FCP Universal-log & capture

I just got the universal version of fcp 5.1 for my intel imac. when i do log and capture, capture now, every two minutes or so fcp pauses and the capture screen goes black and says "break in timecode, searching for timecode" then about 30 sec. later it resumes capturing. then two minutes go by and it starts all over again. after it has finished capturing it loads all the two minute clips into my bin. when i drag them down to the timeline i notice there is about 3 or 4 seconds missing between each two minute clip. i have never had this problem when using other versions of fcp. is there a solution for this?

daniel weber

note: i did not blacken my tape first, which i've never done before, but considering its a timecode problem maybe thats the solution?

Is it a TC problem? Is it continuous TC or are you capturing over TC breaks?

i am not sure. after the two minutes (or so) fcp capture pauses and in the dialogue at the bottom of the capture screen it reads, "timecode break searching for timecode break" then it supposedly finds the break and continues capturing for another two minutes and so on. but it always skips about 3 or 4 seconds inbetween each one. theoretically it should be one 12 minute clip! but its breaking it up about every two minutes.

yes, you see if there IS a TC break, then it does have to skip the three seconds after it, so there's enough time for pre-roll.
your pre-roll cant be over a TC break.

Mike's asking if there ARE TC breaks on the tape.
do the breaks happen on new shots, or randomly?
put the tape in your deck or camera and turn the display on.
see if there are TC breaks.

cheers,
nick

there are no timecode breaks on my tape.
what happened was i exported the edited footage from fcp (at school) back to my dv tape on my camera. i brought it home and exported it from my dv tape to fcp on my intel imac.
the timecode breaks seem to happen randomly (roughly every two minutes). i am not sure what pre-roll means
my film has no audio and the first time i tried to export it, the capture feature would pause randomly every 30 or 40 seconds to analyze the audio, so i started over and changed the capturing to only video.
a few weeks back i captured this same footage into premier pro on a pc and it worked fine with no tc breaks.

sounds weird.

have you trashed preferences?
here's an article,
[www.lafcpug.org]
but i don't know if the prefs are in the same place on an intel mac,
have a look.

as it;s a single long capture, blacking the tape shouldn't improve the situation,
as it;'s basically the same thing: recording a long signal on the tape to ensue there are no breaks on it.
it can help to avoid problems from stopping and starting while shooting,
but you;re NOT stopping and starting.

is the tape old, perhaps?

PRE-ROLL
before you can capture off a tape, it needs to be running properly.
the tape needs a second or so to start up and settle in to running at the right speed.
that's the pre-roll.
and FCP is set by default to a 3 second pre-roll

i'm a bit foggy this morning, so maybe someone else will, put it better.


hope you can get it sorted,
the intel mac is new for everyone.

nick

thanks for the article. and your help, when i get to it i'll let you know what happens.

thanks again,
daniel

Have you got any anti virus software running, like Nortons? Perhaps this is checking the incoming files and disturbing the capture.

Turn off or remove any anti virus software.