Re: Flickering/Rolling client monitor

Hi All,

I'm going to include the post as I wrote it before I discoved the problem, just as a reference to others who may experience similar problems. However the main question is at the bottom.
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I have a Canon MV960 that I use as a firewire DA for my domestic "punter-vision" monitor (very old but still going strong 13" Sony Trinitron). Running an iMac 2GHz 2GB SDRAM, FCP 6.0.3. Camera isn't daisy chained (although have tried this in an attempt to find a solution for the problem below)

Recently this TV has started flickering as if there is some sort of interference. On the LCD of the camera the picture drops what looks like a few lines prompting the flicker on the TV.

Tapes digitize into FCP and playback on the TV fine. But here is where it gets weird. I can layoff to tape fine but while it's recording it appears to drop out. However on playback of the tape all is well.

What can it be then?! Why can't I simply pass a signal through the camera without this problem. Which, incidentally, only happens on moving pictures not when play head is still.

Another oddity is this is a recent problem and also happens when I'm using footage digitized from DigiBeta tapes on a Sony J30SDI.

Any help or advice appreciated.
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Edit:
Just found out, by generating a few solid colour plates that the flickering/rolling of my firewire camera picture is an excess luma thing. Is there a clipper/limiter that can be turned on for DV FW output that doesn't involve adding a filter to every clip?!



Thanks
Charles

Hi Charles,

DV signals can have super-white, which isn't always safe to view on any monitor. FCP has a couple of ways to avoid excessive luma on your video output. One of the most frequently used is the Broadcast Safe filter. If you are outputting for broadcast and you don't have a hardware broadcast limiter it is advised to always apply this filter at the very end of your edit, just before laying off to tape. You don't need to add the filter to every clip, you can just Nest the timeline and apply the filter to the Nest. This will ensure that all video you output from FCP has no excessive luma levels.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Thanks Ronnie,

Kind of related, an editor told me recently that the project I took to him was only over 50mb because I was nesting sequences.
Is this true? Does nesting increase project size dramatically?

Thanks again.
Charles

Yes, and not really.

Yes, if you nest different sequences within a single nest. In this case FCP considers your Nest as a large new sequence that has the file size of ALL the sequences inside the Nest. FCP then adds this size to the current project file size, which can become very big. When nesting many complex sequences or when nesting nested sequences your system may even run out of memory.

Not really, if you only nest your timeline (= 1 sequence) into a single nest. The created nest will represent one extra sequence, which will only slightly increase your project file.

Best wishes,

Ronny

I spoke too soon.
It's not the excess luma.
Any ideas anyone?

Charles