Non Drop frame capture causing out of sync clip?

Hi, All,
I've been having trouble with sync issues on an hour long tape capture.
The material was captured from a Canon consumer DV cam (z80) using firewire into my powerbook g4. (The material on the dv tape was originally recorded in Video 8mm and transfered to the Canon via firewire from a modern Sony Digital 8 camera.)
The sync on the DV tape looks fine when I play it back through the Canon camera. So I'm guessing that I might be losing sync because the camera is dropping frames that don't want to be dropped. I tried to change the video capture settings to non drop frame (in the device control tab of FCP5's audio video settings preference window,) but as soon as I start the capture from the canon, the settings on my log capture window automatically revert back to drop frame. (I don't know this for a fact, but I do notice that the ":" in the timecode box turns back to ";" every time I start the capture.
Does this sound like it is, in fact, a drop frame problem? And if so, is there any hope of getting a canon consumer camcorder to capture at non drop frame rates?

Well, after trying most of the suggestions here, I did find a reasonably hassle free workaround to capturing the hour and fifteen minute footage of 8 bit 32 kHz video to FCP with minimal sync slippage over the length of the footage.
I finally gave up on capturing the material in FCP and instead hooked the canon z80 up to an old version of Toast Platinum 6 I had on my computer. Toast creates a raw quicktime movie file with the extension .dv. Toast then allows you to edit that quicktime file, add chapters, button pictures, etc. thereby making a new file to replace the raw QT it first created. After some experimentation, I discovered that the original raw QT file Toast creates can simply be dragged intact to the FCP browser window, where it becomes a clip with minimal sync problems. I would caution against trying to use the second improved QT file that Toast creates after you've edited your file, as this second QT movie seems less stable than the raw one it first creates.
A final caveat for Toast users. Make sure you set the preferences so that they don't DELETE the original file it creates. There are settings that will tell Toast to do just that either After a Day, After a Week, When You Close the Program or Never. I'd set that to Never, since it can be highly unpleasant to discover that your program has deleted the very file you were planning to work with.
Hope this is of some help.
Thanks to all who pitched in and offered suggestions. Your help has been invaluable!
I now mark this issue Solved. Or at least as Solved as I plan to get it!

Similar Messages

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    Hi,
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  • "Capturing drop-frame media into a non-drop frame clip" error message

    I've logged tapes from what will partly be a 3-camera multi-clip project, and have begun to batch capture.
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    WARNING: You are about to capture drop-frame media to a non drop-frame clip. If you proceed, you may experience changes in logged in and out points, problems relinking media, or removal of master clip relationships.
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    I haven't run into this while capturing other clips, but those may have been captured via a different deck that does only drop-frame.
    So, I'm looking at next steps:
    1: Capture anyway and possibly regret that I did that.
    (One person on another list reported the same problem, that he had ignored it without any obvious complications.)
    2: Relog all the problem clips using my current deck, speeding up the process by using the "go to" window to drive the tape to the existing in and out points and then marking i/o's...
    Or...
    Suggestions?
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    We've been seeing this stupid error message since v3 and it's never mattered in the slightest. It is always incorrect, anyway. The clips are always drop and the sequences are always drop. It's an FCP programming glitch/bug/screwup. Someday they may or may not fix the mechanism that triggers the warning.
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  • Capturing non-drop-frame as drop-frame??

    I have to capture a bunch of amateur tapes shot with various cameras. Ultimate destination is NTSC DV. I have a sense that if I capture the non-drop-frame in a standard NTSC DV setup that I might have some buggy problems. Or at least the batch capture is telling me so.
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    Well, after trying most of the suggestions here, I did find a reasonably hassle free workaround to capturing the hour and fifteen minute footage of 8 bit 32 kHz video to FCP with minimal sync slippage over the length of the footage.
    I finally gave up on capturing the material in FCP and instead hooked the canon z80 up to an old version of Toast Platinum 6 I had on my computer. Toast creates a raw quicktime movie file with the extension .dv. Toast then allows you to edit that quicktime file, add chapters, button pictures, etc. thereby making a new file to replace the raw QT it first created. After some experimentation, I discovered that the original raw QT file Toast creates can simply be dragged intact to the FCP browser window, where it becomes a clip with minimal sync problems. I would caution against trying to use the second improved QT file that Toast creates after you've edited your file, as this second QT movie seems less stable than the raw one it first creates.
    A final caveat for Toast users. Make sure you set the preferences so that they don't DELETE the original file it creates. There are settings that will tell Toast to do just that either After a Day, After a Week, When You Close the Program or Never. I'd set that to Never, since it can be highly unpleasant to discover that your program has deleted the very file you were planning to work with.
    Hope this is of some help.
    Thanks to all who pitched in and offered suggestions. Your help has been invaluable!
    I now mark this issue Solved. Or at least as Solved as I plan to get it!

  • Drop Frame video (29.97) with Non-Drop Frame Time Code

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  • Mixing Drop Frame and Non Drop Frame In One Timeline

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  • Drop Frame/Non-Drop Frame Warning

    Hi,
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  • DV NTSD drop-frame vs. non-drop-frame??

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  • Drop Frame being read as Non-Drop Frame

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  • Drop Frame vs. Non Drop Frame

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    Thank you for your responses.
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  • Drop-frame to non drop-frame error

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    It's neither... if you used consumer gear to shoot with, you'll get errors like this because consumer formats such as HDV, and DV are plain not that precise, but normally, you can just ignore them. As long as you're set up to capture DV at 48k and you shot DV at 48k, normally there's no problems even if these error messages are recorded.
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  • Drop-frame media to a non-drop frame clip?

    Hello,
    Maybe it's not my night and I should just go to bed! In any event, upon batch capture I receive the following warning:
    Warning: You are about to capture drop-frame media to a non-drop frame clip. If you proceed, you may experience changes in logged in and out points, problems relinking media, or removal of master clip relationships.
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    some decks (including the DSR-11, i believe) have a menu setting that can force the deck to output DF or NDF regardless of what was recorded on the tape.
    it is possible that the deck was set to do this when you logged (and it isn't now), or it is set to do this now (and it wasn't when you logged).
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  • How to tell if video is drop frame or non-drop frame in Encore?  Need info to use correct SCC file.

    Hi,
    Thanks in advance. I am using Encore DVD 2.0 to add closed captions to video. I have both a drop frame SCC file and a non-drop frame SCC file. How can I tell which one to use? Can I tell from the way the timecode looks on the timeline? Do I look at the timeline timecode or the source timecode? For example, in a random area of video the timeline says 00;02;50;24 while the source says 00:02:50:20.
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    Thanks jbowden and Jim for your help. Although I'm still not real clear how Encore notes DF vs NDF (more on that below), I got my problem solved.
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