When mastering my DV deck records only black, crash record sees program

Question

Hi there:
I've been editing for years but this is my first Final Cut job. I was having a problem outputting an 8-minute sequence, geting an Incompatible Compression Settings error message. I am not sure why, because all the sources were either DV, aiff music/vo and jpegs, but a friend I asked suggested this solution. First I created a new sequence, making sure that everything was set to DV output (which it seemed to be in the previous, but anyway...). Then I nested my output sequence in the new one. I had to render stuff again, but it seemed that it would finally let me make a digital output to the deck.
The Problem:
When I went to assemble, the deck (DSR-11, tape blacked at head) cued and went into record. The output signal was Firewire, the deck's input was DV. Since I was "mastering", it put B&T as well as a black slug in the appropriate spots and for the correct lengths and played the sequence to the end. However I was only seeing this through the FCP output window. When I checked the tape I found the deck had recorded ONLY BLACK, but did assemble correctly since I now had black and timecode on my tape for the full duration.
It was as if black were routed to the deck. This was really weird because I had been using the deck to feed my line monitor throughout the whole edit, so I knew the deck was seeing FCP. I tried this several times, using different tapes (DVCam, MiniDV) but the result was the same.
Finally I just added bars and black to the sequence and played it down manually while I hard recorded on the DSR. The deck saw and recorded the piece without a problem, but because I had to hard record the start timecode for the show isn't 01:00:00:00-how unprofessional!!
Any advice you can give is welcomed. thanks!

Answer 1

The DSR-11 is a mainly a player. It wasn't designed for mastering. There is no RS-422 deck control, and a few internal components and menu settings are missing, so you cannot master to the deck with timeline timecode. The only thing you can do is PRINT TO VIDEO, and the deck will start recording at 1:00:00:00. You cannot EDIT TO TAPE. The only way to do that is if you have RS-422 deck control, or you use firewire as deck control and send video out via another route, like SDI. The DSR-25 and 45 were the mastering decks.
There was a trick to getting timeline timecode to the deck, but that trick is 5 years out of date, and no longer works. Bottom line is that you cannot master to that deck and get the timecode you are aiming for.
Sorry.
Shane