PT 6 firewire video out

[soundasylum]

Anyone using PT 6 and the ability to output your quicktime movie through the firewire port?

I'm hoping this is a solution to the AV option, as DIGI is no longer supporting my $8K investment that's only a year and a half old. But don't get me started.

I have Final Cut pro and a Promax DA MAX convertion box to get video in from the DigiBetas. Hoping to get good sync with this method. I'd love to hear from anyone doing this professionally.

Thanks!

[CPettigrew]

Originally posted by soundasylum:
Anyone using PT 6 and the ability to output your quicktime movie through the firewire port?


Thanks!

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I just installed ProTools 6 and opened a session where the DV (I have the Director's Cut/Miglia boxes) is sent out the firewire port. (It was a session from 5.3.1)

Works great so far.

Craig

[gugu]

Don't you need EchoFire any more?

gugu

[CPettigrew]

Originally posted by gugu:
Don't you need EchoFire any more?

gugu

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">No, not since 5.3. But I think they're better drivers; I get occasional weirdnesses, like the image will overlap itself and appear cockeyed on the screen. The workaround is to toggle the "Play DV Out Through Firewire" option. Also, EchoFire always resolved to a still frame, whereas PT does not, and it's jerky until you hit the + or - to resolve the frame.

Craig

[derF]

Has anybody seen this http://www.virtualvtr.com

I've been thinking about it as a replacement for our AVOption. Run another Mac with VirtualVTR via MIDI/9-Pin to chase along side your Pro Tools rig. Seems like a good idea to me.

Only problem I can see/have at the mo is what capture device do you use that isn't going to break the bank!

[Mark Wheaton]

First, has Digidesign announced that they are no longer supporting AV Option? Hard to believe sincethey are owned by Avid. I think the reality is that this just wasn't ready for the 6.0 release and will follow sometime this year. And, the advantage to AVOption is that it allows opening Avid video timelines without redigitizing. Am I wrong? If this is the case, alternatives such as Firewire etc will not fill that gap, since they require either real time capture or recompressing Avid media into DV codec (which may take longer than real time and results in lower quality due to recompressing).

What would actually be nice would be a method of directly opening Final Cut and Avid DV Express timelines without having to export from those programs.

I usually just capture (in realtime) from tape. The Virtual VTR solution, quite frankly seems like overkill considering the fact that DV playback through firewire works quite well. I just finished a feature film score project.

We Captured from the composers copies of the film reels with window burn (vhs) captured via Canopus box to Final Cut as clips (each reel as one clip) Opened these 20 minute reels in PT no problem. lined up timecode and did the whole session reel by reel with not one glitch. We've done it several times before as well. I don't understand the need to resort to convoluted solutions like Virtual VTR when it is so easy.

However, If your project was done on Avid, using AV Option might be some what time saving in terms of recapture. I don't know if the cost is justified, since all it saves you is the 2-3 hour inconvenience (capture from tape time). It seems this would only be justifiable in an all Avid work flow and in those cases I would recommend staying on OS 9 until AVOption for OS X is released.

[froyo]

By Mark Wheaton

First, has Digidesign announced that they are no longer supporting AV Option?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">By Digidesign Administrator

That is correct, there will be no support for AV Option (ABVB video hardware) in Mac OS X and, therefore, Pro Tools 6.0.

AV Option XL will be supported in a later version but not immediately in 6.0.

Jon Connolly
Digidesign Product Specialist

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

[auckland yobbo]

For what it's worth:

Just tried the DAC-100 Datavideo Firewire - Analog convertor.

It sucks.

If you are playing video off a firewire drive it can't keep up - ie. tv screen goes purple.

I'm told that more expensive ones work much better than this.

[jimlongo]

I was working with DV picture out of a Canopus ADVC-100 and it worked allright but there were some still frames that it flickered on.
It was a demo Quicktime file so I am not sure about the capture.

The other thing I noticed is that you can close the movie window and the video still works . . . SORT OF. It displays but the video position doesn't snap back to the start point (which it is set to do) and the picture is very slippery, one time the cut point is at one frame location and a second later it has moved by a few frames. The picture didn't have burn-in so it was hard figure out exactly what was happening, but for sure it started acting correctly again once you displayed the movie window.

[soundasylum]

ANY OTHER SUCCESS STORIES? I'M REALLY NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO GIVING DIGI ANOTHER SIX GRAND TO UPGRADE MY YEAR AND A HALF OLD AV OPTION.

IT'S THE PRINCIPAL.