[Mark Smith]

I understand XML, however I think we are talking about 2 different things here. The XML describes the media in a library and the work that was done with the media, both to organize and to edit the media, however an XML file without the underlying media doesn’t solve the issue of archiving the actual media.

[Mark Smith]

Do you have a link you can share about XML archiving of video tape?

[Mark Smith]

Aside from whatever hardware you need to digitize the VHS signal from tape, don’t overlook the requirement for a decent VHS machine ( or insert working tape machine of xxxformat) in working order. Working tape machines are more scarce these days and getting repairs/ parts even harder as most parts are EOL, no longer in stock

I have an old BMD ultra studio which sits in a box and still works on the occasions that I need it and a variety of working tape machines in mothballs which will work until they don’t.

[Mark Smith]

Create Archive is what you want. Going this route might seem like a bit of a detour but once you want to start tapping content on those tape files, it turns out to be worth the problem . Andreas Kiel who frequents this forum had a small app called virtual cam card a while ago that would allow you to take a QT file digitized from tape and package it in a way that FCPX would recognize as a camera card volume . I used that app for a few projects and it worked ok for me but it doesn’t seem to work anymore . Create Archive will do the right thing for you. I would suggest that you first create a tape archive and test it through import in X and then decide whether you want proceed down that path.

[Mark Smith]

If you get something working, you might want to consider the “archive camera volume” option that appears in the lower right of the import window. If you choose this, you’ll get a FCPX friendly file that will allow you grab clips from within an hour long recording which I have found really useful when I get around to using those files.

[Mark Smith]

So answering my own question- I had a moment and loaded the footage in question into a new test library, made a Q&D multicam and then tried to open one of the component clips in its own time line, and alter it. This did not work. I wanted to apply a mask and knock out some spurious stuff top of frame. I couldn’t make it work. I needed to have a solid black generator underneath the clip and couldn’t make that happen by opening clip in its own timeline. Back in my original edit I managed to solve the problem another way- I applied a little scale and rotation to the clip and took care of the problem that way.

[Mark Smith]

Copy the snapshot point- the thing is I don’t think I can do the masking job in the angle editor. I created a mini multicam with 2 angles to take a swing at the masking but it did not work. I can’t copy a clip and stack it perfectly on top of itself. Angle editor won’t let me do that. I am no masking whiz and there may be a better way to mask- I have not found that yet.

[Mark Smith]

The drive issue is not a repair- disk warrior or any other disk utility repair issue- its the softraid driver being broken. THe drive still works but editing this material on my semi retired Imac is painful. Yeah I could edit on that drive and old imac If I was incarcerated and had lots of time on my hands however that is not the case . The M1 just destroys this material.

I claim responsibility for F’ing this up. I should have had a time machine back up to 11.1 but did not and got sucked in to the “we fixed the bluetooth issue “ in 11.2, which was a problem and so I did the upgrade which bricked the drive for the M1. When I have a n OS that works for softraid, the M1 will be backed up which should protect me going forward.

[Mark Smith]

TO conclude this- I bought a samsung T 7 2 TB drive – skipped the spinning 4 tb La Cie. I fiured I could also get some use out of it with my BMPC4k among other things. As for the edit I have 4 angles of 1080 2X canon XFAVC and 2X BMPC 4k HQ pro res playing in multicam clips without batting an eye on my M1 mac mini. The min also tears through waveform generation when importing clips unlike my old imac. I’m happy with the choice. Of botht eh drive and the computer.

[Mark Smith]

The issue with the thunderbay drive is that Mac OS 11.2 broke the softraid driver- driver won’t load, disk array won’t mount. Supposedly 11.3 now in Beta fixes the issue, but that won’t be out for a few weeks which doesn’t mesh with getting this project done. Hence my quandry. At this point I think I take the LaCie drive with spinning drives, work in proxy mode if need be with the multicam clips and have the additional storage when done.