i am a writer/producer with almost no hands-on knowledge of fcp. i have read the apple series book and did the tutorials so with that bare minimum of info i nervously approach my first attempt at fcp.

i have a mbp 2.4 running 10.5 and fcp 5.0.4 (i have the update to studio2 but have not installed so that is a different topic).

i have borrowed a friend's dsr20 dvcam deck. i have six 90min interviews shot with a dsr570. they are shot sd 16x9. lav on channel one, boom on channel two.

i have a 500gb maxtor fw800/fw400 external hard drive which is where i want the footage to reside on.

i believe i have correctly wired the above hardware. now it's time for the software gut check.

could anyone please SLOWLY walk me thru the proper settings i need to digitize this footage? (16x9 footage is named in the pull down menu as anamorphic, right?)

i want to capture the entire 90min tape. my plan is to then trim the captured interview footage into separate category bins.

should i be using batch capture or capture now?

will i "see" the footage as 16x9 as the footage is being captured? after i capture the entire 90min tape and open the project, will i then "see" the digitized footage as 16x9?

one interview went long and is on a 2nd 90min tape. how can i make the 2nd tape part of the 1st tape's capture or will they always be separate entities?

thanks in advance to those who care to share their extensive fcp knowledge.

be well

rob

First off, confirm that you can actually run FCP. MacBook Pros are Intel based, and FCP 5.0.4 doesn't run on Intel. It wasn't until 5.1 that FCP gained Intel support.
Barring that issue, here are the steps to import footage into FCP.
1. Open FCP and save your project.
2. Go to Final Cut Pro > System Settings > Scratch Disks. Set the capture and cache disks to be your external firewire drive. Click OK.
3. Go to File > Log and Capture. Under Capture Settings, pick FireWire NTSC as Device Control, and DV NTSC 48 KHz Anamorphic for Capture/Input.
4. Go to the Clip Settings tab. Under Audio, click the two circles next to the VU meters so they are not connected (so they look like o o.)
5. Go to the Logging Tab. Type in your tape name, and insert the appropriate tape into the deck. Use JKL to move the tape (J is backwards, K is stop, L is forward.) Set an in point (shortcut key I) and and out point (key O) and click Log Clip. Repeat for each tape/interview.
6. When you are done logging, click the Batch button.
7. Once all the footage is captured, open a sequence, and push Command 0. Check the "Anamorphic 16x9" checkbox. This will ensure that your footage isn't letterboxed in the sequence.

There is no way to combine two tapes into one file. If you plan to use each interview separately, you might want to mark in and out for each interview, instead of each tape. That way each interview will be it's own clip in the Browser. Hope that helps.

[QUOTE=Edward Carlson;961394]First off, confirm that you can actually run FCP. MacBook Pros are Intel based, and FCP 5.0.4 doesn't run on Intel. It wasn't until 5.1 that FCP gained Intel support.

A point of interest: you can run older versions of FCP on Intel Macs by doing the following (I did it and have been happily using FCP 4.5 on a MacBook Pro ever since):

Go to Applications folder
Right click on Final Cut Pro & choose Show Package Contents
Double click on Contents folder
Open up info.plist with TextEdit
Search for ‘AGP’ and replace it with ‘PCI’
Save

edward/geoffrey-

thank u both for posting a quick reply.

i just double checked and i'm running fcp 5.1.4.

i will be attempting the digitizing first thing tomw morning.

i know it is the most simple of procedures but i'm pretty excited. i will use the above suggestions and let u good folks know how i do.

anyone else with some thoughts to share?

again, thanks in advance for your patience

be well

rob

A point of interest: you can run older versions of FCP on Intel Macs by doing the following (I did it and have been happily using FCP 4.5 on a MacBook Pro ever since):

Go to Applications folder
Right click on Final Cut Pro & choose Show Package Contents
Double click on Contents folder
Open up info.plist with TextEdit
Search for ‘AGP’ and replace it with ‘PCI’
Save

Did not know that. You lean something new every day.

3. Go to File > Log and Capture. Under Capture Settings, pick FireWire NTSC as Device Control, and DV NTSC 48 KHz Anamorphic for Capture/Input.


Edward is, of course, correct with this. I would have written Anamorphic as ANAMORPHIC though. It's an easy one to miss but MAKE SURE you select the Capture setting that has Anamorphic in it.

Do you think I mentioned Anamorphic enough?

Given that one is looking for Codec, television system (NTSC or PAL), Audio sample rate... it's easy to miss Anamorphic. I know, I've done it. It's a PAIN to fix after the fact (it can be done but it's UGLY and time consuming, depending on how far you've gotten before you catch your mistake).

Have fun and welcome to FCP!

you can change the clip to anamorphic by using clip properties and you can select more then one clip BTW , or AIR just turn it on it column view. with multiple clips selected, its very quick.