FCS Maintenance Pack

Just wanted to post a public thanks to Digital Rebellion and Jon Chappell for creating FCS Maintenance Pack. It saved my butt last week.

I was editing a show for one of the ESPN networks. The idea what to capture to Final Cut onsite, for later post. We also had back up recordings in HD and SD. Well that was the plan. The first problem was when the Firewire cable got kicked out of the AJA IO 90 minutes into the show and corrupted the capture file. All 85 gig of it.

No problem, I can capture the HD tapes. Well not so much. Both clean and dirty ran out of tape and that fact went unnoticed for more than 20 minutes.

So I tried to recover the file using FCS Maintenance. It took a good long time, like 10 or 12 hours, but all the video came back. Not the 8 channels of audio, but I had those as ISO on other SD records.

Thanks gang. Saved that show for sure!

-Vance

It's certainly a great resource. I recommend it all the time.

Glad to know it was helpful.

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...

...and a lesson learned hopefully: On a remote shoot / capture / edit, TAPE DOWN & SECURE ALL CABLES / CORDS / WIRES / etc. You can never be too careful. Wrap your entire workstation in yellow "CAUTION" tape if you have to (I have...looked like I was sitting in the middle of a crime scene).

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Yea Joey I hope there were a few lessons learned here:

- Consumer cables don't lock. Not everything is a BNC or XLR. Gaffers tape is not expensive.
- Posted shows do really require making a recording. The record time listed on the tape box may not apply to your recording. KNOW when you will need a tape change.
- Stagger your recordings so that all the tapes do not roll out at the same time
- If you are doing a FCP recording stop and restart when possible. One corrupt file should not cost the entire show.
- Learn accounting. Accounts only have ONE stressful month a year in April