-
Time of Day TC Capture workflow
I am looking for a good workflow for capturing DV material shot with time of day timecode (non-sync multicam 24P shoot) I need to capture all of the material & the footage has lots and lots of start/stops, so choosing “make new clip” on TC breaks is really inefficient.
Seems to me that the inherent TC breaks are a major problem no matter how you tell FCP to handle them.
With “warn after capture” selected, FCP assigns new TC after the first break. I read one post which recommends capturing the entire tape, then use DV Start-Stop Detect. Assuming I have selected “warn after capture”, how will DV Start-Stop Detect read the native TOD TC, since FCP has assigned new TC. Does the TOD data remain as metadata?
Any ideas? Thanks!
-
7 Replies
-
Do you need to retain the original timecode? If not dub the tape. If so, then it’s probably fastest to log each start/stop of the camera.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer
Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here
Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D
-
[David Fish] “I am looking for a good workflow for capturing DV material shot with time of day timecode (non-sync multicam 24P shoot) I need to capture all of the material & the footage has lots and lots of start/stops, so choosing “make new clip” on TC breaks is really inefficient.”
That is THE best way to handle this. It’s the most accurate as far as recapturing the correct timecode. Yes it’s slow, but I’m wondering if this will work any faster with FCP 6. Also, your choice of VTR can make a difference. I find that capture from an RS-422 controlled device, like our Sony J3 player, is much faster to locate TC breaks and continue recording than using our DV VTR via Firewire.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html
Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
-
Remember that the “DV Start/Stop Detect” feature reads “time of day”, not SMPTE TC. Log & Capture reads SMPTE TC, not “time of day”.
No matter what happens to the SMPTE TC (glitches are in the Mini-DV tape format, not in FCP), the TOD TC metadata is still in tact, as they have nothing to do with each other in the metadata.
Also, “DV Start/Stop Detect” is very fast. Here’s an article I wrote on it:
https://www.eventdv.net/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=11431
– ACT
– FCS, SA & FS-100 videos http://www.bbalser.com
– South Louisiana FCP Users Group, slfcpug.org
– NOVAC Digital Filmmakers Institute, novacvideo.org
– Event DV magazine, eventdv.net -
[bbalser] “Remember that the “DV Start/Stop Detect” feature reads “time of day”, not SMPTE TC. Log & Capture reads SMPTE TC, not “time of day”.”
TC on any professional device can be to Time of Day simply by setting the start time of the TC and selecting Free Run. That will be SMPTE Timecode, manually set by the camera operator to Time of Day. During a live event, very often the TC is externally generated by a clock to ensure all the cameras roll matching Time of Day timecode.
So yes, SMPTE TC can be Time of Day and it has been used that way for many years.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html
Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
-
I think David was referring to the use of TOD _as_ the SMPTE code. This is a common approach to certain kinds of multi camera shoots, but can get you into all sorts of trouble in FCP if you are starting ands stopping tape. Which is the whole point of using TOD in the first place…
A great solution to this in the old days was to run TOD in the user bits instead of as the TC itself. Then you use that to line up shots while keeping unique code as the main code. Unfortunately FCP appears to have no support for user bits.
To the best of my knowledge, FCP also doesn’t support reading any “TOD” recorded in metadata. Nor CC, nor any other shoot time data…
Anyway, Walter has this covered, but be aware that you are likely to lose precious bits if you didn’t roll enough tape on each fresh shot.
-
If you have a windows machine handy you could try this.
https://www.imagineproducts.com/tcdetective.htm
I have thought about getting this myself for these multicam projects.
Jim Calahan
KVIE, Sacramento -
FCP should work just like EDIUS, which captures the whole tape, detects timecode breaks and assigns a new filname – on the fly, without wasting the time with preroll every time it finds a TC break.
As one can see from the dates of the previous comments, this has been an issue for many of us for a good couple of years. It’s 2010 now, and the official solution is still to avoid shooting with free run timecode. Appreciated.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up