Batch Capture

Greetings...

So far I've been getting away with "Capture Now" but I'm trying to break myself of this habit since I've learned that it's not the best method - especially when you need to go back and reload.

Just now, I did a successful batch capture on my first tape but the second tape I logged I got a message saying there is not enough post or preroll. I know there is supposed to be 10-15 secs of preroll at the beginning of the tape but do I need 10-15 between every logged clip? Is there any way to adjust the in and out of the logged clips or do I have to start over?

You shouldn't need any specific break between clips, however, timecode breaks will wreak havoc. If you shot with a shoddy DV camera, this can be a problem.

Sometimes it's just a problem with your first or last (or occasionally a middle) clip. Try selecting half of them to batch capture, and see if it works.

You can change the in and out times inside your bin by double clicking on it, and re-entering (or modifying) the timecode.

Best of luck!

Thanks for the quick response, Mike.

Yes, I thought maybe it was just the first or last clip so I tried selecting just a few at a time and still got the message. Then I tried one by one and again got the same message. I will try changing the TC as you suggested.

Sometimes there is just no getting around the "capture now" method and when I'm working with large clips I break them into subclips for easier management. But in the past have had trouble figuring out what master clip the sub clip belongs to. I tried to control click on the subclip but don't get the master clip reference. Is there an easy way to tell what master clip the subclip came from?

And one more question while I'm at it. Is there a method for keeping track of which clips in the bin have been used in a sequence? Sometimes I get lost when I'm working with a lot of material and would love to be able to look at my bin and quickly determine which clips have not yet been used inthe timeline.

Thanks again.

Just my 2 cents. So I know which clips i've used or not I drag the Log Note column over next to the name column. I then write "not used" in the Log Note column across from any clip I don't use. This way I can use the Find feature and just type in Not Used and it will show me all the clips I have not used. good luck.

Command-F will let you search your bins, and you can specify "used media" or "unused media". This is one of the greatest features ever, and I just discovered it last LAFCPUG meeting. (Thanks, Gurus!)

If none of your clips will batch capture.. I'm not sure what's wrong. Is your timecode continuous?

What are you editing? I use Capture Now all the time (shh, don't tell anyone) and never have trouble... but I edit projects that take a few days, not a few months (years, decades, whatever). I have successfully recaptured lost media from Capture Now without issue.

That said, I edited my first 30 minute show recently, and used Batch Capture exclusively, to avoid potential problems.

> I know there is supposed to be 10-15 secs of preroll at the beginning of the tape but do I
> need 10-15 between every logged clip?

No. And if you had been following the method you outlined above, that could wreak havoc on your logging as well.

An experienced logger who isn't doing it "blind" (ie. without watching the actual footage) would also be paying attention to the timecode. For example, if your camera operator had been doing 10-second shots while on time-of-day (free run) timecode, and you're trying to log with 10-second pre-roll, you'll not only miss a lot of footage, but you'll confuse the hell out of FCP when you go to capture.

FCP does not capture footage based on In and Out points...at least, not literally. What it does is that every time you hit In and Out and then Log, it calculates how much time is between the two points, then starts capturing at the In and stops capturing based on Duration, not the Out point. Sounds like the same thing, right? Not if you have timecode breaks. For example, if you put an In point at 01:00:05:00, and there's a timecode break at 01:01:00:00 where the timecode jumps to 02:00:00:00, then if you put an Out point at 02:01:00:00, FCP will log that clip as being one hour and 55 seconds long, but on the tape itself, the real distance between those two points is only one minute and 55 seconds. It will NOT know to stop capturing when it hits the timecode 02:01:00:00. So if you try to capture that clip, FCP will attempt to capture a whole hour of footage and you'll wonder why you're waiting an hour for a two-minute clip to finish capturing.

For logging, four to five seconds of pre-roll and about one second of post-roll should be enough. I'd suggest taking a look at the Duration column of your logged entries. If you have logs that have a weird duration -- for example, a clip that's 30 minutes long but isn't supposed to be as long as that -- look at the clip on the tape again; you may need to shift your In and Out points so they don't include timecode breaks.


www.derekmok.com

<<So I know which clips i've used or not I drag the Log Note column over next to the name column. I then write "not used" in the Log Note column across from any clip I don't use.>>

Yes, that works pretty well and is the is the method I'm currently using.

I just tried Mike Watson's Command F trick -- VERY cool.

Thanks, Derek, for clarifying the logging process. Timecode breaks were the problem.