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“Media Start” info is lost
I’ve noticed a problem lately with all 3 of our FCP boxes. On certain clips in the bin, the “Media Start” column becomes corrupt and displays 00:00:00:00 rather than the actual timecode from the tape the clip was captured from. This seems to be a random occurrence, and it happens on 2 different versions of FCP we have running (5.0.4 and 5.1.1). I know for sure that the clips originally had that info because they were batch-captured. I can even open up the Autosave version from earlier in the day and the info is there. This is creating some obvious problems when we open an older project and try to batch-capture some of the media that has since been deleted.
I am completely puzzled. Has anyone else noticed this? And I have trashed prefs on each system several different times.
-Todd Beabout
Vazda Studios -
7 Replies
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Todd,
To my knowledge, timecode is only stored in the browser when footage is offline. Once captured, the footage (quickTime movies) holds the timecode information in metadata itself. Is it possible that your footage has become corrupt in some way? This would explain why you’re having the problem across multiple projects with the same footage.
Best,
Ben
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Hey Ben,
Thanks for the reply. It appears the browser does keep the original tape timecode (in & out) for each clip, on or off-line. For my corrupt clips, the QuickTime itself also has a start timecode of 00:00:00:00 and an out point that matches the duration. It’s like the metadata has somehow been lost and FCP defaults to zeros.
The other weird thing is that the files I’m talking about are not from the same project, but from different projects on different computers. I’m working on a project today where I logged and captured clips last week. They are still online, but 2 of them (out of 100 or so) are having this problem. Now, it’s not really a problem for me at the moment, but one of my co-workers just batch captured a lot of footage but forgot to have the Audio checked to record. I went to help him re-capture them all, and about 4 of his showed bogus timecode. We were actually able to create an interim project that we copied the originally logged clips into (by opening up an autosave version from the day before) and their timecode was intact. Very strange.
I will try trashing prefs all around again, but I have done that since discovering this problem. The only newer piece of equipment that we have around here is a Terrablock shared storage setup (24D 7TB) and 2 FCP suites. All 3 suites we own seem to be experiencing this at random. I wonder if it could somehow be Terrablock related, though I don’t see how.
Thanks again for your time!
-Todd Beabout
Vazda Studios -
Sounds like user error somewhere in the mix. I work on many different machines and have *never* had this problem. I have more trouble getting FCP to match the source. I find it can easily be off by 1 – 5 frames on some clips for no good reason, when using a DVCAM deck via FireWire or RS-422. I’m wondering if it’s a problem with the source tapes, but I do a match back to the source with every clip I capture now so I can modify if needed.
Never lost Media In or Media Out info, though. Some people mix Media and Out with “In” and “Out” but I assume this isn’t the case since you specified “Media In.”
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Do you have your Terrablock formatted as MacOS Extended (Journaled)? It should only be Extended with no journaling (stay away from journaling anytime you’re doing media, especially video. If it is journaled, that may be causing the problem.
-Ben
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[reel2reel] “Sounds like user error somewhere in the mix. I work on many different machines and have *never* had this problem.”
You could be right of course. The weird thing is, how could the user have a clip actually capture during the batch, then the timecode info disappears. It had to be there originally for FPC to find the actual start timecode. And as I said before, by opening up earlier versions of the project I can find the correct timecode still there. At some point it just goes to zero. Very strange, but I will admit that we have 2 editors that just switched to FCP from Avid Symphony and I have no idea what they could be doing over there. I’ve been a FCP user since version 3 in 2001 and I also have *never* had this problem until the last month or so, after we added the Terrablock and started sharing projects. I’m thinking it must be something to do with that, but I was really just wondering if this problem was happening elsewhere, so I could rule some things out in my troubleshooting.
Anyways, thanks for your time!
-Todd Beabout
Vazda Studios -
I believe it is set up with no journaling, but I will double-check. I’m trying to replicate the problem again so that I can call up Facillis tech support and see if they have any suggestions. (I have found their tech support to be some of the best I’ve ever experienced.)
Yesterday several editors captured a bunch of footage, and we haven’t seen the problem crop up. Very curious. These intermittent problems are the hardest to track down.
-Todd Beabout
Vazda Studios -
Todd, it is the actual Media In and Out you’re looking at and not the In and Out (just to be sure)?
If you do a Command-9 on one of the clips and go to timing, the Media start there is gone?
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