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Activity Forums Creative Community Conversations Can we perhaps hold the triumphalism …?

  • Can we perhaps hold the triumphalism …?

    Posted by Simon Ubsdell on March 18, 2016 at 8:04 pm

    … until such times as FCP X reaches feature parity wth AVID, or at the very least with FCP 7 which it supplanted.

    My list is quite long and I won’t rehearse it all yet again, but here’s a key feature that’s still missing that you’d want and expect from a top professional NLE, namely …

    Multiple simultaneous timecode displays.

    Let’s wait and see that (for instance) implemented before we start crowing too loudly just yet.

    Simon Ubsdell
    tokyo-uk.com

    Chris Harlan replied 3 weeks, 6 days ago 21 Members · 88 Replies
  • 88 Replies
  • Bill Davis

    March 18, 2016 at 8:22 pm

    Sigh.

    I had this debate with my friend Ben King of the BBC.

    While fully acknowledging that traditional construct of facility time code remains completely mission critical for many – I question for how long.

    The earth is ringed with satellites that keep insanely precise time. Every one of us likely has devices that can tap into that. Cel phones, watches, heck, a GoPro with a wi-fi back can get a time hack and keep FAR better than 30fps accuracy over weeks. So what does timecode really provide in the modern era that couldn’t be supplanted over time with video systems moving to GPS based clock time with local offsets applied?

    I was working with Phil Hodgetts and Greg Smith at NAB last year on a production demo and what almost screwed things up wasn’t timecode – the BlackMagit cameras and switchers all had that in spades. It was that nobody had taken the time to set the real time clocks!

    Traditional “start at zero'” completely internal TC is isolated to a small group.

    Time of day is global.

    My 2 cents.

    Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

  • Mike Warmels

    March 18, 2016 at 8:26 pm

    Well, I’d like it. Especially in working with synchronised media.

    My client did a lot of synchronisation work using Synch’n’Link. But… in some cases the audio is not in synch. There’s no clear cause to be found why some clips are out of synch. But… I would like to see what the situation is. Is the timecode wrong? (so I can tell my sound recordist that his time code lock is off sometimes?) Has Synch’n’Link made a mistake and if so is it consistent?

    It’s one of the many cases I can think of that time code is suddenly still very important, even though FCPX makes it appear it’s not.

  • Simon Ubsdell

    March 18, 2016 at 8:33 pm

    [Bill Davis] “Sigh. “

    Perhaps we can conclude that if you don’t understand the need for this feature, then the chances are that your personal editing requirements tend toward the modest.

    Simon Ubsdell
    tokyo-uk.com

  • Michael Hancock

    March 18, 2016 at 8:38 pm

    When Simon write “Multiple simultaneous timecode displays.”, I imagine he’s thinking something like this (from Avid), and hopefully he’ll correct me if I’m wrong:

    https://content.provideocoalition.com/uploads/avid-long-timecode-window.png

    It may not be useful to some people, but it’s incredibly useful to others. And the best part is that it’s customizable. If you want to use it – it’s available. If you don’t, just don’t open the window. Everybody is happy.

    [Bill Davis] “So what does timecode really provide in the modern era that couldn’t be supplanted over time with video systems moving to GPS based clock time with local offsets applied? “

    Perhaps over time this will be happen and will be awesome, but today it’s not happening. Today we still use timecode, so why shouldn’t Apple build in some extra functionality that’s useful and requested?

    [Bill Davis] “I was working with Phil Hodgetts and Greg Smith at NAB last year on a production demo and what almost screwed things up wasn’t timecode – the BlackMagit cameras and switchers all had that in spades. It was that nobody had taken the time to set the real time clocks! “

    If FCPX had all the timecode functionality of some of the other NLEs it wouldn’t have been a problem. You just calculate the timecode difference between the cameras and make an Aux Timecode and use that for syncing. Pretty simple stuff, and solves the error that was made on set.

    [Bill Davis] “Traditional “start at zero'” completely internal TC is isolated to a small group.

    Time of day is global.”

    Time of day isn’t always a good idea, especially if you’re shooting over multiple days with cameras that are likely to repeat file names. You’ll end up with a bunch of clips with the same name and same timecode, which can make relinking and finishing a nightmare.

    Maybe timecode won’t be necessary in the future, but it’s still very important and necessary today. It would be great if FCPX did more with it.

    —————-
    Michael Hancock
    Editor

  • Bill Davis

    March 18, 2016 at 8:46 pm

    Perhaps. But then again my training was partly in network affiliate televation stations where time code, in all its variants – drop and non drop, house clock, user bits, etc was something that the engineering teams were pretty serious about. So perhaps it’s not so much my misunderstanding the nature of time code, but believing that it’s place in the industry might be changing with good reason?
    After all, we have personal computers now. It’s not a very big math lift to take UTC and parse it into 29.97 to get a video frame cadence right. My watch can do it, after all. FWIW

    Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

  • Mike Warmels

    March 18, 2016 at 8:50 pm

    Indeed.

    Plus, in my country we still have to supply broadcast master MXFs starting at timecode 00:01:55:00… So yeah, you can wish timecode would now away. But very often you still need it.

    And there’s also the audio situation. I often shoot with separate audio and synching is way faster by using timecode than by audio analysis. And much more reliable. It makes a computer do what it does best: putting the numbers together. It is, after all, just a bloated calculator.

  • Shane Ross

    March 18, 2016 at 8:57 pm

    [Bill Davis] “So what does timecode really provide in the modern era that couldn’t be supplanted over time with video systems moving to GPS based clock time with local offsets applied? “

    Frame count. Time clocks don’t count frames. Seconds is as low as they go, and we all work with increments less than that. I often have shots that last under a second. And no, “microseconds” won’t cover this either. And with the vast array of different frame rates…23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94…we need TIMECODE to be able to navigate this footage.

    Shane
    Little Frog Post
    Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

  • Oliver Peters

    March 18, 2016 at 9:09 pm

    [Shane Ross] “Frame count. Time clocks don’t count frames”

    It also provides the easiest way to locate unique content later in the most user-readable way. For example, if your recordings were limited to 1 hour and you used a 4-digital numeric identifier for each file as a “reel ID” number, you could easily locate any frame within 10,000 hours of footage without any repeats. So timecode – even in an era of GPS and other methods – has a lot of value.

    – Oliver

    Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
    Orlando, FL
    http://www.oliverpeters.com

  • Shane Ross

    March 18, 2016 at 9:13 pm

    [Oliver Peters] “It also provides the easiest way to locate unique content later in the most user-readable way. For example, if your recordings were limited to 1 hour and you used a 4-digital numeric identifier for each file as a “reel ID” number, you could easily locate any frame within 10,000 hours of footage without any repeats. So timecode – even in an era of GPS and other methods – has a lot of value.”

    Yes…frame accuracy in an NLE is essential. And in tracking footage is essential. Not only in the dying tape format where you need to be able to output frame accurately…but in just LOOKING for footage. In being able to say that a shot starts EXACLTY at 1:13:23:15. You cannot do that accurately with a clock, even if you used 10th’s of a second.

    Shane
    Little Frog Post
    Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

  • Simon Ubsdell

    March 18, 2016 at 9:15 pm

    [Oliver Peters] “So timecode – even in an era of GPS and other methods – has a lot of value.”

    Quite so.

    But even if we went over to a different way of expressing it, and I can’t see the immediate benefit of that if any, the point I was making is that being able to read the time stamp of multiple clips at the same time within the NLE, is of vital importance in so many different scenarios, it’s not much point in trying to enumerate them!

    Simon Ubsdell
    tokyo-uk.com

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