Time Code In Quicktime - Window Burn

[Mitchell Lewis]

I did not know this so I thought I'd share....

There have been many threads about how to make a time code window burn to give to a client. In case you don't know what a window burn is, here's an example.

EXAMPLE
You shoot 3 hours of interviews and the client wants to view them and write down the time code for all the good clips. If you're recording to tape, this is easy. Just play your tape out to VHS with the time code counter turned on. If you're not shooting on tape another option has been to capture all your footage into FCP and add the Time Code Reader effect to each clip. But then you need to render it all out and burn it to a DVD. This can take a lot of time because you 1)have to render the Time Code Reader effect and 2) you have to convert from high def to standard def for burning to a DVD.

I now just learned an additional alternative that I didn't know existed. I'm shooting XDCAM EX (Sony EX3 camera) but I would assume this works with other cameras as well. Just open any of your clips using Apple's Quicktime Player (I'm using Quicktime Pro) and click on the time at the bottom left. You'll notice that you have the choice of Standard, which is the default time display or Timecode, which is the time code from your clip.

This is a big deal for me because it means that I can just copy my clips to a portable hard drive and as long as my clients have Quicktime (I need to research whether they need QT Pro or not) then can view the clips and easily create a paper log.

Does anyone have any experience with this work flow? What other codecs support this? Can I transcode from one codec to another and have my time code remain intact?

[Clarke L. Smith]

I shot some footage for a friend using my Sony EX-3 camera.

Setting: XDCAM EX 1080p30 (35Mb/s VBR).

I ingested all the footage from my SxS cards onto an external Hard Drive with XDCam Transfer and now I have all these .MOV files in a folder.

I brought that External Hard Drive to my friend's place of business and copied that folder with the Quicktime files to her Macbook - it has the latest verison of Quicktime installed - so no problem - but when trying to play the files, everything's black.

She DOESN'T have any NLE software or FC Pro - Just QuickTime (and I doj't even know if it's PRO or not - or even if you run QT on a Mac if it needs to be QT Pro anyway...

The idea was for her take the .mov files and one by one write down the takes and create a list for me - but she can't see them - what can she do and can she even see them - I don't have any of these files in any other format now than these .mov files with the XDCAM codec.

Any help ASAP would be greatly appreciated

Clarke

Clarke@clarkesmith.com
415-279-2911

[Mitchell Lewis]

Exactly! You need all the approriate XDCAM codecs to play the footage in Quicktime. I "think" it's all available for download from the Sony site, but it's still a pain to ask the client to do this. This is the hurdle I need to get over, but I haven't had time to do any testing.

I'm "hoping" that I can transcode the footage into another, smaller, more internet friendly Quicktime codec but still retain the timecode. Another idea is to transcode the footage in to a smaller Quicktime codec, and not worry about the timecode being stripped off in the process. Then using Quicktime "Show Movie Properties", copy and paste the timecode from the XDCAM file into the reduced file and Save. But that would be a pain if you had a lot of clips.

I haven't tried any of these techniques yet, but maybe this afternoon I'll have some time to test. :)

[Mike Barber]

Using Compressor to transcode to smaller files using the H.264 codec, you can enable the Timecode Generator video filter (see attached screenshot) which saves you the step of having to render a filter in FCP and then transcode.

[Mitchell Lewis]

Wow! Didn't know that either! Thanks a lot Mike. That "might" be the best way to go of all. Depending on render times. Thank you very much.

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Mitchell Lewis

Wow! Didn't know that either! Thanks a lot Mike. That "might" be the best way to go of all. Depending on render times. Thank you very much.

Not to get too repetitive (I posted similar info in another thread, but is apropos to your specific formate and workflow):

Originally Posted by Mike Barber

Sending QT clips using H.264 codec (in compressor, set the Video settings to single-pass, frame rate=current, data rate=automatic, quality=high. In the Geometry tab, set dimensions to either "50% of source". A good option, but will add time to the compression, is to enable the Timecode Generator video filter to burn-in the timecode) is a good idea.

Using the settings I outlined, a 29 minute XDCAM EX clip that is 7.4 GB in size was reduced to 307 MB, as an example.

The time it took for my Mac Pro to render these clips out was prett decent, but I can't remember how long at the moment.

[Mitchell Lewis]

Thanks Mike. I'm going to test this tomorrow. I'm interested to see what the timecode generated by Compressor looks like.

[Clarke L. Smith]

well... I have 40 gigs of footage... in about 250 files... so... what do you think would be the easiest way to do that?

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Mitchell Lewis

This is a big deal for me because it means that I can just copy my clips to a portable hard drive and as long as my clients have Quicktime (I need to research whether they need QT Pro or not) then can view the clips and easily create a paper log.

They would also need the XDCAM EX component for Quicktime which is installed with FCP6.
If you DO NOT have Final Cut Pro 6 then you can download the free Open Source XDCAM Quicktime component and drag it into your Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime folder. This will allow you to work with the XDCAM quicktimes in Quicktime Player, Premiere Pro, Media 100 and possibly iMovie 09.

For Windows Users:
If you would like to view or edit with the Quicktime MOV files in Windows then you will need the XDCAM component for Quicktime for Windows. Unfortunately I can't find a free one, but I can vouch for Calibrated{Q}'s XD Decode component.

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Clarke L. Smith

well... I have 40 gigs of footage... in about 250 files... so... what do you think would be the easiest way to do that?

Use Compressor.

[Mitchell Lewis]

Thanks to Mike's suggestion I would agree....use Compressor. It looks to be a good solution.

[Clarke L. Smith]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

They would also need the XDCAM EX component for Quicktime which is installed with FCP6.
If you DO NOT have Final Cut Pro 6 then you can download the free Open Source XDCAM Quicktime component and drag it into your Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime folder. This will allow you to work with the XDCAM quicktimes in Quicktime Player, Premiere Pro, Media 100 and possibly iMovie 09.

For Windows Users:
If you would like to view or edit with the Quicktime MOV files in Windows then you will need the XDCAM component for Quicktime for Windows. Unfortunately I can't find a free one, but I can vouch for Calibrated{Q}'s XD Decode component.

Tim Dashwood "wins" a medal for pointing me in the right direction and actually Fixing my problem - I thank you!!!

I did go to that link, downloaded the "component", placed it in the "Library>Quictime" folder and I rebooted - now my client can view each and every quicktime file with the XDCAM codec right from within the Finder, but navigating to the folder containing the files and hitting the space bar and it plays right there without even having to load QuickTime - which is what I was really looking for - granted that the "timecode" within that Finder Player is very archaic, it's all she'll need to give her editor "loose" ins and outs of the footage shot. -

I appreciate everyone's help and suggestions about other things in the post. Thanks!

Clarke

[Mitchell Lewis]

I ended up going another route. Kind of a combination of the recommendations from this thread. (thanks everyone!) Here's what I did.

NOTE: We have the Flip4Mac WMV Studio Pro plug-in for Quicktime as most of our clients use Windows. So being able to email or FTP files in the WMV format is a big help for us.

1) Set up Compressor so that it compresses using one of the Flip4Mac WMV format presets
2) Turn on the Timecode Generator in the Filters Tab. (Thanks Mike!)
3) Submit

It works pretty fast and we can FTP (or even email) to clients/producers for them to review the footage. This is a great new solution for doing window burns.