Hello,

So we shoot with a Canon 60D now and record sound (one lav channel) with a Zoom H4N. I then sync the files in FCP of course. And for whatever reason I feel the need to export this movie as a simple "Quicktime movie" with current settings and then import that file and use that file as my master movie file. So I have two questions.

Audio: The H4N file comes over as a stereo pair (i believe) with only one channel with any data. (One Lav mic plugged into just one XLR input). So should I be, unchecking "stereo pair" , deleting the unused channel and then setting my remaining live channel to Pan 0 before I export?

Export: Why am I exporting in the first place? Should I? I notice that with current settings it exports my synced timeline as stereo anyways without having to go into export custom movie. Then if I do that I usually get the settings all wrong with wrong codec and all.

My understanding is that with export "Quicktime Movie" with current settings means that it picks up the current compression scheme, frame rate and everything of the sequence, right? And the export of a 25 minute interview takes 5 minutes because all setting match - no additional rendering needed and no recompression/loss of data. right?

Does this make any sense? I'm I communicating my objectives?

Thanks.

> Export: Why am I exporting in the first place? Should I?

No, you shouldn't. You're losing timecode, and that means in the future if you want to re-create the edit, you have to keep the entire 25-minute file rather than being able to re-ingest from the camera masters (which are smaller files). If you really want the sound merged with the video, then merge the clip in FCP to make a new master clip.


www.derekmok.com

yeah, don't export.

rather than "merge" which is done in the browser,
i prefer to sync in the timeline, where i can check & fine-tune sync,
then link each clip, then copy/paste all to a new bin.



cheers,
nick

ok, thanks. I figured out how to "link each clip, then copy/paste all to a new bin" then I get a new clip. So on this shoot we used two canon 60Ds and one H4N. So I'll work away at the rough cut, but what if I wanted easy access to the other angle (2nd camera?) while still staying in sync with the audio file from the H4N. Sorry so being so vague but I really don't know what I'm looking for. Something along the lines of having the clips synced and locked down that I can drag into a new "Story" timeline and in that timeline being able to turn on camera 2.

Thanks.