Burning in a clock

[Richard Harrington]

Timecode filter in FCP or Compressor

Richard M. Harrington, PMP

Author: From Still to Motion, Video Made on a Mac, Photoshop for Video, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, Final Cut Studio On the Spot and Motion Graphics with Adobe Creative Suite 5 Studio Techniques

[Andy Mees]

Hi Steven

Is this clock intended to be a running reference timecode for someone to accurately identify points within your video, or more of a “sports” type clock where its referencing elapsed time in an event of some sort? I ask as you note needing “minutes and seconds” only (which suggests the latter) as opposed to needing a “minutes, seconds and frames” which would suggest the former.

If its the former then you want the Timecode Generator (or Timecode Reader) as noted above, or also as noted, the timecode filter in Compressor.

If its the latter then a dedicated plugin would be your easiest bet. You can pick up free “clock” generators in a few places, here are couple of links:
https://www.mattias.nu/plugins/
https://web.mac.com/piero.fiorani/PieroF_FCE_Effect/Counter_Display.html
https://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/dh_counter (commercial)

and I’ve got a timecode “generator” that can be used to similar effect too, just crop out any unneeded info
https://web.me.com/andymees

or you could just use the built in timecode filters attached to a slug and cropped as needed.

Hope it helps
Andy

[Mark Suszko]

I use the digital heaven clock plug-in, very nice and inexpensive too.

[Steven Gladstone]

Thanks everyone, and yes, I only need minutes and seconds. I’m cutting a piece that lasts 4 minutes, bu we can only show 2 minutes, and we don’t want to mislead the viewers that the event (the replacement of a DLP lamp in a DLP TV) took less than the time it actually took.

Thanks again.

Steven Gladstone
https://www.gladstonefilms.com

[Mark Suszko]

Before we got the Digital Heaven plug-in, what we did was shoot an actual digital clock display and luma-key a cropped version of it on a separate video track. Tedious and wastes storage space, but works.