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Double system audio confusion. Please help.
I’m confused about how to handle double system audio in FCP. I’m working on a feature that was shot on HDCAM at 23.98. The audio was recorded as BWF on DVDRAM at 29.97 NDF. Time of Day timecode was used for both video and audio so that they would “easy” to sync up. (Would’ve been a lot better if they’d just recorded the audio at 29.98 too, wouldn’t it?)
We have cut the show on FCP 6 at 23.98 using the audio on the HDCAMs. I was expecting to be able to kick out a 30 frame audio EDL for our sound house so they could rebuild the audio portion of the show. I’ve done similar lists with Avid’s EDL manager several times.
Can I make a 29.97 EDL from a 23.98 timeline in FCP?
And can I enter my sound roll numbers in such a way that I can relate them to the corresponding video reel TCs, since they are supposed to be the same?
And if I can do that, how do I create an EDL that references the sound rolls? The “audio EDL” option in FCP seemed pretty limited, and didn’t allow sound reel/tc or aux reel/TC. I’ve consulted the manual and poked around in Cinema Tools, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to make this happen without massive amounts of data entry. It appears that I would have to enter the TC for the first frame of video into the sound roll TC field for each of, oh, 1200 clips. I hope I have this wrong, since I might as well merge all my clips by TC and sync the Devas myself. (Not a bad option if the show weren’t already cut.)
One alternative I was considering: Export a FCP audio EDL of my HDCAM audio and search and replace the tape names with the corresponding sound rolls. But that still doesn’t take care of my 23.98/29.97 problem
Thanks for reading this far. I’m sure I sound confused, but that’s ’cause I am.
As a side note, is there any reason at this point why production should be recording audio at 29.97 for a 23.98 show (direct to DVD, possible film out)?
Thanks!
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4 Replies
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I don’t know if Devas support 23.98 frame rates. I work in PAL but my understanding was that 29.97 sound code was normal, so I am sure that there will be a way to convert. If not in FCP there must be third party apps
EDL reel names can easily be replaced using a word processor with Find & Replace commands.
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Thanks Michael. I know that on my last show, the sound people offered to record at 23.98 to DVDRAM, so some people are doing it.
And yes, the reel names I can work around with the search and replace option in a text editor.
Know of any 3rd party apps that I can use to accurately convert my EDL?
Also, I really would like to know if I can do all this from within FCP/Cinema Tools. Am I just missing something? Or is it as hard as it appears?
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[grassrootsla] “Know of any 3rd party apps that I can use to accurately convert my EDL?”
I haven’t had to do this, so no I don’t know any apps, but I would have expected Cinema Tools to be able to do this.
Experienced ones will wake up soon and answer this for you.
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You can export a 23.98 EDL, and convert it to 29.97 using Cinema Tools. I’m not at my computer to give you the exact instructions on how to do that, but it is a feature.
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