Does anyone know of a way to auto remove black commercial breaks from master tape?

[David Roth weiss]

There’s no filter for that Paul. And, that’s really a job best done machine to machine. Capturing doubles the time necessary to do the job.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Bouke Vahl]

Paul,
I’ve made a util some time ago to do exactly this. (well, ingesting from satellite feeds).
However, depending on the quality, i might need some adjustments.
One of the problems now is that it starts capturing a few frames after the black is gone, thus you’ll loose a little.

Another option is that I alter my Recut app. for you so it ‘ll automate the process. If so, you have to ingest entire reels, export to XML or just feed the QT’s to the app, let the app. do it’s thing (will be quite fast, since we proable can make educated guesses where the breaks are and how long they are)
It then can either alter the QT for you, or give you an XML with the cleaned show.

Sad part, with either one or the other option, it’ll probably take me a day to get you up and running.
Contact me off list if you’re interested.

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro’s

[Lars Fuchs]

Mr Weiss is correct that performing this chore in a ‘linear’ edit suite, from one vtr to another directly, is the most effective way to do this.

But there aren’t many folks with linear edit suites out there any more, and who has more than one deck in their NLE?

Here are some suggestions to make the work go faster.

First, don’t digitize the segments individually. Digitize the whole show, gaps and all, from start to finish. If nothing else, this will give you a full half hour you can spend on doing something else productive. If you have a master with MANY shows on one tape, LOG them all first (again, with one clip per show) and then BATCH digitize the whole tape in one go. Now you can go away for the length of the tape.

Second, when creating sequences, drop each show’s clip into a new timeline. Enable “Show Audio Waveform” in the timeline options. Now the gaps will be clearly visible in the audio tracks. You can jump right to them and ripple-delete them out. Presto!

When its time to output select all the finished sequences and BATCH EXPORT them. Now you can leave again and do something else productive while your machine churns out your export.

Now, admittedly this technique will mean that you’re digitizing 4-8 minutes of unnecessary black. However, nowadays drive space isn’t such an issue. You will spend some of that time manually digitizing the segments, and more importantly, you can’t really be doing anything else during that time.

[Bouke Vahl]

Mr. Fuchs,
You need to be educated to be up to date with us young folks that are only around for the last 23 years.
There have been a few changes in workflows and possiblitites…

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro’s

[Lars Fuchs]

Well, I am getting a bit long in the tooth. Not much I can do about that. But one is never too old to learn. Can you be more specific about these workflows and possibilities you’re thinking of?

I’m sure ReCut is a very nice app, and that it works wonders. Undoubtedly Mr. Escandon is better off paying 89 Euros for it, than trying to do it by himself, but I was just thinking to give him another option, in case his budget was tight or whatever. You did mention as well as that you’d need to alter your program a bit and that would take some time. This way he can get up and running right away. Moreover, your workflow also requires digitizing the whole tape; manually pulling out 2-3 breaks by finding the silence visually in the waveform is crude perhaps, and old-school, but it’s effective and won’t take very long.

Can the user specify that ReCut should only find black segments? How does it handle fades to and from black? How long does it take to analyze a 30 minute clip?

[Paul Escandon]

Hey – is there any update on this by anyone? Bouke – if you’re still around I tried getting back in touch with you to talk about that custom tool that you talked to me about developing but your e-mail bounced.

I’m at the point right now where I literally have hundreds of quicktime files that I’m manually having to cut the blacks out of and I’d like to explore this again. Thanks!

[Bouke Vahl]

Paul,
I’m still here, and i’m surprised mail bounces…

Try bouke@videotoolshed.com
As well as
bouke@editb.com
and, (to top it off), bouk@editb.nl

Or, go crazy, try IlikeBeer@editb.nl

If all fails, go to my site and find my phone number, and give me a call…
(but i recieve mail at all adresses daily, so i’m pretty sure they work)

later

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro’s