• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  reconnecting media with additional audio tracks

  Posted by Jack Nastowski on January 3, 2009 at 11:26 pm

  Hello,

  I have a completed sequence made from quicktime movies with 2-track stereo audio. I’ve just acquired the same movies, with the same timecode, but with 6-track surround audio. Is there anyway to reconnect the current sequence’s media with the new 6-track audio movies?

  All the edits will be based on the same exact timecode. I just need to use 6-track movies instead of 2-track movies.

  My fear is that I will have to go back and redo all of my edits with the new media.

  I’m not too familiar with EDL’s or XML’s and I wonder if the answer to my problem lies somewhere within those.

  I appreciate any insight.

  Thanks,
  Jack

  Andreas Kiel replied 17 years, 4 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Jerry Hofmann

  January 4, 2009 at 1:49 am

  XML export, a tweak to the file, and re import/reconnection might work… I know just enough about this to be dangerous though… might contact the good folk at Automatic Duck about the idea, they probably know more about XML files than about anyone…

  Otherwise, you’re looking at a re-edit I think… but it might not be too bad. If the multi track audio files are the same name as the originals, and you take them offline, you might be able to reconnect to them, then perform a match frame, and add those extra tracks pretty quickly.

  Jerry

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• 

  Andreas Kiel

  January 4, 2009 at 7:22 pm

  Hello Jack,

  Unfortunately your simple problem is a bit more complicated. And XML won’t really solve it

  Here the answer for “why it is complicated”.
  First BWAV audio is not QuickTime (though QuickTime compatible) and therefore does not have Quicktime timecode. You do see a timecode within Final Cut, but this one is based upon the so called “tc64” which is based upon your project settings sampling rate and timebase (FCP6) and the “Samples after Midnight” of the audio file. This is the first thing.
  Now the second thing. If you digitize/transfer camera video it probably will have audio and will be a QuickTime file. Those Quicktime will contain the audio (or a reference to it).
  Having the files in your project you just can delete the camera audio and link the video to the external audio to create a new master – don’t make a merged clip based upon timecode as audio does not have a timecode.
  That’s not really a problem as long as your project is stable and doesn’t need a reconnect. In latter case – and that happens with XML – Final Cut will read the original AV file plus the external audio. So in your case you will get a clip which does have 8 audio channels instead of the 6 channels you expect. That might look not like a problem as well, but you can’t open this clip without errors anymore. In many cases if you just work in the timeline there is no visible problem – but a little time bomb.

  So where is the solution?
  There is one simple – if you’re sure all video and external audio do have the same TOD and nothing is missing – just digitize/transfer without audio. From there you can use my currently free “sequenceLiner” to lay down your video and audio to a sequence based upon their TOD. Then step thru and link the clips.
  The more time consuming one – digitize/transfer as usual, use “sequenceLiner” to line up the clips. Make a batch export of all those clips which do have external audio without audio, re-connect them and link.

  What you never should do – if you expect that your project has to go offline/online or might crash or has been transfered from one machine to another – is to create subclips with external audio. Subclips will re-connect with the file’s “Real In” when re-connecting. This in many cases will create an out off sync situation.

  I’ve been working on a project like this for several month now and we’ve tested thousands of files within several system setups and the above always turned out to be true.

  There is also a better option with my “multiSync” which will do the steps with some simple clicks. To be involved into the current beta drop me me a mail: kiel at spherico dot com.

  Regards
  Andreas

  Spherico
  https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

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