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automatic clip capture
Anyone know if I can set FCP6 to capture tapes automatically in 10-minute clips? It would save me a bunch of time to be able to scrub through material digitally and make subclips instead of logging from a deck. And since I have so many tapes, I’m hoping I don’t have to manually log at 10-minute intervals. Seems like a feature fCP would have, but I can’t find it! Thanks, Jane
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8 Replies
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What’s wrong with manually logging? I mean, you want to make sure that your clips are broken up properly, and not cutting someone off mid sentence and that you aren’t missing anything. It is VERY easy to take a field tape, that is typically not rewound, and log it as several clips as you rewind it, then set it to batch capture. I mean, that takes minutes.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Jane
If you really want to be lazy, do a Capture Now and set your capture limit to 10 minutes. Or you can capture the entire tape by setting an in point at the beginning of the tape and an end point at the end of the tape.
I would not recommend it if I were editing the project but it’s your project.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
q[Jane Greenberg] “It would save me a bunch of time to be able to scrub through material digitally and make subclips instead of logging from a deck.”
I don’t see how this will save you time. I can see how it can cost you more time, but I don’t see any savings at all.
If you log the tape before hand, it’s then captured in the small segments that you log, and you may skip over large portions of a particular tape, saving both the time & disk space needed to capture it.
Also, you have all of the benefits of small media files. They match frame better. They scrub more easily. They behave better and more predictably in general. And they stop and start where you wanted them to in the first place!
If you capture everything & log it later, you will have larger media files. You will have captured a lot of material that you will never need to see a second (really, even the first) time, devoting both capture time and disk space to it. Your media files will be awkwardly large, making it harder to find the right material by scrubbing through them.
If you capture in arbitrary 10 minute chunks, they will start an end in arbitrary places- in the middle of interviews, scenic pans, all the most annoying but never the best places. If you subclip them, you will have issues with media management or Color later on.
And if you then decide to use the media manager to reclaim your lost drive space, it’s an extra step, using up more of your precious time.
Log first. Sweat less.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
Well, I’ve been shamed into giving a bit more background information, since all the responses to my question about an automated capture feature are making me feel really silly. So here’s the deal. This project has 320 hours of footage that has already been shot (no joke). It’s a documentary and there are still a few more shoots to go. The producer director is trying to winnow down the tapes before capturing them, BUT she has promised the community that she is filming that she will donate all the footage to their community center archive. Which means we will be capturing most of those tapes and delivering a drive to the community. Since it’s much quicker to review material by scrubbing through it digitally than logging on a tape, and I am co-editing the film, I was hoping to streamline the process by automating the capture feature to create master clips, and then subclipping where necessary. But I’ve talked to enough experts to know that this feature does not exist, so I will simply type clip timecodes at 10 minute intervals. Not a big deal with 100 tapes, but 320 it’s somewhat intimidating. I am also exporting select sections of tapes as audio files to be used for digital transcription. But again, this is much easier to tackle if all the material has been captured. I think 10-minute clips is a safe duration–it seems like it could be problematic to capture the entire tape as one clip, but maybe that’s not risky. THere is no problem stopping clips mid-sentence or at unnatural in and out points. The important thing is that I can quickly lay them into a sequence without having to adjust the timing. So I am advancing one frame after each out point to begin my next 10-minute clip. If you still think this method is foolish and have any suggestions, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Jane
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[Jane Greenberg] “I think 10-minute clips is a safe duration–it seems like it could be problematic to capture the entire tape as one clip, but maybe that’s not risky.”
Jane,
Capturing entire tapes is not problematic. In the old days (like two years ago) it might have been a problem, but modern computers and modern hard drives have not issues with 60-min captures. If I had 320 tapes to capture, you can bet I would be making 320 captures rather than 3200 captures.
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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I stand by my original suggestion. Log your footage as you rewind the tape. Then batch capture when done. LIckity split.
Give your tape unique names…like location and date shot, like LAX060209_01. Los Angeles, june 2, 2009, tape 1. If two cameras, then add A and B to the name. Give the clips the names of the tapes, so LAX060209_1-1, LAX060209_1-2, LAX060209_1-3 and so on. But since you are working backwards, and you know that you will breaking it up into 5 pieces, then number backwards.
Since you have so many tapes, do you think that you would gain some insight into organization from my tutorial DVD on the topic? If so, click on my head at the top of the page and check it out.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Hi, Jane.
i’ve been in a similar situation.
100’s of tape to capture (not 320!) in not much time.the workflow we came to was this:
FIRSTLY
my assistant and i both captured at the same time, halving our capture time.
nost our fotage was A/B camera stuff, so this was god for us,
and we tried to keep vaguely in syncSECONDLY,
we captured whole tapes.
as someone else mentioned, it;s not such an issues these days.we started ding a “whole tape” log as the tapes were rewinding, but gave that up after a while, and settled in to whole-tape “capture now” mode.
FINALY
while we were capturing, we got an overview of what was on the tapes.
this was HDV captreng as DV, so once we were captured, we ran DVstart /stop to put markers on each new shot.we put the days captures in a timeline, and found discrete “Scenes” or “Segments”
we broke up the clips into segments, renaming them, (you have to make the clips independent to properly rename them)
then used MEDIA MANAGER to make new files overnight.
(Media Manager kept the markers, and the DV start / stop info in the fle, BAtch Export would not,
but if you’re not working with DV, it probably doesn’t matter)in the morning, we checked the new files for any errors (none spring to mind),
and deleted the captures when we had the all-clear.this was a fast and efficient way for us to work.
oh, there’s a gotcha with Media Manger,
in that you have to delete 2 frames between the segments for it to work properly.
it’s weird as it will give you one frame back (on the tail),
but unless you delete the two frames, it will not properly split the files up.hope that helps,
nick -
Thanks so much, Nick. This is really helpful. Jane
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