Phantom TC Breaks
by Eric Hansen
on
Mar 26, 2007 at 9:38:23 pm
hey all
just got a HD-Connect SI and when i try to capture HDV tapes (which have continuous timecode) in FCP 5.1.4, it will go about 2 minutes, think it found a TC break, and create a new clip. when i begin the capture, the Status light is on, but after a few minutes of playback (capture) it will start to blink. any thoughts?
i had one tape capture fine, and then another tape with 15 of these phantom TC breaks.
Re: Phantom TC Breaks by John Schell on Apr 3, 2007 at 10:10:24 pm
Hi Eric,
Is the tape that has the timecode issues dropframe or non-dropframe? Does the setting on the HD-Connect SI match this? Does the status light blink after a capture with the timecode break? We have found that most timecode issues are caused by the dropframe vs non dropframe tapes.
Regards,
Re: Phantom TC Breaks by Eric Hansen on Apr 6, 2007 at 4:57:18 pm
i got some great tech support from Tommy at CD, but i was a little shocked at the outcome. it turned out that my HDV tapes were indeed non-drop frame. we have been shooting the FX1 for years, so this hasnt been an issue because that camera can only shoot drop frame. we started shooting the A1 and Z1 about a year ago. these cameras CAN shoot non-drop, but i assumed that they were set to drop frame by default. boy was i wrong. at least one A1 was on non-drop by default. now a majority of our HDV library for this year is non-drop. i guess that would explain why when we've tried to recapture a tape in a past Final Cut project, it wasnt frame-accurate. i didnt know this, but if you drop a non-drop clip into a drop frame timeline in Final Cut, it doesnt need to render. since it doesnt need to render, i had no idea that we had been using non-drop footage all this time. but it does change the timecode to drop frame, so frame-accurate recaptures are difficult to impossible. i'm a bit bummed by this, but i thank the little CD HD-Connect box for informing me of this issue. we caught it before a very big TV project. it does make me wonder though. why would anyone shoot an HDV camera at non-drop frame TC? even our 16mm film transfers are drop-frame...