[Steven Gonzales]

If you are editing a film at 29.97, then you are creating a “matchback” type of cutlist, and each cut will potentially be plus or minus one frame.

That’s because during telecine 24 frames of film are made into 30 frames of video (which run slightly slowed down at 29.97 per second). 2 out of 5 frames of video contain fields (interlaced lines of video) from different film frames.

If you cut using one of those frames at the beginning or end of the shot, something has to calculate which film frame you meant to use. This is the seemingly random frame changes I believe you are referring to.

This is the reason why many people choose to reverse telecine and edit at 24 frames per second or 23.98 frames (in order to view on an external NTSC monitor more easily).

As far as sound sync, if you used dual system sound and did not slow the sound down somehow by 1/10th of 1 percent (.1) (to match the amount of slow down caused by the telecine of film to video) you may have some sync issues. Check some long takes and see if they drift.

It seems that what you are worried about is an inherent part of the workflow you have chosen. These issues are the same on Avid or Final Cut, if you cut for a film finish and use the 29.97 video timebase.

[Steven Gonzales]

If you have Excel, you can do it with this formula:

(wordcount / 3) / (number of seconds in a day — 60 seconds * 60 minutes * 24 hours)

In Excel less than 24 hours is formatted as the decimal portion of 1 day (“.” something, with .5 being half a day, or 12 hours).

Then format this cell as hh:mm:ss.

So if your word count is in cell A1, then another cell could have this formula: =(A1/3)/(60*60*24)

Then format this formula cell as hh:mm:ss, and you have your timecode.

[Steven Gonzales]

Slightly OT, but does the conform process also work for audio in the same quicktime file (slowing it down slightly, for example, when conforming from 24 to 23.98)?

Does it do this by changing the sample rate?

Thanks, I’ve been curious about this process.

[Steven Gonzales]

Another thing you could do is create a new cinema tools database.

You could export all your master clips as a final cut pro batch list.

Then you could import that batch list into a new Cinema Tools Database.

Then you could link all the quicktimes to the Cinema Tools records, and then add the keycode information to each one.

This would be a little work, but you wouldn’t have to mess with your edit or your project.

[Steven Gonzales]

Here’s a post from May 29, 2005 that says Pioneer 320 and 520 will work. I have no personal experience to verify this.

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=8&postid=839073

“Good news: The Pioneer 320 and 520 will not only rec’d from FCP
time-line…They will also play into FCP Non-Copy protected DVD’s”

[Steven Gonzales]

Did you capture your footage with handles?

Basically, how Cinema Tools works is Final Cut reports which frames of which quicktime were used in the edit. Cinema Tools is linked to the same quicktime file, so it determines from its database what the information for that frame is. If there are extra frames at the beginning of the quicktime file, then this can throw off the information reported by Cinema Tools.

Also, this means that Cinema Tools should work correctly, even if the digitized Quicktime file was captured into Final Cut with timecode that doesn’t match the burn in, as long as it is the correct length to match the Cinema Tools database record and when the clip is connected to Cinema Tools, the information in the Cinema Tools record DOES match the burn in (through using the “identify” feature while connecting the Quicktime file).

[Steven Gonzales]

If you have the SDTI/Ilink button selecting ilink as the input, and you have the cable to the correct video outout, and within the interface menu, you have video output set to the correct output, then you should check that you have Final Cut Pro set to have video playback out the firewire, and if you have the monitor on the correct input, then I think it should work.

[Steven Gonzales]

How is your sound being recorded, and how are you going to finish? This will determine a lot about how you will work.

For clip naming, use a naming scheme that will allow the clips to sort properly. If you have 100 scenes, then I would zero fill the scene numbers, 047 rather than 47. If you have at least 10 takes on some shots, I would zero fill the take, 047-01A for example. A little extra work, but it makes things easy to search for when the names are consistent.

Show your editor how to trim in the timeline. There is a trim mode in Final Cut, but it’s not the same as Avid, and I usually trim in the timeline.

What is your monitoring set-up? It’s good to see things on a broadcast monitor.

I’d capture each take separately. It’s more work, but it pays off if you have to manipulate specific clips or do any effects shots, and the available footage is apparent when split into each separate take.

Write down every thing that you do as an assistant, in detail. Then if you find you made a mistake, you can go back and figure out where the problem occurred.

[Steven Gonzales]

16MM 20 means 16mm with 20 frames between keycodes.

There are still forty frames in a foot, but there are two keycodes in a foot also.

So if you are rewinding 100 keycode numbers, then it would be 50 feet. Of course, you’re on a computer, so why am I talking about rewinds?

[Steven Gonzales]

I understand that if the ram is certified, then the seller has placed it on a machine and checked it, so they can reject bad ram before mailing.

However, I’ve always wondered what specifically would make ram from the same manufacturing batch more compatible than ram from different batches. After all, the actual memory chips soldered on to the ram board are often from different batches.

Since so much manufacturing is robotic, what is the cause of variance between batches?

I’m just curious to learn how the engineers derived their preference for matched batches.