[Andy Mees]

Nope, auto scrolling the timeline during playback isn’t possible in FCP, but you can manually scroll it during playback if that helps you?

[Andy Mees]

Hi Dan

Check the sampling rate of your source audio vs sampling rate setting of your sequence. Do they match?

Best
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Hi Dean

When I use FCP’s VO tool, it only pics up MIC1!!

That’s correct. Final Cut Pro’s Voice Over Tool is by design only a single channel recording device. From the manual:
“When recording, the Voice Over tool works with the Sound Manager to record in mono mode. When you choose the audio interface input for a stereo input device, the Voice Over tool uses only the left input channel (channel 1) of a stereo input device when recording; the right channel is ignored.”

Surely there is a way for both inputs to be recorded into FCP?

Nope, not as separate channels .. at least not using the VO Tool … you could record both channels using Log and Capture but then you would not get the simultaneous timeline audio/video playback. But if you’re willing to combine the two audio inputs and record them via the VO Tool as a single channel then you might want to have a look and see if your Apogee Maestro software can combine the two channels … at the very least I would expect you could take a center panned output from the device’s headphone out and run that into your Mac’s Line In (Built-in Input). Not a perfect solution but it may work nonetheless.

Hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Hi Neal

My own free Region Blur plugin might be helpful to you, but it does not handle motion tracking, it would maybe just help simplify and therefore speed up the masking and blurring process:
https://web.me.com/andymees

Generally speaking tho, when folks really want or need motion tracking then I tend to suggest Motion for its ease of use … but if that’s not working well for your content than you might have a try and see if Lyric’s Motion Tracking Kit (a plugin for FCP) would work better for you:
https://www.lyric.com/fcp-plugins/tracking.htm

Or perhaps a more advanced tracking system is what you need:
https://www.imagineersystems.com/products/mocha_for_Final_Cut/

Hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Hi Steven

Is this clock intended to be a running reference timecode for someone to accurately identify points within your video, or more of a “sports” type clock where its referencing elapsed time in an event of some sort? I ask as you note needing “minutes and seconds” only (which suggests the latter) as opposed to needing a “minutes, seconds and frames” which would suggest the former.

If its the former then you want the Timecode Generator (or Timecode Reader) as noted above, or also as noted, the timecode filter in Compressor.

If its the latter then a dedicated plugin would be your easiest bet. You can pick up free “clock” generators in a few places, here are couple of links:
https://www.mattias.nu/plugins/
https://web.mac.com/piero.fiorani/PieroF_FCE_Effect/Counter_Display.html
https://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/dh_counter (commercial)

and I’ve got a timecode “generator” that can be used to similar effect too, just crop out any unneeded info
https://web.me.com/andymees

or you could just use the built in timecode filters attached to a slug and cropped as needed.

Hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Absolutely. For the larger scale broadcast operations who might be using using Omneon servers, and of those the subset who may already be heavily invested in FCP and Sony XDCAM based solutions, I’ll bet that licensing the full Cinemon toolset is going to be a quite justifiable expense (and its also probably fair to say that the market isn’t really big enough to warrant a lower and more broadly appealing price either, so fair do’s).

The “MP4” only version tho is a much harder beast to quantify. Obviously it has a much broader appeal, as it targets the very many FCP using XDCAM EX shooters / editors out there … but what I think is much less clear tho’, is why any of those existing users and/or future users who have not already bought Calibrated Software’s “MP4EX” quicktime component solution would now be inclined or compelled to buy Sony’s more expensive equivalent solution, as it seems to offer no special advantage over MP4EX and might even be arguably more limited in scope. Is it simply an extra 10 bucks for the brand name? To the uninformed (like me) it would have seemed to make sense for Sony either to price it more directly competitively or possibly to have priced it a little higher and added in more of the functionality of its bigger brother, for example adding the XDCAM HD MXF support and/or Smart Render functionality. As it is it seems to be a little lost, which is a shame as it has lots of potential. On the other hand, I could be totally wrong and hopelessly missing the point (sadly an all too frequent occurrence).

Ian, I’m guessing your commenting on marketing strategy or possible future directions for the product is probably wholly inappropriate but if you do get the nod to do so then I for one would be very keen to hear your thoughts. Don’t get me wrong, the product seems great and offers much needed functionality, but as its neither unique nor first in the marketplace I’m just having trouble understanding why I should choose or otherwise recommend Cinemon MP4 over the obvious cheaper and already established MP4EX alternative.

Disclaimer: I’m not an EX owner or shooter but I do work with a lot XDCAM HD and EX shooters and editors and am regularly called on to advise them.
Very Best Regards
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Hi Frederico

You can do the same thing … select all and choose Modify menu > Conform to Sequence (or Scale to Sequence)
Or you can select all and choose Edit menu > Remove Attributes and tick the “Scale” attribute

Make a copy of your sequence first (always do this) and then go ahead ad try it 🙂

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

>Digi Beta was digitised at a post production house using Avid DV codec

Horrid … as Rafa says, for better quality get that recaptured (preferably as ProRes). As all your other sources are at HD resolution then (if its an option) you might want to consider having it unconverted during capture, to a match your other footage.

>EOS 5D was imported from SD card in H.264

FCP may accept it in the timeline but nonetheless it doesn’t really like H264 as an edit source format (its not optimized to cope with it). Better to follow Rafa’s advice and transcode this to ProRes … it won’t magically make the footage higher quality (the camera’s native capture format is the best that it will ever be) but it won’t make it worse and it will make working with it much easier.

>Am I right to be using an Apple Pro Res (HQ) Timeline?

No. You’ll get no benefit from editing this footage in an HQ timeline. I appreciate you are looking to create the highest quality HD edit master before eventual SD DVD distribution, but given your source formats then Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) will gain you absolutely nothing but file size … just use standard Apple ProRes 422 (not HQ).

Hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

It’ll be fine Sam. Hundreds of people around the world do this every day. Cut your HD master as normal and export yourself an Apple ProRes 422 copy. Then switch your Easy Setup to DV PAL and create a new sequence and drop in that Apple ProRes 422 copy, now resize to blow out the letterbox (am assuming the Nigerian station is broadcasting 4:3 SD and does not want letterbox, but you should check that with them ahead of time) … then add your titles and graphics as necessary and use Print To Video or Edit to Tape to lay off to the DV tape.

Hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Unless you have a special reason for doing so, I’d think transcoding to MP4 wrapped H264 files as an interchange format is almost certainly the wrong choice.

Does the footage you provide absolutely have to be MP4 or H264 or both … or neither? If it has to be in an MP4 container but not necessarily H264 then you may want to use the free Sony XDCAM Transfer or XDCAM Browser app to export your footage via FCP as XDCAM EX footage (in its camera native MP4 wrapper).

Or another thing you could test (I have no idea if this would produce something usable on the Vegas end as you don’t mention anything about your source format) is to just grab the original files and open them with MPEG Streamclip, then and “Save As…” and switch the container to MP4.

Hope it helps
Andy