Andreas_kiel
Forum Replies Created
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Hi,
just found this thread by chance and thought it would be useful to give some comments (as I’m the author of BWF2XML).
If you don’t need metadata support and you are not working within a NTSC project just import the files as they are.
If you are working with NTSC there might be synch problems with any kind of direct BWAV import since any version of FCP only supports non NTSC timing (NDF only) during import.Depending on your audio setup and the later needs you may use the FCP 5.1.2 generic import option.
Here in short a explanation how it works with 5.1.2 (and QT 7, which needs to be installed, there also a doc on the Apple site, which is unfortunately not completely correct: https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304660🙂
FCP will take the “samples since midnight” found in the BWF, the sampling rate of the BWF and the audio/video setup found at launch time. These three values are used to create a SMPTE timecode – which may be the correct one. It will never be correct with audio recorded with DF timecode, since FCP currently only supports audio NDF timecode during import.
FCP 5.1.2 allows to switch to DF after import, but you have to know the original timecode and modify the tc string to match the original timecode of the file.
As none of the versions of FCP does read any metadata (other than “samples since midnight” with 5.1.2) and due to the way FCP reads files, any reel information (or other information) has to be edited manually after import.
The timecode value is only held in memory (project) – so if you have to take the files offline, you may get a different timecode when re-connecting. Though this only happens if your launch setup of FCP is different from the launch setup of FCP when you imported the BWAV files.
Finally Sebsky or BWF2XML is the better choice in some cases.To learn more on FCP 5.1.2 BWF import features have a look at https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/BWF2XML/BWF512.html
To have a nice test application to check BWF file settings against FCP launch settings download: https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/BWF2XML/BWFReader.zipKind regards
AndreasAndreas Kiel
Spherico
Nelkenstr. 25
D-76135 Karlsruhe
Tel.: +49 (0)721 183 9753
eFax: +1 650 897 8094eMail: kiel@spherico.com
https://spherico.com/filmtools — some workflow tools for FCP -
Just found this thread and thought it is helpful if I’ll add some stuff for “later searchers”.
BWF-P is readable since QT 7.1 and FCP 5.0
BWF Timestamp is readable since FCP 5.1.2 – but this doesn’t mean that the timestamp is interpreted correctly, since it is interpreted based upon the setup FCP had at launch time. The audio setup of 29.97 DF is currently not supported with FCP 5.1.2. So audio recordings using this setup will show up with wrong TC. Otherwise if the audio TC settings will match the FCP launch settings it will work.
BWF Metadata are not read by any version of FCP, so scene, take, note, tape are not available after import.
You can use a third party app like my BWF2XML for that.
Some global metadata support i.e. track names are not available (for any format FCP can read), linking or merging files will inherit the track name from the “master” – though you can still do it in a sequence. The latter way of working and synching might be tedious.Regards
AndreasAndreas Kiel
Spherico
Nelkenstr. 25
D-76135 Karlsruhe
Tel.: +49 (0)721 183 9753
eFax: +1 650 897 8094eMail: kiel@spherico.com
https://spherico.com/filmtools — some workflow tools for FCP -
Hi,
As the author of BWF2XML some notes here.
It’s worth to spend the money for the upgrade to 5.1.2. But you should be aware of the way 5.1.2 does read the BWF time stamp.
Like all other packages it looks for the “Samples Since Midnight”. Those samples will be converted to seconds and partial seconds by diving them thru the files sample rate. The seconds will be converted to TC based on the TC rate settings FCP had at launch time. This will work fine in most cases, it won’t work with DF timecodes since FCP internally doesn’t and never did support DF timecode for audio.
The latter will lead to some problems; your files will run out of synch (though this is not a real problem with short clips, since you won’t notice the 0.1 percent drift) and you’ll get the wrong timecode.Regards
AndreasAndreas Kiel
Spherico
Nelkenstr. 25
D-76135 Karlsruhe
Tel.: +49 (0)721 183 9753
eFax: +1 650 897 8094eMail: kiel@spherico.com
https://spherico.com/filmtools — some workflow tools for FCP -
Hi,
As the author of BWF2XML some notes here.
It’s worth to spend the money for the upgrade to 5.1.2. But you should be aware of the way 5.1.2 does read the BWF time stamp.
Like all other packages it looks for the “Samples Since Midnight”. Those samples will be converted to seconds and partial seconds by diving them thru the files sample rate. The seconds will be converted to TC based on the TC rate settings FCP had at launch time. This will work fine in most cases, it won’t work with DF timecodes since FCP internally doesn’t and never did support DF timecode for audio.
The latter will lead to some problems; your files will run out of synch (though this is not a real problem with short clips, since you won’t notice the 0.1 percent drift) and you’ll get the wrong timecode.Regards
AndreasAndreas Kiel
Spherico
Nelkenstr. 25
D-76135 Karlsruhe
Tel.: +49 (0)721 183 9753
eFax: +1 650 897 8094eMail: kiel@spherico.com
https://spherico.com/filmtools — some workflow tools for FCP -
Hi,
As mentioned before, there is no standard for slates.
Within DVD SP 99 chapters are supported.
Creating chapters is quite easy – just go to the beginning of a clip hit “M” an “M” again, name the marker and press “Chapter Marker”. When you’re done export the sequence as “Quicktime Movie” and select “Chapter Markers” for the markers option.To make this easier you can also use my XML2Title shareware to create either “slates” or subtitles based and markers on the clips metadata.
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/XML2Title.Regards
AndreasAndreas Kiel
Spherico
Nelkenstr. 25
D-76135 Karlsruhe
Tel.: +49 (0)721 183 9753
eFax: +1 650 897 8094eMail: kiel@spherico.com
https://spherico.com/filmtools — some workflow tools for FCP