[Matt Lyon]

Hey Don,

I don’t have much experience with DVCPro HD material with repeated frames, but I have been in your situation with telecine’d material. I was brought on a project to conform the 29.97 edit (done using material with 3:2:2:3 pulldown) to a “proper” 23.976 timeline.

Not the answer you probably want, but I did it all by eye. There may be a way to automate this easily, but I haven’t heard of it.

That being said, your edit is probably filled with cuts that are made on “non-whole” frames. When switching your material to to 23.976, you will need to make some decision about where to place that edit, on the first “real” frame before OR after the “fake” frame. At the end of the day, this is a decision that needs to be made by a person, not an automated software routine.

My recommendation is to media manage your timeline, with handles. You can batch remove the extra frames on your managed-media. This way you avoid reprocessing ALL the source footage. Then you rebuild your timeline in native 23.976. You can put a nested clip of the OLD timeline as a layer below your footage, for reference.

IIRC, I was able to crank through about 1-2 reels a days, so you should be able to do 90 minutes in under a week.

Hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Keith, from my experience you need to mount the memory card “volumes” in the log and transfer window BEFORE you go to re-transfer your footage.

I’m assuming here that you preserved the original folder structure of your memory cards when you moved the footage to you system, right? These are the volumes FCP is trying to “mount.”

In FCP 6, you need to mount the volumes you intend to capture from in the “LOG and TRANSFER” window, then try to batch “capture” your offline timeline.

In FCP 7, you should be prompted by the software to mount the volumes AFTER you launch into re-capture mode. (Although there is no reason you can’t mount the volumes first).

I’ve found the software crashes if I try to capture from too many cards at once. Often, I’ve ended up doing my re-captures a few cards at a time.

Hope this makes sense, I’m still working on my first cup of coffee!

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Thanks for the confirmation Guy. With the batch of 7D footage I’m currently working on, the offset seems to be almost always 2 frames, but every so often I’ll see a clip that is only 1 frame off. AND the very rare occasion, a clip with be closer to three frames off (offset doesn’t seem to always land cleanly on a “whole” frame!) This is frustrating because it would be much easier to deal with if the offset was at least consistent.

FWIW, I sent a request to Pluraleyes for a “manual sync offset” option.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Hi Andi,

I have barely any experience with XDCAM, but my guess is that cinema tools reverse telecine isn’t compatible with long GOP formats, like XDCAM.

If Compressor will do the job, you could consider transcoding to ProRes while you’re at it. Judging from the many problems people on the board seem to have with XDCAM, you’ll probably find that ProRes gives you a more stable editing experience.

Hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

[Andrew Rendell] “Someone’s done a work around on Creative Cow before,”

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature! 🙂

That’s probably my tutorial:
https://library.creativecow.net/lyon_matt/fixing-fcp-assets/1

But as Michael said, it’s only going to help if the audio is actually drifting out of sync. Although I think it’s always a good habit to always have your default sequence timebase matching the working project’s timebase. (which I discuss in the article)

Hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Thanks for the info Noah. This discovery has made me extra nervous, because I’m starting to hear people say things like, “we don’t need to slate anymore, just use Pluraleyes!” (and that’s not a dig at Pluraleyes – I think it’s very useful software).

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

FWIW, I don’t like to use the “merge clips” command in the browser. I’ve always used the technique Pradip links too (syncing in the timeline, then dragging clips into bins). On the short film I’m editing at the moment, this techniques has been working well, and match framing seems to also work consistently (although I prefer to delete the reference camera audio altogether).

Maybe something is breaking when you move clips between projects? Have you tried syncing in a timeline, then giving the timeline to the editor and dragging the clips into a main project bin from there?

Another thing to check: make sure when you move your clips into the editor’s project they are designated as “master clips” (viewable in the browser as a column item).

hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

FWIW, I find that when my projects get above 200 megs, then FCP starts to strain under the weight. My sweet spot is about 50-100 megs file size. Once projects start creeping above that, I version up and prune old sequences.

I think it’s also a good idea to sort out your naming convention(s) for sequences, before you hit the ground running. You’ll want a system that allows you to easily track content, version numbers, etc. Consistency is key!

Hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Thanks Toni. After posting, I realized a slightly different way of doing the autoselect thing: You can “option-click” the autoselect box on a track, and make it instantly solo’ed.

[Toni Martin Dobrzanski] “14.) In Premiere there is a really neat feature where you can drag a clip from the browser onto an existing clip in the timeline while holding the ALT key. Premiere then substitutes the clip with the new one but keeps all the information from the clip that was already in the timeline (so all motion, effects, in/out is kept).”

I believe you have to use the copy-paste attributes feature as the only way of achieving this.

[Toni Martin Dobrzanski] “15.) Is it possible in FCP to reveal a clip from the timeline in the browser? When I right-click on a clip in the timeline I can choose ‘Reveal in Finder'”

I like to map “command-shift-f” to the “reveal in finder” command. Saves a lot of clicking over the years. I picked up that tip from another thread on The Cow!

Toni, have you tried playing around in the “keyboard layout” window? (option-h). You can learn a lot about various obscure/poorly documented commands in the software.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

[Toni Martin Dobrzanski] “4.) Is it for real that FCP can’t read PNG files which are perfect to work with transparency? And that the only transparency accepted picture format is PSD?”

TIFFs work with transparency too.

[Toni Martin Dobrzanski] “8.) If I copy a clip from one place in the timeline or a whole other timeline it will paste into the track number correspondent to where it was placed before. This is very annoying since it will probably paste onto a clip that is already there.

You need to use the “autoselect” function: Copy your clip. Navigate to your destination timeline. Hit “command-zero (on the keypad), once or twice to clear your video autoselects. Then enable the autoselect on the track you want to paste too. Now paste your clip! Although it sounds like lots of clicking, but I’ve learnt to do this really fast without taking my hands off the keyboard.

[Toni Martin Dobrzanski] “10.) Is it not possible to export more than one sequence at a time (no batch processor/queue)?”

Select your sequences in the browser and go “File>batch export”

[Toni Martin Dobrzanski] “11.) Some times it seems as if it’s not possible to expand a generated matte/shape/etc more than a given time? Shouldn’t a generated shape be endless?”

Open the asset in the viewer and, in the timecode entry box in the top left corner, change the duration beyond the two minute default length.

Hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto