Bars and Tone

[Simon Ubsdell]

There are no bars and tone in FCPX yet despite what it said in Apple’s literature. Sorry.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[John Chay]

Not sure why you would need bars and tone when you can’t output to tape.

http://www.john-chay.com

Editor/Videographer

[James Poll]

Sometimes it’s useful to add bars and tone in a tapeless workflow. I regularly add a little at the beginning of files that go out-of-house, since I know that the files may get transcoded at another facility, and the bars are useful in determining if there have been any transcoding issues (gamma shifts, level/colour distortions, etc.)

[Ricky Dominguez]

Export my sequence (now project) as mov with bars and tone and then use AJA VTR Xchange for Edit to Tape.

[Olof Ekbergh]

I can see needing T&B.

Edit in FCPX make everything look as good as possible. Then put T&B on the front of the video and export. Then launch FCP7 or M100 or any NLE w/output to AJA or whatever card. Check the Bars on external scopes, adjust as necessary and then export to tape.

This is how I am planning to use FCPX on a couple new projects.

I created a generator in Motion by modifying a generator from FCPX there, replacing media with a set of bars from a BMP. I now have a generator called Color Bars in my generators tab. It is easy to import tone.

This seems like an easy fix for now.

Olof Ekbergh

[Ricky Dominguez]

Thanks Olof Ekbergh for the tip and all other for the help,

Have a great weekend,

Ricky Dominguez
Luna Films
Puerto Rico

[Steven Gonzales]

For something being projected in a calibrated theater, a known level signal can help in setting up the project video and the house sound level.

[Andrew Dietz]

Olof, that is great, you should share that Generator 🙂

[Paul Figgiani]

Since Motion projects including Generators don’t include audio tracks – why not output Bars and Tone as a QT movie from FCP 7? Then import this movie into your Event(s). What’s nice about this is it’s a self contained movie that includes the Tone audio.

I have a ten second clip(s) if you want it … both 1080p HD and NTSC DV

-paul.