Hi,

I am trying to capture from my XL1 w/ final cut express, and it keeps stopping in the middle of captures, at erratic intervals w/ some sort of timecode error The clip plays just fine but it's a pain to have to stop in the middle, rewind a couple seconds, and continue capturing every four minutes or so. Then go back and trim and stitch all the clips together.

I am super green and know next to nothing about this kind of stuff, I don't even know what time code is.

So if someone could help me out or give some advice or suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it. Especially since I have about six hours of video to capture.

Thanks,
Will

It's really best for an editor if you capture your clips in meaningfully small segments and not dump the dv tape into one huge quicktime file. This is what the Log and Capture window is for in FCP. Go through your tape and mark the clips that you wish to import by setting in and out points. After you've set points for a single clip edit the information about that clip in the log and capture window then hit log. This creates a reference file for that small segment of the dv tape that tells an editor what is on that particular segment. Log each clip you wish to import from the tape. You will note that logging clips takes less time than babysitting a long capture because you can scrub through the tape quickly.

When you log a clip its reference file (named from a combination of the info you input about it) is considered 'offline.' Being offline means that FCP hasn't captured it from the tape yet. Once you've logged all the clips you want from that tape highlight all of them in the browser, right click, and select batch capture. Make sure the correct tape is in the camera, and FCP will take care of the rest capturing exactly the clips you've specified.

This SHOULD get rid of the timecode problems you are having. FCP is more apt to have timecode breaks when it's capturing very long clips. If you continue to have problems after logging all your clips then you will need to dub the miniDV tape to another miniDV tape as the one you are using is faulty.