Cinema Tools question URGENT!

[Neil001]

That sounds like a really good idea. How would I go about doing that?

[Joseph Owens]

Re: modify source code:
“How would I go about doing that?”

If you’ve got the books, or the on-line help, its all in book2, Chapter 25, and the most pertinent entries are around page 446. Read “Chosing Source and Auxiliary Timecode Track Display” on page 442.

That will be a good start…

[Neil001]

Thanks so much for this suggestion. It actually seems to work. The only thing is I have to modify the TC in FCP then go into Cinema Tools and modify it again. But it seems to work! What a relief!

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

Actually, it’s very common, but with one major exception: a new HD submaster is created that consists of only printed takes, and the DVCam reflects that submaster, not the original camera tape. All daily duplication can be done from this HD submaster, and it also is the source for final assembly. So the only difference in the workflow being described here is that in this version, there is no HD submaster, and thus the DVCam time codes don’t relate to anything other than the DVCam – a critical flaw in the workflow, and one that has no easy workaround other than changing all the time codes once the material is digitized, if you’re cutting on Final Cut. If you’re on an Avid, this is much less of an issue because you can enter the original HDCam time code into the TC24 column and directly generate an EDL for assembly purposes by selecting this column as the source time code in EDL Manager. Since most high end television is cut on Avid systems, this is probably the reason the Canadian post house offers to do it this way. I guess in the end this is, unfortunately, another lesson in just how lacking Final Cut is in terms of media and database management. By the way, the system of creating an HD submaster and a DVCam downconversion is used for just about every single camera HD originated television program currently on the air, with the exception of a few that use a system originated by Sony that involves Lockit boxes and digital sound recorders to “auto sync” in post.

The various suggestions here of using DVCPro HD are valid only if the digitizing is done by the post house directly from the camera tapes, with the sound sync done by the editor – not a bad workflow, by the way. Going to DVCPRO HD tape is not a valid option because there is no such thing as a 720/24p DVCProHD video format. If you send 24 frame material to the machine, it will record as 720/60p, but there will be no “frame flags” to identify the cadence – these are only present when you are shooting with a Panasonic camera. With no way to recognize the cadence, there will be no way to remove it, thus going to DVCProHD tape is not an option in this type of situation.

[Neil001]

Thanks Mike for your reply. Do you happen to know if the EDL features you mentioned for Avid are available in the Avid xpress Pro version? I’m about ready to go out and buy it.