Hi All

Had quite alot of sucess with Panasonic's HVP500 P2 cameras in 720/25PN

Now coming to dump off selected rushes to a Panasonic DVCProHD - HD1400, which will only record at 1080/50i or 720/50P modes.

I've created a new bin in 720/50P, opened the old project, copied a sequence & transcoded the sequence into 720/50P. (although it transcoded faster than I could see it do anything) The new sequence plays OK....but at double speed !!!!! & cuts off a section on the left and right of frame !!!!

1080 convert plays in real time, but also suts off left & right..........any clues anyone?

Many thanks

Someone MUST have an answer to this. As HD becomes more prevalent, this will become common fare. Unless, this is so obvious, I've missed the solution.

NB - I am playing out through a dedicated firewire port (noticed someone else having problems).

Many thanks in advance & sorry for nagging you all !!!

Hi,  I do not have an answer to this, but i am working on the same issue as you. We filmed some helicopter shots with the same camera as you in the same format 720/25PN. My problem is to just get it in to mya AVID. I normally load the stuff through Media tool and it isn't most of the times all right. But theese pictures want show themselves for me.

My

Q1 to you is what do you do when it comes to importing/getting the stuff in?

Q2: Which format do you us in AVID editing. I upgraded today to MC 3.0.5. (from 2.8) to be able to

do 720p 25 projects, and i thought that would be the right thing.

Any thoughts meanwhile waiting for other answers? :-)

anglegrinderUK:

Many thanks in advance & sorry for nagging you all !!!

That's nagging?  Boy, could I show you nagging!

I can't directly help, because I've never had to do this.  However, I do know that Panasonic's 25p formats are mostly 25p over 50i.  I understand that PN is native 25F, but have you tried importing your sequence into a 50i project?  That may get you a further step along the path.

Alternatively, try asking this question on the 24 frame forum.  They may be better able to help over there.

Osanden:

We filmed some helicopter shots with the same camera as you in the same format 720/25PN. My problem is to just get it in to mya AVID.

If you're at the import stage, search around for someone with Edius.  It will import and export any Panasonic format and convert in the process.  In fact, anglegrinderUK, that may be a solution to your problem too.

 Still trying to solve this - when I do, I'll post my results

In the meantime - On loaction, I shot on the HPX500 in 25PN, dumped the contents of each card onto a large hard drive in my hotel room, all original P2 folders in tact.

Back at base: connected that drive to the AVID & imported via "import P2" tool. Import the databases first "Clips to bin" - Then the footage: "media". You do need fast drives. Firewire 400 can't cope. eSata seemed OK for me. The AVID format settings were 720/25P & raster size for 1280 x 720. The book says this is DVCProHD, as Std is supposed to be 1920x1080

At the end of editing - I consolidated the sequence & media onto a clean drive (just a cheap USB one(!)) & took into a large facility house with DS Nitus HD - they imported the sequence & files & bingo - all played. No problems.

My issue, is to offload selected shots, as clients are beginning to want copies of the best setions of the rushes & giving them a drive full of MXF clips will just flumox them !

More updates. Not good really. Note, that I am using the AVID firewire output

If I change the project format to 1080i & raster to Standard, the AVID plays OK, & if VTR is set to 1080i the VTR sees the pictures BUT with left & right of frame cropped off.

NB - VTR will NOT see pictures in DVCProHD or HDV raster modes

If I open a new project at 720/50P & open old bin in new project, the AVID plays back at DOUBLE speed & pictures are cropped, once again left & right

- I've talked to Panasonic UK & they feel that AVID's firewire output settings haven't been configured yet to accept this issue. Especially as the consolidated pictures works ok in a DS Nitrus.

I hope AVID get to read this.

anglegrinderUK:

My issue, is to offload selected shots, as clients are beginning to want copies of the best setions of the rushes & giving them a drive full of MXF clips will just flumox them !

As a means of buying time, why not supply your preview copies on DVD?  Export a QTref to Squeeze and convert it to a SD MPEG2 stream.  Author in your DVD application of choice.

anglegrinderUK:

The AVID format settings were 720/25P & raster size for 1280 x 720. The book says this is DVCProHD, as Std is supposed to be 1920x1080

DVCpro HD is 100 mb/s 4:2:2 compression.  The frame size doesn't define it.  Size used can be 1280x720, 1280x1080 (24/30/60 formats), or 1440x1080 (25/50 formats).  Note that 720 is square pixel format, while both 1080 formats are anamorphic (often known as "thin raster").

Based on the foregoing I can think of one possible reason for the odd frame aspect ratios that you're seeing.  Are you doing a mixdown of your video after you set up your 1080 format?  You will need to set the pixel ratio to DVCpro HD prior to doing the mixdown.  Try that on a small section of your sequence and see if it fixes things for you. 

Thank you for that idea & alas, that doesn't work either.

The common demoninator in this does seem to be the button marked "raster type". Despite what it should be doing, what it actually does appears to be only allowing pictures out of the avid when set to "Standard" which the pop up info says is 1920 x 1080. And only then. No video is let through in any other state with that button. And even then it cuts off left & right of frame.

Incidentially, some 1080i/50 Sony Z1 HDV footage won't appear in any combination of any format or raster type selection.

So I can only deduce that I must be going mad - or there's a problem with the AVID firewire or Panasonic's 1400 VTR. I feel I'm sort of caught between a rock & a hard place....

Any other suggestions gratefully recieved

(I am on AVID MCsoft 3.0 - unless the latest version will fix this???)

Cheers

Just to say, I've given up on this. There is an inherent issue between AVID’s implemented firewire & what the 1400 sees. It pains me to say it…….but FCP plays out OK to firewire on the 1400. Some of my FCP mates are splitting their sides with laughter L

This is doubly annoying as P2 isn’t a new format (despite what some of the experts on these forums say). I also notice that other entries on other parts of the forums also have problems here too = not just me....

Did you manage to transcode 50P to 25p mate? I'm asking as I just tried using transcode, but there aint no frame rate option...

Not an issue as I'm only testing out our new HD cam, but if it were to arise in a natural way using archive (i.e not a camera setting error)  I'd like to know how to deal with it.

Cheers

D