in the image?
Does this mean the playback engine on the card (AJA Xena for example) is dependent on the the codec of the project for proper preview, or does the card do an internal decode for preview out of the SDI lines, regardless of capture compression?
Re: external monitor and not capturing.... by Renee Scheltema on Feb 11, 2008 at 9:36:22 am
Hi Tim
Thanks, it is getting a bit more clear to me, but still...
a) Firewire capture questions:
I upgraded my macbook pro notebook to FCP 6.02, but when I try and capture via firewire from Sony V1 (PAL), is still goes
" Searching for media"....
Then- still via firewire, I changed the compressor to both Apple pro res 422 and tried Apple Int. Codec. It seemed to work: I captured footage at 1440 x 1080 with these compressors- but they now have a conflict of previous material captured HDV 1080 i50. And FCP asked to change the sequence settings.
Does that matter? Or is it a matter of rendering later?
b) Desktop + intensity pro card cannot capture , still not sure which settings would allow me to capture...
-sequence preset: apple pro res 422 (1920x1080) 50 i (not HQ?
capture preset HDTV 1080 i 50 uncompressed?
-device control was not available...???
Re: external monitor and not capturing.... by Renee Scheltema on Feb 11, 2008 at 9:42:35 am
Sorry, pressed the button 'send' to quickly.
Forgot to tell you that when I capture via firewire with my notebook with apple prores, or apple interm. codec, the capture was running behind like 50%.... So after I had seen half an hour of footage, the capture continued for 15 minutes, even though the tape was at the end. It is all so weird....
