EDL Issues (FCP 5.1.2)

Im not sure if someone can shed some light for me on this one, but for a while now i've been getting reports of problems edit assistants are having making EDLs, and this evening i've had a few more bizzare problems crop up:

? When trying to export an EDLs of sequences the process has gone smoothly - selecting video and audio tracks etc and naming the edl and giving it a location. The weird bit is that when confirmed no EDL is created - no error, no obviouse abnormal behaviour - simply the edl file is never created.
The abnormality can occur with individual video or audio tracks, and there dosn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to it. There weren't nests or anything else i could see that should cause problems... any insight appreciated!

? Second one had me stumped tonight. Just been finnishing off a HD job and had three EDLs that had to be created - went to export menu and lo and behold the EDL option is grayed out... every single sequence of my project and the EDL option is grayed out.... Except one! exactly the same sequence settings etc. Duped my working sequence and copied the footage into the new one - and bam the EDL option is grayed out.

Ended up having to creat OMFs.

Again, any insight as to the reasoning behind FCP's decision as to when it feels or dosn't feel like creating EDLs would be much appreciated!!

Josh

mmm... 2 weird problems. here's some guesses

disappearing EDLS:
maybe your sequences have the / symbol in their names?
could cause the files to dissapear???

greyed-out EDL:
something to do with the frame-rate???

but when things get weird, the weird turn pro...
uh, i mean, when things get weird in FCP, trash your prefs!
[www.lafcpug.org]


nick

for the first one - yeah we thought of that as well, - but no its all standard case (and very confusing!)

Not only did i trash the prefs, i took the trash out with the prefs in, jumped up and down on them a few times and drove them to the tip myself where i set alight to them while dancing round the flames!!


re the greyout out edl - Aha, yes the job was at 30fps - i didn't realise that might be an issue though?

Wish I could help you, but my experience with edls out of FCP has usually been terrible. I've experienced the same problems that you have, but more importantly I've had plenty of edls that seemed to generate OK, but when checked against picture were found to have errors. Very short sequence seemed to be fine, but longer ones with transitions were a real problem. Getting a correct edl was so unpredictable that I gave up trying a long time ago, with FCP 5.0. Don't know about 5.1.2, I've never bothered to try. The only work around that I've foundhas been to use automatic duck to bring my sequence into Avid and then create my edls from there. That's a pain and expensive if you don't already have Avid software. For any job that will require a tape online, like the cable film I'm cutting now, I use my Avid for that reason alone.

thanks phil, yeah its driving us a little nutty!

Production companies often ask us for EDLs so they can reference track lenghs of music etc. And in the suites that i can we use Automatic duck - but we don't have it in every suite - and obviously logistically its a little tricky! If anyone has any other ideas or insight it would be very much appreciated - i can't find the reason and if this is a real FCP issue it would be great if it was fixed!!