2 second gaps as well as 6 damaged frames sectors after capturing.

Question

I have been getting the same problem with 3 different systems. An old PowerPC Mac Pro 7.3, a 24inch iMac, as well as with the latest 8-core MacPro 4.1.
I connect my Sony HDV camera with a firewire 800 cable. I set up to capture with Apple ProRes422 codec, I click on Log and Capture and I name the clip. The capture seems to be fine, the whole tape is captured and everything finishes properly. BUT when I look at the footage files that have been created I notice that on every tape there are one or two instances where a clip is only 6 frames long. On top of that when I look at the Media Start, Media End columns in the Browser window, I notice that there are gaps in the tape's timecode ranging from 1 and a half to 2 and a half seconds.
So I decide to recapture the same tape. I follow the above procedure and the same problems appear, only this time at different places on the tape. This leads me to believe that the problem lies with the camera so I clean the heads with a cleaning tape, and I follow the procedure again, and the problem persists.
Any ideas anyone?

Answer 1

Turn off DV start stop detect, capture as non-controllable device, dub the tape to another HDV tape to run with constant timecode (no breaks), use an I/O device as previously stated. These are some things you can do to avoid the issue at hand, but there is nothing wrong with the way it's being captured. It is something you need to know for future reference. The computer doesn't actually record the first few seconds of any newly created (captured) clip. For instance, you can't capture the first 2-3 seconds of a tape, and you can't set an in point for a tape capture to less than 5 seconds, because FCP needs pre-roll to get the first frame. So, when you shoot, always start recording several seconds before you actually need to start recording. That way, the new clips will have some handles.
Every time you stop recording, the camera makes a note, and if you have DV start/stop detect turned on, it will create a new clip at these point. You could probably just turn this feature off in FCP and capture the whole tape in one clip.