Erroneous Shift Fields Error

[Alex Snelling]

Hi Walter

I have just spent the entire weekend testing the Media Manager in FCP6 on an HDV project updated from FCP 5.1.4. The reason I was doing this was to see if it was safe to actually continue working on this project in 6 and commit the carnal sin of “upgrading midway through a project”.

I have to say that there are several issues connected with XML, sync and aspect ratios flags. I love 6 – it has all the features I need to get this project finished (smoothcam, ProRes and Color particularly) however I am as yet unconvinced by any of the routes I have tested so far to transfer my already complicated 2 hour edit into 6.

I may be looking at using an EDL for the finishing stage!!!

Alex Snelling
Apple Certified FCP Trainer.
Apple Europe Industry Mentor FCP & Motion

[Walter Biscardi]

[SlackA] “have just spent the entire weekend testing the Media Manager in FCP6 on an HDV project updated from FCP 5.1.4. The reason I was doing this was to see if it was safe to actually continue working on this project in 6 and commit the carnal sin of “upgrading midway through a project”.”

Why do you need the Media Manager for this? The only thing I’ve heard of with FCP 5 to 6 is that Speed Changes will be screwy and you’ll have to re-set those and a few of the filter settings may be thrown off and you’ll have to reset those too.

We’re not using Media Manager for anything I just simply updated the project from 5 to 6 and there were no issues with our project, except the speed changes.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

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Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Alex Snelling]

I was checking the MM because I want to use Color to grade the whole thing at Pro Res. I know that I can take HDV into Color, however I have heard that there is some trouble getting out of Color with HDV especially with sync issues (this is a long form doc).

I have already experienced some issues with upgrading concerning anamorphic flags carrying across incorrectly.

It is better to be safe than sorry.

[Baz Leffler]

I am just finishing a HDV project on FCP 6 that was ‘off lined’ using FCP 5 in DV mode. It was all captured as DV from the HDV tapes and there was about 15% SD content.

I imported the final ‘off line’ project into FCP 6 (and it came up with the ‘shift fields’ error and I just ignored it). Then I used Media Manager and created the new project and selected the ‘copy’ feature so as to retain ALL the required media as DV (as there was about 15% that I needed for the on line).

Then after opening the new ‘managed’ project I proceeded to identify the required HDV material, set it to ‘disconnect’ and delete from disk and then batch captured the HDV clips (*** remember to uncheck the “Create new clip on Start/Stop” *** ).

It was all rather painless and totally accurate. There were all these error messages that appeared but I just ignored them.

One thing that was a problem was that on some of the original capture (using FCP 5) the timecodes were totally wrong. It was done using ‘capture now’ and of course some of the HDV tapes had timecode holes which FCP picked up on but occasionally got the timecode wrong. Anyhow these timecode errors were never detected untill it got to the on line edit. So what I came up with was to open the original ‘off line’ project and re-enter the correct timecode to the affected clips (comparing them to the original clips). Then I used Media Manager to create a temporary new project but this time selected ‘make offline’. Then it was a simple matter of batch capturing those clips from the temporary new project and then going to the main ‘on line’ project and reconnecting. All that was left to do was delete the temporary project.

One thing I did notice and I guess it is a FCP bug… I had one clip that had the wrong timecode from the start. After working out the offset it required me to set the timecode start to 2 frames less than zero so as to get the correct clip timecode. So this required me to set the start timecode to 23:59:59:23 (I am in PAL land) and then the clip played in FCP with what appeared to be the correct required timecode. But it would fail in MM and make it one whole 55 min clip. So I opened the ‘altered timecode’ clip using Quicktime and set it to display timecode. It showed the timecode starting at 23:59:59:23 as required but as it ascended to zero it went 24:00:00:00 which is obviously wrong. But I thought maybe that was a quicktime thing but by setting the clips timecode in FCP to start at 00:00:00:00 rather than 23:59:59:23 allowed MM to do its job correctly (and I made the 2 frame adjustments in the on line).

So in summary it is the most success I have ever had using Media manager now that I am running FCP 6 but for others it doesn’t seem to be the case.

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!