FCP express, capture now option

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

In FCEx, TC is “there” but it really doesn’t matter to your edit.
So I imagine that the display is not “activated” during Capture Now.

Here’s a quote from the Kens Stone website.

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/review_fc_express_martin.html

“…considering that Apple is targeting consumers who will be outputting their projects
right back onto dv tape, timecode is largely irrelevant. Here’s the good news; when you capture your clips from a dv camcorder, timecode is still being captured even though Final Cut Express will not display it anywhere. This means you can open a Final Cut Express project in Final Cut Pro and all timecode will “magically” appear in the viewer.”

[Kevin C.]

Excellent Matte,thanks again.

So the difference then would be that with FCP Pro you would see somewhere you were at 35 min of your 60 min tape, but with exp, you wont see that. Practically is that a bummer?

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

FCEx is a fine editing program for those who don’t “worry about” TC issues.

When you capture, you could “name” your clip as the TC of the in-point, I suppose.

Why don’t we just decide that, as soon as you can, you might want to find a way to get back to using Final Cut PRO and all these little FCEx limitations won’t matter.

😉

[Kevin C.]

thanks Matte:
I may do that for sure. or just let the editors I use handle it, but, now that I have exp, wondering ( please excuse the lameness here,)
but what is the most important benefit of seeing the timecode in the project you are working on. I have to ask now that I realize that many semi -pros are using exp.

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[Kevin C.] “what is the most important benefit of seeing the timecode in the project you are working on”

This is one of those questions… “If you have to ask, you don’t need it.” (Or don’t know you need it, YET!)
If you don’t do enough pro work to find the benefit now, you soon MIGHT.

I work from thousands of tapes in a given year. I can’t begin to remember where each shot is located on a a given tape.
Many times I have shot a tape myself, but there are many other times I might never have even SEEN a given tape before an edit.
At those times, if a producer has viewed the tapes and noted the TC, she/he can give me a sheet of shots that are wanted in the project.
With good TC on every tape, the producer can tell me exactly where to find any given shot or take, on any tape, to the exact frame.
During the edit, the producer may ask, “which take are you using… 1:23:05 or 1:36:18?” Its awfully handy to be able to see the TC to answer those questions.

Further, as time goes by, many projects that where completed weeks, months, even years earlier may need additional re-edits.
With TC, (and careful storage of the tapes and project files) you can simply “automatically” re-capture the exact scenes used in the earlier edit and make your changes easily.
Without TC, you’d be in a real mess.

TC can also tell you how “deep” into a tape you are.

TC is a very important for pro editing.
Once you have used it, you don’t want to do much work of any kind without it.

[Kevin C.]

thanks Matte, I mean I always thought that timecode was indispensable until I learned fcp exp did not have it, so I started to wonder. But based on what you just said, it may be that if your are working closed loop on small projects it’s not that important.

But — the ability to recapture, it seems, would always be a critical thing. If you even did a 1/2 project, and then needed to recapture, you could not do this with FCP Express?? if that’s true, you would eat all your work, then that’s outrageous.