What is teh FCP equivalent of matchback?
 

I need to online a show for someone who shot it on HDcam 23.98 but down converted to standard def to cut it. We now need to online the show for them but we are mainly Avid and just entered the realm of online with Final Cut, as it seems most people are starting to go that route with Color instead of use our Symphony Nitris since it is easier to go back and forth. Basically I just need to know how we would go matching back the time code on the HDcam tapes. Is it something in Cinema tools? I know this might be an easy question for some but Final cut aint my thing when it comes to onlining.

It depends how the standard def material is. Is there timecode burn on the standard def? Otherwise, is your standard def 23.98 matching that of the HD-CAM master? If not and you cut in NTSC than it will not be frame accurate and you couldn't even export an EDL because of the pulldown.

Figure out how your media relates to the masters - that is your first step and the most crucial.

In the future, if you have the hard drive throughput (fiber channel or 320 SCSI), just digitize the original source at uncompressed and you won't have to cut offline. If you do cut offline, just make sure your source is frame accurate (ie - downconvert from HD-CAM SR with RS422 enabled on your AJA/Blackmagic card)

Hope this helps.
-C

I'm still in the dark about how they cut it but I believe it was just a straight dub to digibeta with no timecode burnt on and they captured from there. Basically the story is we made dubs for the guy, he cut it awhile back and now he is back to online but his delivery is still standard def.

For the future and what I do now is stay 24p but I just capture as pro res with our kona into our scsi drives.

On a side note, what if we wanted to get this guy's project into avid? I have heard of people using cinema tools to create the correct EDL format but we are looking into getting the new automatic duck. Have you tried cinema tools to bring projects into avid via EDL's?