[Herb Sevush]

Craig –

If this is your biggest complaint with FCP then you are living a charmed life.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

David –

“I would love for someone to tell me that I’m wrong!”

I will tell you: no and yes.

No, you’re not wrong.
Yes, you’re screwed.

The Final Cut folks are aware that this situation sucks but there is (apparently) nothing that can be done until Apple fixes the data structure of Quicktime files – this is a huge proposition that affects a lot more than the small number of pro-apps users. I have heard that Quicktime will be re-written in the near future, more for iPhone issues than for our concerns, and that the problem may be fixable then. Time-frame? 2 years (or never.)

But don’t worry, by then we will all be in a tapeless workflow and the issue will be moot.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Alex –

You are correct in that you are not an expert on this subject and you are wrong in thinking Final Cut will generate any sort of timecode whatsoever that can be sent to any sort of external device.

As an Apple employee told me at NAB a few years ago the only way to output timecode is to get hold of an audio timecode track and lay it onto one of the audio tracks in your timeline – hook that sequence’s audio output to an external device’s timecode input and jam record. i will not go into all the reasons why this is not a practical idea.

This lack of a timecode output is one of the major shortcomings of Final Cut. apparently it will never be addressed until Quicktime itself is altered to handle timecode differently.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Luke –

Of all the responses I was expecting yours was one that never occurred to me — mostly because it is so wrong.

Basic concept – Varicams shoot DVCPRO HD in 3 speeds – 59.94, 29.97 and 23.976 (60,30,24). The 1200A plays back all 3 types of video – always has – all DVCPRO HD video is shot at 59.97 and then data flags within the signal tells Final Cut which frames to use.

Look, I can easily import 29.97 video into Final Cut via firewire – which would seem to indicate that the 1200A can handle that speed. I prefer HD-SDI for a number of reasons and have successfully used my decklink card for 59.94 input – you guys even have 720P29.97 video presets for 8bit,10bit and RGB input. I thought it would be easy to use the Decklink card for standard 29.97 DVCPRO HD input – but if you guys don’t even know it exists I guess I was mistaken.

As for the idea of using the unmodified 59.94 preset – the reason I went to 29.97 was to save on media space and avoid some of the difficulties of 60 frame timelines. Your suggestion puts me back in the 60 frame world. I’ll stick with Firewire if I have to.

But given that the 1200A – 1400 model decks are the most popular models of the most popular pro HD acquisition format, I’m rather surprised that you know so little about it.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Tom –

Is it a difficult process to show more than one camera at once using FCP 6?

The short answer is that no, it’s not hard to do and yes final cut does it.

I can’t seem to find much information on the subject!

Not to be snooty about this but I don’t think you’ve looked very hard. In final Cut this feature is called Multi-Clips. In the Manual it’s Book II Chapter 16, Pgs 241 – 284. If you search the cow for “multi-clips” you’ll find more threads than you can handle.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Jeremy –

That’s a beautiful work-around – and since the rs422 to the Beta deck is frame accurate there’s no need for the firewire tape offset.

Any serial control deck with time code out should do – I bet I could take my old DA88 out of mothballs just for this purpose.

Nice.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Michael –

I use these 2 sites:

https://www.myfonts.com/

https://www.fontshop.com/

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Walter –

Looks like you got there with the off-set tip before me.

As for the reason the 1400 offers better performance and more features for less money (at the time I bought the 1200A I had a Panasonic rep at NAB tell me that it was simply NOT POSSIBLE for this size and price deck to have flying erase heads and therfore it would never be able to do insert edits) – it’s cause us 1200A beta testers had a deep desire to be abused.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

John –

I’m glad it’s working for you. so now I’ll give you part “B” of the tip. If you need to be frame accurate with the firewire controller you are going to have to use an off-set. I’ve tested a number of Panasonic decks and they all need to have an off-set when using firewire. With my 1200A the deck was typically off by about 7 frames. You can add an off-set under:

Audio Video Settings / Device Control Presets

If you haven’t done this before you have to make a copy of the basic DVCPRO HD Firewire preset, rename it , and then edit it to add the pre-set. Since things are never easy the off-set number is NOT the actual number of frames the deck is off – I believe I used an off-set of 23 to fix my actual 7 frame off-set. It’s a bunch of trial and error to you get the right off-set number. Once you have it, the deck will stay accurate.

Good-luck.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

John –

Shane is correct in that the 1200A was not designed (or was mis-designed, depending on whether you are a purchaser or manufacturer)- to do assemble edits. However there is a way to “trick it” into using the edit to tape function.

This presupposes that you have either a Blackmagic or Aja I/O card with HD-SDI. If you only have firewire I/O this won’t work.

the trick is to pre-black the tape with code, use HD-SDI for input but use firewire as the controller. The RS-422 controller won’t accept the assemble command, but the firewire controller will, as long as your not using it for the signal as well. Panasonic swore that this strange work around doesn’t work, but it does.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions