Do I need Slugs for Black on Export?

[Rick Dolishny]

You’re fine without the slugs for black.

The only time I use a slug is when I’m assembling a show and need to drop in commercial blacks. I drop slugs on a video track which is exclusively used for commercial blacks. Then I can (a) zoom out to check I have the correct number of breaks and (b) I can measure my breaks quickly and accurately. But that’s just a personal preference FCP doesn’t require slugs at all for what you’re describing!

—
Rick Dolishny
rdolishny@hotmail.com
http://www.dolish.com

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

If there’s a “hole” in the timeline (nothing there on any of the tracks) it outputs as “black”.

[Jon Diener]

Cool! Thanks for the quick answers, guys!

That’s kinda what I thought, but just wanted to verify before getting into a potentially bad habit.

Thanks!

Jon Diener
Video Post

[Walter Biscardi]

Actually I’m going to disagree with the previous posters and say yes you should include a Slug in any hole in the timeline. I’ve found that you can potentially get dropped frames in longer timelines, especially in uncompressed SD or HD if you have holes in the video track.

I never leave holes in any of my timelines.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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[Jeff Carpenter]

Walter knows what he’s talking about, but even if you’re happy without using slugs there is ONE time where it’s more important than other places.

If you end your show with a dissolve, the playhead tends to stop right on the last, faintest, part of the dissolve. If you use “Print to Tape” then it puts black at the end and you’re fine, but if you export to DVD it’s possible that the DVD player might freeze on that last frame for a second before jumping to the next track. It looks messy.

So you should either put 1 or 2 frames of slug at the end of your program OR extend the audio track out 1 frame past the dissolve. Either way you get one last “clean” frame of black that could be important later on.

[Daryl K davis]

One thing I have run into is that slugs need to be there if you nest your timeline to ‘burn’ in a time-code window for your output. Otherwise the timecode window disappears where there is empty space in the timeline.

[Bob Flood]

hey jeff

does that apply even if you set an outpoint after the dissolve,like 2 or 3 seconds? I have been having issues with fades not finishing as you described and that may e the cause

i have been putting a fade to black on my last shot, then manually moving down the timeline 2 seconds, then dropping a marker and marking out

bee eph

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Bob,

I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure that putting a marker doesn’t do anything. If there is no more media I think the playhead just stops. I don’t believe that it continues to chase after markers.

I usually just drag my audio out 1 more frame than the video. That gives me my frame of black and since the audio is fading out too, who’s gonna notice one extra frame? (This is non-broadcast work, obviously.) Putting a slug in works too, but my way is a little bit faster so that’s what I do.

[Erik Lindahl]

The thing about the timelines “black holes” compared to “slug” is that the “black holes” are really “transparent holes” (i.e. nothing is there). This can cause problems I’ve notised. Exporting to the animation codec will give transparency instead of black and exporting to DVD (MPEG2) has given me white-flashframes.

For best practice use black slugs.

If you don’t experiance any problems

[Rick Dolishny]

Those are a couple of really good points!

—
Rick Dolishny
rdolishny@hotmail.com
http://www.dolish.com