Error message in FCP when trying to add an effect

[James Carver]

i have 2 clips about 45 seconds in duration and when i try and add a simple cross disolve between them i get an error message "insufficient content for edit" what does that mean?

i checked the manual and it doesn't seem to apply to my situation. according to the book you should only get this when the effect is longer than the source media. well, the effect is only 1 second long and my two source clips are almost a minute a piece. i dont get it.

[Nate Weaver]

When you apply a cross-dissolve, the transition wants to start the dissolve to the second piece of media where the leftmost edge of the transition icon begins. If you had two pieces of media butted up together at their absolute limits next to each other, then FCP is looking for 15 frames of material that's not there.

It's a hard concept for me to explain, so I'm hoping with careful thought you can grab it.

In other words, if you trimmed the two pieces where they butted up together by 15 frames...take 15 frames off the end of the left clip, and 15 frames off the front of the second clip, you could then butt them up again and apply a 1 second cross-dissolve. Does that help more?

[James Carver]

i somewhat get it. what throws me off is why i normally can just drag the cross dissolve or any other transition between the two clips with no problem.

[Jeff Chandler]

That's because you normally have the excees 15 frames that you need.

[James Carver]

i got it. i trimmed the 15 frames like advised. i didn't realize i was using two clips that were at there absolute beginning and end...but why 15 frames on the end of one and beginning of the other? does 30 frames equal 1 second? sorry for amateur questions...

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by James Carver

...but why 15 frames on the end of one and beginning of the other? does 30 frames equal 1 second? sorry for amateur questions...

Yes. Default cross dissolve is one second, and chances are you're editing regular DV at 29.97fps.

[James Carver]

no, i'm editing in a 720/24 timebase...does that matter?

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by James Carver

i got it. i trimmed the 15 frames like advised. i didn't realize i was using two clips that were at there absolute beginning and end...but why 15 frames on the end of one and beginning of the other? does 30 frames equal 1 second? sorry for amateur questions...

In addition to Nate's example, visualize what you would be doing if you physically had two pieces of film in front of you. In order to cross-dissolve, you would take the ends of each piece and slide them on top of each other for a length of x number of frames. That's what FCP and other high end editors use for their line of thinking. IOW, you can't put a mark at the physical end of one piece, and the physical beginning of the other piece and do a cross dissolve between them because there is nothing underneath and between your marks. Hence the reason Nate told you to go back and mark the end and beginning of each clip 15 frames away from the absolute end of the media.

One thing that helps is to tell FCP to add 'handles' in the log and capture preferences. This forces FCP to pad your mark ins/outs with x amount of extra media for your transitions to work with. If you tend to do longer transitions, then you'll want to increase the default length of 'handles'.

I went through a similar rude awakening when switching from Pinnacle Studio to Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro. The latter makes you do it the way FCP does it. The former will move your marks away from the media ends automatically to create handles for your transitions.

-gb-

[James Carver]

cool, how do i also have FCP automatically add handles at the beginning and end for my transitions?

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by James Carver

cool, how do i also have FCP automatically add handles at the beginning and end for my transitions?

You'll need to go into your Device Control Presets (ie: Firewire NTSC), make a duplicate for editing, and you'll see a place for handle length. By default, it's set to zero. The downside to this is that when ever you mark in and out while clip logging, FCP will pad that location by whatever amount you specify for handles. This will, of course, eat up more disk space. But you'll have some flexibility in that what you see as the beginning/end of the clip will really have that additional media for you to work with.

-gb-

[James Carver]

cool, i'll keep that in mind. maybe i'll just trim off the frames as needed though in the future. thanx.