Panasonic 1200A deck printing to tape?!
by Catherine Yrisari
on
Dec 17, 2008 at 11:24:49 pm
I am trying to print to tape from a FCP sequence to the Panasonic 1200A deck and am encountering some problems (like many i have read on other threads)
We shot P2 footage in 720p60 at 23.98 fps and now I need to deliver masters on Panasonic DVCPro HD tapes.
I have tried changing the setting, but not sure if they are correct. Every time I try to play the footage back on the tape it comes out as green lines.
I have a feeling either my settings are off, I haven't updated the software or the firewire is faulty. Have tried many options but nothing seems to work. Help!
Re: Panasonic 1200A deck printing to tape?! by Shane Ross on Dec 17, 2008 at 11:44:04 pm
The deck needs to be set to 720p 29.97, as it cannot record 23.98fps. Nor will it flag the footage as 23.98. It will be 24p at 29.97. You need to set your output (Kona? Decklink?) to DVCPRO HD 720p 59.94 8-bit Varicam.
You cannot output 720p23.98 to the 1200 via firewire. At least I haven't figured out how to. This is why we used the Kona 3. Well, ONE reason.
Re: Panasonic 1200A deck printing to tape?! by Catherine Yrisari on Dec 18, 2008 at 12:14:06 am
I definitely realize the 1400 is much friendlier... i am just stuck with this deck for the moment.
The setting are a bit off I think... I uploaded a frame grab of the audio and video settings to see if anyone can point me to the right settings (I know Shane tried)
Here is an image of my setting now. Thanks for the help!
Re: Panasonic 1200A deck printing to tape?! by Bob Zelin on Dec 18, 2008 at 3:18:52 am
I do not know what is going on here. The product manager for Panasonic has addressed this issue on Creative Cow (I will try to find this old post, and repost it). THERE ARE NO FLYING ERASE HEADS ON A PANASONIC AJ-HD1200A. YOU CANNOT DO AN INSERT EDIT ON THIS VTR. Anyone that tells you that they can do it, is taking serious drugs. The AJ-HD1400 is not "friendlier" - it has flying erase heads, so it can do an insert edit.
End of story.
I will try to find the Panasonic post that was on Cow.
Re: Panasonic 1200A deck/Shame on Shane by Bob Zelin on Dec 18, 2008 at 3:21:57 am
I just started the google search for this, and the FIRST THING I found was from Shane Ross -
"Don't hold me to this, but I believe that the 1200 didn't allow you to master to it with ETT. YOu could only crash record to it. The 1400 was the first deck to allow Edit to Tape.
Re: Edit to Tape not working for me!!! PLEASE HELP!!!!!
Posted: Mar 17, 2008 9:00 AM in response to: alignment1
That deck cannot do insert editing or assemble editing with proper show time to the 1200 deck. That is that decks big weakness. Only the 1400 deck has this ability. You'll have to crash record and then get the tape dubbed at a dub facility with the proper show code.
Re: Panasonic 1200A / More from Shane Ross by Shane Ross on Dec 18, 2008 at 4:36:43 am
What are you yelling at me for? Where on earth did I say that they could EDIT TO TAPE? The OP said that they had P2 footage that they needed to back up:
"I am trying to print to tape from a FCP sequence to the Panasonic 1200A deck and am encountering some problems (like many i have read on other threads)...We shot P2 footage in 720p60 at 23.98 fps and now I need to deliver masters on Panasonic DVCPro HD tapes."
PRINT TO TAPE. I guess I should have been more clear in saying "you need to crash record, you can't Print to Video." And someone ELSE (Chris Borjis) brought up insert editing...not me: "no insert editing without a special trick if I'm not mistaken."
Bob, all you had to do was clarify my answer by saying that they needed to crash record.
We shot a lot of P2 on my last show...or two shows back now...and the client would not accept P2 masters. So we output to tape (stupid, I know...no matching timecode to the masters used in the sequence) by hooking the 1200 to the Kona 3 and crash recording.
Re: Panasonic 1200A / More from Shane Ross by Catherine Yrisari on Dec 18, 2008 at 4:11:43 pm
Ok from looking at this little dispute :)... I need to crash record the P2 sequences onto tape and can't do Print to Tape or ETT. How do I crash record if I can't print to tape from FCP?
Re: Panasonic 1200A / More from Shane Ross by walter biscardi on Dec 18, 2008 at 4:52:34 pm
[Catherine Yrisari]"I need to crash record the P2 sequences onto tape and can't do Print to Tape or ETT. How do I crash record if I can't print to tape from FCP? "
Yes you can Edit to Tape from FCP even with a 1200A. I did it for several years. What Bob and Shane are talking about is you cannot make a clean edit anywhere in your master because there is no flying erase head. So if you have an issue with your master, you need to start the recording all over again at the beginning of the tape.
The other big problem with the 1200A is there is a major frame offset from what you will set as your in point and this varies from 1200A to 1200A. It was 11 frames on our machine and it was consistent enough that we delivered 1 season of Good Eats in HD to the Food Network off our machine with no timecode issues.
So what you do is black the head of the tape with whatever timecode you need to start out with. Here it's always 00:58:00:00. You black about 20 seconds of the tape.
Now you want to start your Edit to Tape at 00:58:10:00. With the frame offset of the 1200A, I would set this to 00:58:10:11. The Edit to Tape would actually start at 00:58:10:00 on the deck and I'd be good to go.
You can only perform an Assemble Edit with this method, Insert Edit and sorts of edits within the master are completely out.
The 1200A is a very flaky machine when it comes to recording, but if you own one you can figure out what the frame offset it and it usually very consistent allowing you to make a very accurate master to tape.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Panasonic 1200A / More from Shane Ross by Jan Crittenden Livingston on Dec 19, 2008 at 11:33:39 am
Hi,
If you cannot get the machine to obey the Print to Tape command, jus pur a couple more seconds on the front of your timeline of color bar and put the machine into record. Make sure that from your 23.98 time line you have told it to add back in the 2:3 pulldown. This step is not mentioned above and sometimes easily overlooked. Make sure the machine is set up for 720P input. and you should be good to go.
As far as the 1400 being able to do an insert edit, it will only do so under RS422 control not under 1394. Just to keep things clear.
Hope you get your projects rolled off to tape,
Jan
Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, HPX500, HVX200, DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems
