[Berry Helfand]

I just finished working with a project that included AVI files…it’s a big problem. AVI files cannot contain timecode, and this will really be an issue if you try to use media manager in the future.

the solution , in my opinion, cannot be just converting the footage. The resulting quicktime will still have no timecode.

the only way to really know is to check your clips with Sebsky Tools (a freeware download).

Sebsky will allow you to see if there is timecode, or see if it’s corrupted timecode (i.e timecodes that begin at 72 hours), and then allow you to delete old code and add fresh timecode. just make sure the new code corresponds to the original code on the tape.

this is something i painfully discovered recently, and it took me weeks to figure out. hope this helps.

[Berry Helfand]

Okay, I finally figured this out…and it was an incredible lesson.

One of the issues with this project, was that there was quite a bit of DV PAL footage, and NTSC DV footage that was captured by other systems…one of which was Vegas5…much to my dismay. “Clients, can’t live with them….”
However, even though the AVI files opened up and worked in FCP, i was still instinctively reluctant to use them – but i didn’t have a really good reason. Now I do.

THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM IS TIMECODE. Some media files may look like they have timecode, but they don’t!

Here’s the issue and how i fixed it…and I suspect this will be the issue with anybody else experiencing this. While the AVI files show up in FCP and appear to have Timecode, don’t be fooled, they do not. Thankfully, there’s an incredible tool to check files and fix them, and it’s free.

Sebsky Tools (https://www.dharmafilm.com/sebskytools) will show you whether or not your files really contain timecode, plus if they don’t, you can add a timecode track and specify any number you want.

First, i converted all the AVI files to Quicktimes using Compressor2 – careful not to down-convert the PAL, otherwise the change from 25 to 30 frames will completely mess things up. Then opened the files up in Sebsky…added the appropriate timecode, making sure i matched any numbers that may appear in the original file, then reconnected the footage in my timeline to this new “timecoded” footage.

Amazingly, everything matched up, and now my media has been trimmed completely.

This was my solution, i hope it will work anyone else who has this issue. If any of you have any additional thoughts, I