batch copy-paste - logging information in final cut

Hi there

I am currently working on a TV-movie and have the following question: i am trying to copy the timecode info in my video-files from the 'Sound TC column' to the 'AUX-TC column'. After that, i want to copy the timecode info in my .WAV-File Sounds from the 'Media Start Column' into the 'AUX-TC column'. In order to sync the corresponding video and audio files together by using the 'Merge'-command (using the AUX-TC information.)

I can do this by copy-pasting the info by hand, one by one (but only through the 'Timecode'-Window). But with thousands of files at hand this is way too complicated. For some reason i can't figure out a way to batch re-write the timecode information from one column to the other. Does anyone know a way how to do this fast and easy? Or am i missing something?

Thx a lot for your help.
Benjamin

--
senorbenz
MacBookPro2,2, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.33 GHz, L2-Cache 4 MB, 3 GB RAM, 667 MHz
Final Cut Pro 5.1.4

No way!

Regards
Andreas

P.S.
If you got a log list with the sync points it can be done by XML

you could look into QuicKeys, a macro app that plays nice with FCP,
but Andreas is right: XML may be the best way.


nick

guys, thank you so much for your quick replies. i am still stunned that fcp cannot do this, it seems like such a basic need. do you know is there any specific technical reason why this is not possible?

andreas, how would i do this conveniently in XML with hundreds of sync points? I have checked out your xml tools and they are great, but as far as i understood i cannot batch change information like timecodes and then write it back to an XML file, to then read it by fcp, right? 'readXML' seems like it would be an app that could do that in the future?

in the meantime, i will look into writing a macro with ikey (in my opinion a cooler and cheaper type of QuicKeys, Nick btw), thank you.

thx for you help guys.
benjamin

--
senorbenz
MacBookPro2,2, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.33 GHz, L2-Cache 4 MB, 3 GB RAM, 667 MHz
Final Cut Pro 5.1.4

thanks for the iKey tip.
TC gets written into the actual files, (not just tracked in a database) so that may be a barrier.


actually there's something i dont understand:

" i am trying to copy the timecode info in my video-files from the 'Sound TC column' to the 'AUX-TC column'"

what is this Sound TC column?

is there some TC in the pic files that aligns with the audio TC?
in that case you can write macros for lining those up in a timeline.
then you would use another macro to link the vid & audio.
same as merging, but simpler, in my opinion as it can be done with keystrokes,
whereas merging by Aux TC needs the mouse.


Nick

hey nick

thx so much for helping me with this. yeah, the 'Sound TC', i didn't find it myself at first, but when you switch from the 'standard' view to 'logging' view in the menu head of the browser window, then you can select a column that is called 'Sound TC' and it shows up. our post-house wrote the TC of the sound dept into this column of the video file as a reference.

so is this what you were talking about? could i use this column info of the video file to lign up with the sound file in the timeline? would you mind explaining me the steps? i don't seem to remember how to do that.

thx a lot.
benjamin

"our post-house wrote the TC of the sound dept into this column of the video file as a reference. "

how?
i cant seem to modify that Sound TC at all...

on a feature i worked on last year we had to do a lot of "overcutting"
studio selects were made BEFORE syncing & multiclipping,
the synced multiclip versions then had to be overcut on the selects reels.

we created macros for doing that based on FCP searching for and finding the matching TCs (IN A TIMELINE),
then lining the 2 shots up.

but the TCs had to be accessible.
i cant even modify this Sound TC, let alone access it.

it may still be possible to automate this,
but it may also be the case that you'll have to sync your rushes.
there's worse things in life.


nick

Hi Nick & Benjamin,

Just have short break late in the night here and a beer and thought I should have a look at this thread.

So
Benjamin got obviously the sound TC related to the video from where ever.
As Nick mentioned setting an Aux TC to a file is a file operation and that can't be done in a batch within FCP.
What can be done with the data available is to export a batch list of the video which includes the sound TC and do a batch list export of the audio files

The batch lists can be opened with a spread sheet editor. Then replace the In of the audio batch list with the sound TC value.

Re-Import and reconnect the stuff into FCP and merge by In

I haven't seen the files and don't know about available metadata but the above should be quite efficient though it doesn't make happy.

Regards
Andreas

thanks againg for hanging in there with me.

Nick, your suggestion is great, but as you said, it's not possible to access the sound TC in fcp at all, so this won't work. thank you for explaining the theory though. how the post house got the TC in the sound TC column i don't know myself. i talked to them and asked them to write the TC directly into the AUX TC, but for some reason nothing showed up in the column when we tried this the first time.

Andreas, this was exactly my thinking too and i've tried it before and tried it again exactly as you suggested. now i have found a very weird problem: when i am exporting the video files (with the sound TC column) as a batch list and open them in excel or text edit, something really weird happens: the 'sound tc' column shows up, but the TC it is showing is not the sound TC but the 'media start TC'. so i do get some numbers in the excel column, but not the correct ones, i get the media start numbers instead of the sound TC numbers. other than that the trick would work, i've tried copying and pasting the numbers and re-importing the batch list and they show up in the new column. but since fcp is apparently not exporting the sound column number correctly i am still stuck, sorry.

do you guys have any idea why that may be? again: in the batch list the sound TC column shows the media start TC.

so weird...
benjamin

--
senorbenz
MacBookPro2,2, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.33 GHz, L2-Cache 4 MB, 3 GB RAM, 667 MHz
Final Cut Pro 5.1.4

Benjamin,

Could you send me an XML of the project?

Andreas