NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2002

[Joe Redifer]

Final Cut Pro 2 and Timecode

Sometimes when I am capturing with Final Cut Pro 2, it will refuse to capture the footage because it doesn't have time code. It doesn't matter if I can plainly see the video playing in the little capture box, it won't let me capture unless it sees timecode. This usually occurs when playing an edited tape from the camera/deck.

Can I turn this highly useless "feature" off? It is really annoying. It forces me to boot up with a different extension set and use MotoDV to capture, which has no problem with the absence of timecode. I don't care about timecode. If there is any kind of video coming through the firewire, I want to be able to capture it.

[John Locke]

Joe,

I had that happen a few times but was able to work around it by capturing with iMovie, then importing into FCP 2.0.

Haven't had any trouble capturing yet with FCP 3.0.

Anyway...I'll be interested if someone knows a way to turn it off, too.

[Ken Tanaka]

Hi Joe,

FCP is very persnickity about its time code. If it sees a break it will balk. There's no way that I know of to induce it to ignore tc breaks.

Rather than monkey with extensions and restarts, here's how I cheat when I encounter such situations. I turn to iMovie to capture the tape. iMovie assumes we're yutzes that will have gap-toothed tapes and just skps past the gaps. Once the clips are captured you can import them directly into your FCP project since they're in DV format.

[Joe Redifer]

I tried importing via iMovie and I didn't like it. iMovie seemed to make a new clip of every different scene. And then you have to save it to the hard drive which takes longer than rebooting with a new extension set. Maybe I am missing something. Maybe iMovie is just too difficult to use for me, I dunno. Final Cut Pro is so much easier to use than iMovie.

[Mike Avery]

I don't know if this will work with no timecode at all, but it will solve the problem with timecode breaks.

In the General tab under FCP Preferences theres a box on the right side labeled "Abort capture on timecode breaks".

Uncheck that box and Final Cut will capture through loss of TC.

You will however get a message box at the end of the capture informing you of a break in timecode.

Mike Avery

[Ken Tanaka]

Mike,
You pointed out a feature in the new FCP3 that I had not yet discovered. I tried it with a "broken" tape today (of course, it took me a long time to find one <grin>, yuh, right) and it works pretty well!

Thanks for the tip.

[Mike Avery]

I didn't realize that feature didnt exist in v2. I guess it wont help Joe's problem then.

Sorry, didn't mean to mislead anyone.

For folks using v3 it can be a big help though.

Mike Avery

[John Locke]

Yep...I switched it off the minute I read your post.

Thanks, Mike.

Im an Avid Guy, but I have used FCP 2, and 3.0. If i recall there is definately an "Ignore Timecode Breaks", somewhere in the preferences, or in the audio/video settings, i believe.

[Ken Tanaka]

With Final Cut Pro 3? After Effects? Commotion Pro 4? Any problems? Does it render and process as quickly as it's specs suggest?

[Vic Owen]

Ken--

I have one of the new MACS, and I'm awaiting FCP to arrive any day now. I've been using EditDV on the new MAC, and the speed increase over my G3-300 B&W is astounding, especially for titles.

After reading all the various opinions over at 2-pop, though, I'm tempted to load FCP into OS-9.2 and let OS-10 age a little.

I should have the new software this week.

[Ken Tanaka]

Thanks Vic!

I've been using FCP3 on OS 9.x on my desktop and OS 10.1 on my TiBook. FWIW, the TiBook has been rock-solid under OS 10 but there's no functional advantage in FCP per se. Am waiting for the OS 10 drivers for my RTMac board before switching my desktop to 10 completely. My finger's a-twitchin' on the Buy button for the dual 1Gig. I've been using the dual 500 for just over a year. It's ok but, honestly, its far behind the performance of even my dual P4-550 Dell system (regardless of what Steve Jobs says).

Hey, enjoy your new system and FCP3. EditDV is a good product but I really think you'll find new love when FCP3 arrives.

[Vic Owen]

I'm looking forward to it. I've been using EDV since back when it was still Radius, and it has done well by me. I'm little concerned about future support now, and I attended one of the Apple seminars on FCP and decided it was in my future. Will FCP take advantage of the dual processors under 9.2? I'd like to try OS-10, but if there is no advantage, I might wait for it to mature a little.

[Ken Tanaka]

<<-- Will FCP take advantage of the dual processors under 9.2? -->>

Apple has always been purposefully vague on just how much value the dual-processor systems really add. Certainly they crow about how the G4's Altivec "engine" adds muscle to Photoshop. But when it came to FCP there was more than a bit of evasion when I particpated in a drilling last year. There has been a special multiprocessor extension under OS 9 for some time. But, anecdotally, my G4-500DP desktop system is really not appreciably faster than my single-processor G4-500 TiBook (under OS 10) when it comes to comparable FCP3 renders. I'm looking at a minute or so to render 6 seconds of titling on either.

Of course this becomes moot with the introduction of FCP3 on the OS 10 platform since the OS (Unix under a BSD kernal) handles the processor scheduling. In theory FCP would not be responsible for processor counts or handling load assignments at all. So it -should- prove to be a real boost. But I haven't really worked much with FCP3 under OS 10 on my desktop G4-DP yet to say one way or the other.

[John Locke]

Ken,

It's faster...believe me! I just got my new computer today...dual 1 GHz processors, 1 Gb RAM, and 107 Gb memory. Using FCP3, I tested out the speed on a project I'm editing together now. Seems to me that the render times have been cut in at least half, if not more.

Also, surfing the web is blazing fast. Pages pop up instantly.

Run...do not walk... to the nearest Apple store. ;)