[John Pale]

[audiovideo] “When I am ready to “output” for MPEG-2 conversion, I should change the SETTINGS to either 8- or 10-bit uncompressed (then RENDER), not “NONE”. “

Copy/paste your timeline into a new 8 or 10 bit uncompressed timeline and render.

[John Pale]

[John Pale] ” If you are only mastering to DV, t”

This should read “If you are only mastering to DVD…”

[John Pale]

1) You may wish to render your project in an uncompressed timeline…however “None” is not the correct selection. You should use Apple 8 or 10 bit uncompressed. “None” is not an editing codec and you should not attempt to use it in FCP for this purpose.

2) Your footage was compressed 5:1 in the camera when you shot it in DV….so putting it in an uncompressed timeline will not improve it, but you may get some benefit out of rendering in the 4:2:2 color space of an uncompressed timeline….HOWEVER…if you master back to DV, then you will lose that benefit.

3) If you are only mastering to DV, then you may not need to render in an uncompressed timeline…if you use the Export to Compressor option, then Compressor will re-render your effects directly to MPEG-2 without using any of your DV renders. This should be the cleanest of all encodes. Warning…this option will take drastically longer to encode than normal, but may be worth considering….since you wont have to render first in an uncompressed timeline.

[John Pale]

Sounds like fun. I would keep the cameras rolling as much as possible then….
Tape is relatively cheap compared to the time involved in dealing with the problems.

[John Pale]

[Bob Cole] “I’d appreciate some pre-production advice about how to instruct the camera operators. They’ll have to use time-of-day, of course, but should they just roll the whole time, so as to avoid FCP’s problems with digitizing over timecode breaks? There are lengthy pauses in tennis matches — including changeovers every two games. “

Assuming the “in between stuff” is not part of the final product, they dont need to keep rolling…but they should start rolling again well before the action starts, giving you enough pre-roll for capture. Probably best to only stop recording between games. You will have to make a new multiclip upon each break. No big deal. It only gets complicated if some guys keep recording and some guys stop. Try to get everyone on the same page.

[Bob Cole] “I will absolutely need the TOD timecode on every file for syncing up the multi-cam view. “

It’s nice to have it, but don’t sweat it if your timecode drifts among the cameras (I have done lots of network sports coverage, and its pretty common if the cameras are not on a common TC generator). There are lots of ways to sync up tennis (e.g. the sound of a serve), and you can just make your multiclips based on inpoint instead of timecode.

[John Pale]

Compensating for Video Latency by Specifying a Frame Offset

No matter what signal format you use for external monitoring, all digital video and
audio interfaces (including FireWire) introduce inherent processing delays (known as
latency) to signals sent out of the computer. External video and audio coming from the
built-in FireWire port or third-party interface may be several frames later than the video
on your computer display (in the Viewer or Canvas). The latency, or offset, between
different devices can make precise editing difficult.

By changing the frame offset value in Final Cut Pro, you can compensate for the delay
between your computer display and external video and audio outputs. Frame offset is
active only when your sequence real-time effects are handled by Final Cut Pro. For
information about setting the Effects Handling tab of the System Settings window, see
Volume III, Chapter 23,

[John Pale]

This setting is there to compensate for the delay in monitoring through firewire devices, which is generally a few frames.
If you are using a capture card, such as the Kona or Decklink, this should be set to 0, as there is no latency.
This really doesnt have to do with lip sync, it has to do with the canvas being in sync with the NTSC/PAL monitor (it delays your computer, so the canvas and the video monitor show the same image)

[John Pale]

I always thought this was possible, but had no idea someone implemented it.

[John Pale]

There is no loss in video quality during the muxing process. The video track is simply copied…its not re-encoded.

You can produce a muxed file directly in Compressor.

In the Inspector, in the Extras Tab (with your MPEG-2 Preset selected) select Multiplexed MPEG-1 Layer2 audio (creates an MPEG-2 Transport Stream with multiplexed audio). Note the audio is encoded to MPEG, so there can be small quality loss there, but thats what the format requires.

I have also used an app called Bitvice Helper to produce Muxed MPEG-2’s.

[John Pale]

Capture in a viable editing codec, such as DV-NTSC, DV50, 8bit or 10 bit Uncompressed.

Subclip the selects you want (Modify/Make Subclip). Name them what you wish. Put them in a bin. Select all the items in the bin, then select File/Batch Export. In settings, set up the H.264 settings you wish to use, and the destination, etc.

Done.