Exporting Timecode

[Floh Peters]

[Gary Stone] “Does anyone know if it’s possible to export – and display – the original timecode of clips? All I seem to get is the counter starting at zero. “

Quicktime files captured in Media 100 do have an integrated Timecode track these days. You can display the TC e.g. in QuickTime player. If you want to convert them e.g. for client viewing, you could add a TC overlay in Compressor while converting to H.264

[Gary Stone]

Thanks Floh… I’ll check into that. I was just hoping that M-100 would have a smoother, integrated option.

[Nick Griffin]

We had something very similar to this come up a few months back. However that was more specific to creating a 21st century equivalent of “window burns,” wherein you are providing the client with raw footage that they would then use to generate a list of preferred takes.

The way to do this is to digitize whole tapes or disks, lay that footage into a timeline, then simply set the timecode start for the timeline to that of the tape or disk. Then output with M100’s built-in timecode burn in and viola — you’ve got it. Granted if there are a lot of camera starts and stops or any kind of a break in the original timecode you may drift a few frames in your window burn copy. Then again the vast majority of clients these days don’t even seem able to comprehend frames and when indicating specific seconds easily are off by a few.

Of course this method will NOT work with edited footage, just raw.