[Michael Gissing]

I suspect the message means the quicktime file from FCP was not self contained so it needs media from a FCP sequence which it cannot find.

Can you get the quicktime remade as a self contained?

[Michael Gissing]

AVI is not a codec, just a wrapper. FCP works best when it has a quicktime wrapper so firstly the AVI needs to be converted to a quicktime and also you may need to transcode the codec to something that editis nicely in FCP.

I have in the past dropped an AVI animation codec file into an FCP timeline (final animated graphics file) and just let FCP render it as I was onlining and adding a late change before playing out to tape.

If you are editing then it would be smarter to convert to a quicktime to avoid endless rendering everytime you change an AVI clip

[Michael Gissing]

The auto saves do not overwrite the main project file but go into the autosave folder as specified in your scratch drive setup. In there you will find the most up to date autosave which you can open and then save over the older project file or save as if you want to be cautious.

All this is clear explained in the manual

[Michael Gissing]

Audio can have embedded metadata which indicates a frame rate, but basically audio works on sample rates not frame rates.What is the file format you have been given?

Importantly are you editing in 24 or 23.976? What way is the audio drifting and how quickly?

The problem may be your edit sequence settings if you are cutting 24frame footage at 23.976 so you need to understand the consequences of that with the audio post production path and your final deliverables.

[Michael Gissing]

So you are recapturing from tape. As Arnie said how has the project been managed? Is the offline done on FCP? How were the rushes captured? What frame rate is both the offline and online?

The variable that most affects machine rental will be if the edit to online workflow is solid so if you want some help you really need to give a lot of details because managing the workflow is the only way to save money on a low budget show. Ironically the mistakes made on low budget films are inversely proportional to the budget as inexperienced people stumble around without research.

It is commendable that you are doing your homework but you need to tells us a lot more before we can guestimate in a useful way.

[Michael Gissing]

So many variables and so little information.

Do you need the deck to playout the final or are you recapturing everything from tape? How long is the program and how many cuts? Are you grading or just final online?

Is the director fast or slow in decision making? How many cooks are stirring the pot? How many version do you need to output ( with text, textless )? How fast is you machine at rendering and what codec(s) are you using?

The answer may be just one day but again it depends on so many intangibles.

[Michael Gissing]

[Dave LaRonde] “Export the entire track as an aiff, reimport it and apply filters.”

Only do this if you never want to change individual shots again or take the audio to a post studio. They will kill you if you make this mistake. You would be better off nesting the audio but again beware of nesting.

A quicker way to apply a filter is to open it in the viewer, set parameters, select all audio clips you want to apply the filter to, drag and drop from the viewer onto the timeline and it will put the filter on all highlighted clips as the last filter.

Just copying settings from one clip may put unwanted other filters on all the clips (paste attributes puts ALL filters)

[Michael Gissing]

Firstly check your timeline for a graphic or still with excessive pixel dimension. FCP lets you put a still (jpeg tiff etc) with more than 4K pixel resolution in the timeline,but when you go to render or make a quicktime it gets to that file and comes up with an out of memory message.

Change the pixel dimensions of the still so that it doesn’t exceed 4K pixels in any dimension and replace the one in the timeline.

[Michael Gissing]

[Jef Huey] “What no one has asked here is why the OP was going to a DS Nitris in the first place? Surely not to just output to tape.”

The OP says in sentence two “(to be laid back to tape and final CC)”.
No need to ask and no mention of green screen. I have the reverse situation of getting a project from an AVID to FCP for playout to tape and I simply asked for 10 bit uncompressed. I see no point in needlessly transcoding.

As always, check and ask the facility first and not the COW afterwards.

[Michael Gissing]

One place to start is instead of using a dissolve to fade in and out, try using keyframes on the text elements and doing an opacity ramp to zero or up from zero.

It may be that something in the dissolve type might be altering the color & gamma of the underlying clip. Are you using cross dissolve or something like dip to color or..???