[Steve Price]

Thanks Michael, I tried that too but alas still no joy.

I’m actually very disappointed with Apple about this. If it’s true, as seems to be the case, that FCP has a bug which won’t allow me to recapture my timeline at higher res after multiclip editing, then my system is of little use to me.

Also, if this is true, then surely Apple must know about it. I have made a great investment in this system, yet the last couple of days have just been one big headache and a waste of time and money, and as my deadline approaches I am still no further down the line. Yet what I am trying to achieve is so basic that it’s unbelievable they haven’t sorted it out.

I thought Apple were the antithesis of this culture. Should’ve bought an Avid I guess…

[Steve Price]

Hi Olivier,

What a nightmare, seems I’ve started my FCP life by dealing with a quite shocking inefficiency of the system.

Thanks very much for posting your thread – I tried a few things suggested in the posts, but to no avail. All I’ve done is lost 2 days of edit time and much of my confidence with Apple and their FCP software.

I’ll let you know if Apple contact me with a remedy.

Cheers,

Steve.

[Steve Price]

Sorry Jeremy – I think I’m confusing myself too! I had a look at the logging info of my tapes and the same name appears next to ‘Name’ as it does next to ‘Reel’.

Yes, it’s the clip name that gets incremented, but it only happens to one or two clips each time I try it. It seems a bit random when MM decides which clips to put offline and which to keep online.

Given my deadline for this project I think the only way forward is for me to digitise all of my footage from scratch at 10 Bit and then reconnect to the new higher res files. This doesn’t bode well for the future though, I bought this suite specifically to edit concerts and it’s not letting me do that efficiently.

It seems the problem is in killing the multiclip – I thought the Collapse Multiclip function was supposed to deal with that…subsequently my fist impressions of FCP are a bit tainted.

I shall keep investigating though, I’ll let you know how it shapes up.

Thanks for all your help,

Steve.

[Steve Price]

Yes, I have the master clips folder open and the clips from Camera 9 Tape 1 are indeed broken into short sections and are offline. However, all the other tapes are in that folder as online clips, each one appearing as a whole tapes worth of footage at around 90 minutes in duration.

My reel names are the same as my tape names – should I change the reel names so that they are numeric, such as 001, 002 etc?

[Steve Price]

Seems to be a different tape number. My original tapes are numbered and logged as Camera 1 Tape 1, Camera 1 Tape 2, Camera 2 Tape 1 etc etc.

The show was 3 hours, so each camera used 2 x 90 minute Digi Beta tapes.

So, I’ve digitised 2 x tapes that start with ‘Camera 9’, but the canvas window displays the red Media Offline image with ‘Camera 9 Tape 137’ below it. A few shots later I get another Media Offline image with ‘Camera 9 Tape 138’ beneath it.

Looks like it’s giving each clip a new sequential name.

[Steve Price]

Righto, thanks for this Jeremy, we’re starting to get somewhere now…Camera 9 is offline, and each shot from camera 9 appears as a different tape number. The same applies to one of the other tapes too.

However, all the other media is still online! Only about 2% of my timeline has a red line at the top indicating it is offline, the rest of it is green and online.

I’m digitising from a DVW-A500P Digi Beta machine. I’ve had it on hire for 2 days already with no progress…

[Steve Price]

Thanks for the suggestion Jeremy – unfortunately it’s not the answer – this time there were literally hundreds of reconnections that could not be made and now there are just a couple of tapes offline. For example – I’m getting ‘Media Offline – Camera 9 Tape 137’ in the canvas window.

I am way out of my depth with this, it just gets more and more confusing as I go on.

Maybe the problem is in the way I originally set up the Multiclip? I doubt that though – the Multiclip editing facility is just about the only thing that has worked efficiently on this computer so far. I am trying very hard to embrace FCP and the Apple way of life, but my experience of it thus far hasn’t been too good.

[Steve Price]

Yes, it is. I select ‘Create Offline’ from the drop down list.

‘Include Render Files’ is greyed out and unchecked.

Set Sequences to: AJA Kona LH: 625 25 10 Bit.

Include master clips outside selection – checked.
Delete unused media from duplicated items – checked.
Use handles – checked (1 second).
Include affiliate clips outside selection – checked.

Base media files names on – existing file names

Project:
Duplicate selected items and place into a new project – greyed out and checked.
Include nonactive multiclip angles – unchecked.

I am then prompted to save, which I do, then I get several “Reconnect Media Failed” warnings like this;
“An unknown error occurred while trying to reconnect clip Camera 8 Tape 1 to the new offline file”.
I just tried that again actually and I had 18 such warnings.

I then open the new “offline’ sequence, but only one of the clips is offline, all the others are still there.

So, I select Batch Capture by right-clicking the sequence in the browser and I select Capture: Offline items only.
Used log clip settings is checked.
Add handles is not checked.
Capture preset is set to AJA Kona LH: 625 25 10 Bit.
Total Media time is 04.40.04.06

I click OK and a box comes up with a blue progress bar and the names of around a dozen or so different sequences I’ve been working on flash by.

Then I get another box “Additional Items Found” telling me I need another 1.3Tb of space for these items.

I press continue.

The ‘Insert Reel’ box appears. Only 4 reels are listed, amounting to over 6.5 hours of time.

If I press continue I embark on the useless pastime of digitising the whole of these tapes.

So, I take a deep breath, lay down for a bit, relax, and have another go. This has been going on for 24 hours. I can’t tell you how wired up by this I am!

This is quite worrying – the mainstay of my busiiness is films of concerts, and the very facility I bought the suite for won’t work properly. It’s very frustrating. If you can shed some light on this I will be eternally grateful.

Thank you,

Steve.

[Steve Price]

Thanks for that…unfortunately this is turning out to be one of those nightmare days where it all seems so unnecessarily complicated….

When I edited the concert at DV quality I made 12 different multiclip sequences as there were 12 different acts performing during the show. One act only sang one song, so I’ve decided to start conforming with that song as it’s short and simple. This sequence is only 4 minutes in duration.

The edit is made up of 9 different angles. After completing the DV cut I collapsed the sequence. Then I opened the media manager to create an offline edit sequence. This is where it’s all gone wrong.

For starters, Some of the media in my sequence is offline and some is not, yet it is all made from captured clips, there are no graphics, titles etc.

Secondly, the tutorial – while helpful – was written 6 years ago and doesn’t cover all the check boxes and info in the Media Manager.

Next, the Media Manager tells me it wants to capture almost 14 hours of footage.

Then, when I instruct FCP to Batch Capture the sequence at Aja Kona LH 635 10 Bit Uncompressed, it tells me to insert tape number one, then tries to capture all 90 minutes of it.

Now, I know this is pilot error on my part, but it is incredibly confusing to say the least.

I think my problems are owing to the fact I am trying to recapture everything after using the multiclip facility rather than using a straightforward conventional sequence.

Does anyone, please, have any experiences similar to mine? I shall check back after my anger management class!

Thank you.

[Steve Price]

Thank you both for your suggestions.

To clarify what I’m trying to achieve, and to answer your questions, I am looking to play the track back from a portable audio player such as CD, Mini Disk, DAT or even a laptop.

Audio Timecode is exactly what you might expect: a series of high pitched sounds that are converted into a visual timecode display when fed into a digislate or similar timecode reader. If you accidentally feed the audio timecode channel into a speaker it plays out as a messy stream of squeals and squeaks that hurts the ears! It sounds very similar to the noise made by a fax machine. Both sides of the stereo are output via XLR, phono or minijack leads, because both tracks are audio tracks – the audio timecode only becomes visual timecode after it has been converted by a timecode reader such as a digislate.

Most professional audio recording studios have the facility to place audio timecode in an audio track. It usually starts at around 09:59:30:00 – thus giving the user 30 seconds of lead up time to the beginning of the song which is set to start at 10:00:00:00. Then, in the edit, I set a stereo recording of the song to begin at 10:00:00:00 in my timeline, and I’m then able to sync all my transferred 16mm shots to the music by reading the timecode display captured by the camera at the beginning of each take.

So, is it possible to generate audio timecode in FCP or any of the other Final Cut Studio programmes? I posted my original message on the Soundtrack Pro forum too, but as yet I’ve had no response.

Thanks for taking the time to read my posts, I hope this is possible…

Regards,

Steve.