Dealing with Reality Show timecode breaks...

Just started to capture a Reality Show project off of Beta SP. We shot entirely with time-of-day timecode on Beta SP (19 tapes), as the events were time of day critical, so we started capturing using "create new clip" when encountering broken timecode. It works, BUT it is taking over 2 minutes per clip for the Beta deck to search for the timecode break so it can resume its capture. Is there a way to speed up this cueing process, or do I need to just capture the whole tape and create subclips?

Thanks for the heads up. For the record Decklink SP to X-Serve Raid and FCP 5.1.4 on a G5.

Does FCP have a 'digitize across timecode breaks' option?

When I have a tape in Avid w/too many TC breaks I just set this option. Dig the whole tape and log the clips afterwards. Avid digitizes. Finds a break. backs up 3 seconds (or less) and moves forward.

If apple can't do this it should. Saves a lot of time.

FCP has exactly the same.
difference is (and that is why it takes longer in FCP then it does in Avid) that FCP finds exactly the first usable TC after the break. Avid just stops after a break which will be with a delay after the tc break., sets a new in from where it stoped plus preroll time. So Avid normally looses quite a few seconds of usable footage because it doesn't readjust after the tc break.
FCP does exactly this. after it stoped, it actually goes back and analyzes the tc break and finds the first possible in point considering your preroll time. And that just takes time. No way around it at the moment if you check the option.

[red ochre] "Well 1 second after a TC break doesn't sound so bad to me (which is what Avid does). A shame FCP does give this as an option. It can make life much easier."

Actually, you lose a lot more than 1 second in some cases. I've had it miss whole takes. Depends on the deck, preroll time, etc.

I've done this with FCP for about 100 hrs of TOD footage and it did it without a hitch, grabbing every frame.

What's the problem? The extra time it takes? I'd say this is something to plan from the beginning.

Robby,

You've just discovered a dirty little secret!

You're absolutely correct. The searching for timecode across a break can take up to two minutes to "negotiate" the break. (I've timed it). The better your deck, the faster it goes. For example, a Sony J30 might take 2:00 minutes, but a much more expensive MSWm-2000 can do it in around a minute. Both of these times are WAY TOO long in my opinion, and yes, the Avid seemed to do this faster. What this means is that you're essentially taking 1.5 to 2.0 times real time to ingest your material. That does suck, especially when you have hours and hours of tapes to digitize. We get around this problem with brute force.... we throw ten to twenty decks/systems into the digitizing pool at night to bring the material in. Until we migrate to a file based system (like Sony's xd-cam file access mode) or Panasonic's P-2, this "broken code" problem will be an issue.

Your suggestion to 'capture the whole tape' and make subclips means you don't understand the process. I suggest that you find someone there who know's what they're doing and listen carefully. Screwing up the digitize process will ruin everyone's day. In our shop, it's a ticket out the door.

Good luck.

Mark

[Timecode Multimedia] "I know this is not the "most" professional advice, but sometimes -in these kind of situations-
we have to break the rules."

Unless of course you ever have to re-digitize the footage at any point. you'd have to re-digitize the entire tape to make the timecodes match.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
http://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network's "Good Eats"
HD Editorial for "Assignment Earth"

Read my blog! http://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

In my experience FCP is more accurate at detection TC breaks during capture but WAY slower to pickup when using RS422. For some reason FCP seems to keep inching back frame by frame even though it's obviously already passed the TC break.

Strangely with my cheapo Panasonic DV camera over FW it restarts capturing quicker than with a DVW500.

Unfortunately there is no shortcut Robby. Just walk away and leave FCP to do it's stuff!

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
Unique plug-ins and tools for Apple Pro Apps
----------
Avid2FCP
For Avid editors learning FCP

I always thought this was possible, but had no idea someone implemented it.

[Martin Baker] "From what you've described, the Aux TC is the tape TC, or am I misunderstanding?"

No, you've understood perfectly (the first part of it:-)

What my application does is reading the TC out of one of the sound channels and insert an AUX TC track in the QT. So in this case, AUX TC is indeed the same as tape TC. BUT, it is a different track. (The QT TC tracks also contains the reel names and identify themselves as being 'normal' or 'aux')

Now as you probably know FCP cannot have TC breaks in one clip, so my app hunts down the TC breaks and splits the original QT into smaller clips (either self contained or by ref)

The 'normal' TC track stays intact. So you end up with both normal and AUX TC.

It was designed for shoots where the tape TC is rec run and a free run TC signal is recorded as normal audio (like happens a lot on multicam shoots where there is one TC signal broadcasted to all the cams, or where a decent BWF recorder sends its TC to a prosumer cam).

In this case the cam has recorded free run TC, thus when capturing an entire tape the 'normal' TC track is unusable.
The whole idea is to capture fast but be able to track down the source TC. This is possible using my app, but as it just copies the 'normal' TC track it won't work on recapturing.
(But i don't see that as a problem, when you work fast you probably never redig...)

Makes more sense now?





Bouke

http://www.videoToolShed.com
smart tools for video pro's

Would be possible, but that also means loosing the original tape name, as i don't have access to that. (yet...). No problem i would guess, as loosing the original TC means no redigging anyways.

But why? What is the advantage of loosing the normal TC? It's just a single click to switch to AUX tc...


Bouke

http://www.videoToolShed.com
smart tools for video pro's

What I do, if you really want to speed things up, is sit there and watch it and hit escape when you've grabbed some good stuff, then shuttle ahead and continue. Once you get into the camera-person's groove, you can guess exactly what they're going to do and if you miss anything, just roll back, grab it, hit escape and move on. No cueing by FCP involved.

And you get to watch every minute of your stuff!

Just to reiterate the OPs situation, time-of-day TC can be critical for reality shows because story people are using time of day to make notes while shooting is going on.


-A

Steve,

Your logic breaks down when you're talking about dozens of editors working with thousands of hours of footage. (It happens!)

Mark

[Steve Radley] " completely understand the use and importance of time of day TC. But as an editor, I am going to go through every shot on every tape anyway. Once I am familiar with the footage, I could find the shot or event the Producer was referencing maybe seconds slower without timecode than with. This to me, outweighs the time wasted waiting to digitize over breaks. Steve Radley
Digitec
Orlando, FL
http://www.digitecinteractive.com
"

But not all workflow's allow the editor to become familiar with the footage. The reality shows I've worked on do not allow for this. Not by a long shot. I AE'd on a reality show that produced about 2500hrs of footage over a 10 day shoot and all shows had to be delivered about 16 weeks after shooting wrapped. In my reality tv experience the editors don't (or shouldn't) have to sift thru footage themselves. The story producers provide the tape #'s and TCs to the editors (ideally the story producers would work w/the AE's who would then create a string out for the editors but that's not always possible) and if the editors needs more coverage or something they ask for it and some else hunts it done. The editor just edits.


-A

If the reality show has MULTIPLE cameras shooting TOD then the original timecode is CRUCIAL in setting up multiclips for editing.

So my question is how will the AJA IO HD work with the timecode input? Will it be any better?

-Russ

I wonder if you could put FCP in an external timecode mode like you can a deck. Then have FCP split the file up when it's done.

Just a wish. I'll go ask the AJA guys.

-Russ