How to capture with broken time code?

[Walter Biscardi]

[Sophie876] “but when I do any sort of speed manipulation, the footage gets soft.”

Well, you are using DV and you’re running FCP 4.5. FCP 5 greatly increased the render quality and speed changes are much cleaner, though DV is always going to be softer than uncompressed.

You should turn on the Motion Blur for all speed changes and be sure to render at the highest quality.

But even with DV, I’ve never seen a difference in Capture Now / Batch Capture as far as video quality/

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Sophie876]

Oh Walter…

You’re so cute when you reject my reality and insert your own. ;-))

[Rennie Klymyk]

[Sophie876] ” It might be the exact same information, but when I do any sort of speed manipulation, the footage gets soft.”

That’s interesting, what does happen with capture now (with out using “create new clip at t/c break”) is you end up with one long source clip. On a long capture you could get some audio drift as well with dv but when you do a speed change (say 50%) the whole source clip is effected, not just the segment in the timeline. The next time you do a speed change, say 75% the source clip is effected again. Each subsiquent change is effecting your one long source clip. Even though these are computers I could see this softening the picture after a while after all how many times have you seen FCP has actually created a speed change of 76.045 instead of the 75% you specified? FCP is a non destructive editor but are there bits and bytes being compromised when making all these changes to such a long source clip? Dragging your segment from the time line to the bin and double clicking it to the canvas and then applying a speed change should aliviate the problem but then how many effects are we asking FCP to remember and play back regarding one source clip. That’s a lot of referencing all on one source clip. Capturing using “create new clip at t/c break” will keep the effect on just the small source clip you created but won’t correct your repeat time code issue.
Good monitoring Sophie! You can always trust your eyes and a good monitor.
I would follow Matt’s recomendation and dub to a new tape via firewire connection and get the original tape out of there. Then log and batch capture with your brand new t/c.

[Paul Dickin]

[Rennie] “…how many times have you seen FCP has actually created a speed change of 76.045 instead of the 75% you specified?”
Hi
Many many times – invariably!
Interesting analysis, thanks for the insight.

[Tom Wolsky]

“The next time you do a speed change, say 75% the source clip is effected again.”

A speed change does nothing to the source clip. THe only thing that is affected is real-time playback and the rendered file. You can speed change it as many times as you want and it has zero effect on the source file.

All the best,

Tom

Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 2 Editing Workshop” Class on Demand “Complete Training for FCP5” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy” DVDs

[Sophie876]

You’re the best…all of you.
Rennie…maybe what we think is happening isn’t what’s really happening, but if it looks like an elephant and feels like an elephant etc etc….

Here’s the bottom line. I’ve got a way to handle it now. I am going to copy the tape via firewire (I need time code. I can’t imagine not having time code.)… and I am going to thank everyone very very much. You can’t imagine what a relief it is to have a way to go with this program. It could mean a lot more work for us…

Best,
Sophie

[Jason Lyons]

Hmmm I almost hesitate to comment, because it exposes my backside.

I ran into the soft playback thing in the past and found that it was an error on my part. I often edit with wireframe+image turned on and in my haste I had accidentally nudged a clip ever so slightly in the frame of the canvas, resulting in the footage being soft because it had moved it to a incremental pixel – something like -3.03,0 for the center in the motion tab. After resetting the clips motion to default everything sharpened right back up!

And yeah, I have never noticed a quality difference, between the two modes of ingestion. If this were the case I would suspect there would be many other problems appearing (dare I say indigestion?).

Happy St. Patricks +1

jason

[Sophie876]

Jason…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm….*interesting*!

I always edit with wireframe + image turned on.

Thank you!