Timecode Error

[Tom Meegan]

I’ve seen this problem.

My solution has been brute force. I call it, “Capture Now, ask Questions Later.”

This may not be appropriate for your situation, but when I encounter DV tapes with issues like the ones you describe, I use capture now and then duplicate the media on a back up drive. I then hope to never have to capture from those tapes again.

If I’m in a situation where someone down the line is going to use my clips to re-capture from, I build my logged clip for the length of the tape and then monitor the capture. If I encounter difficulty, I break down the size of the clip until it works. Then I document what I’ve learned about the tape for the recapture.

You maybe able to tweak your in points on the problem clips to help FCP not see the time code anomalies and still get the footage you need. If not, capture now is likely your only solution for the clips in question.

I treat “true” time code breaks (ones where the code starts over at 00:00:00:00) as separate tapes for logging purposes. Ex: Reel 001A and Reel 001B. I write a note and stick it in the box.

To deal with your question about what might be going on

[Ithomas]

Hey there,

Thanks for the advice…I tried to use the “capture now” method but when I did I get a message in the capture display window of – “Waiting for Timecode”. It just kind of stalled there. For some reason when I go to capture the timecode is missing.

I did a test with an old tape that I have succesfuly logged and captured. Everything appears normal while logging – my computer recognizes the timecode when I mark in and out points. It is just when I go to capture to my external firewire hard disk that I get the timecode error problems..hmmmm. Could it be the scratch disk?

[David Battistella]

Try cleaning the heads on your camera. Buy a cleaning cassette and run it. Are you using wet or dry tapes? or have you been using both? You should only use either wet or dry tapes in a camera, if you use both then you can create a clogged head problem.

The pixelation you discribe sounds like severe dropouts. This means there are sections of the tape when picture and sound were not recorded correctly, So how can the timecode be consistant?

This page might help you out.

https://www.taperesources.com/useful_info.html#article1

FCP is now great at finding and identifing TC breaks. You can go and turn this off in your settings and then it will capture over these breaks but recaptures will be a bit of a problem.

David

[Ithomas]

Hi.

Thanks again for the advice. I did clean the heads and that had no effect.

Could the problem lay with FCP 5.1 running on a non-intel mac? I use a G5 2.0 Ghz Dual. I just ordered Final Cut Studio that has 5.1 .

[Tom Meegan]

Make sure the tape is rolling before you hit capture now.

Or change the setting to uncontrollable device and push play on the deck after you hit capture now.

Best wishes,

Tom