Digitizing Synch Problems
 

When I use capture now in Final Cut (4 HD) and let the tape run all the way to the end i notice it throws the audio out of synch and it's not as easy as sliding the audio down the timeline a few frames. It seems the audio slowly goes out of synch. So say the first 20 minutes are fine, then the next 10 minutes may be 5 frames out then another 10 minutes and 15 frames out, etc. Anyone else experienced this? Is there a quick fix? besides relogging the footage and stopping it before the end of the tape. I've edited my way around it but it's time consuming and annoying to have to do...

I have the exact same problem and came on the message board to find an answer - I see you have no replies so maybe the only way around it is not to use 'capture now' for long periods. Have you tried 'capture clip' over a similar time frame? Maybe that's someting we should try.

Woah - I just checked your original post date - almost 2 years ago - how have you gone with it in that time?

I have had similar problems, it usually involved a dropped frame recorded on the tape, or a dropped frame recorded on my scratch disk. To avoid this in the future clean your cameras recording heads with a cleaning tape and make sure that your scratch disk is fast enough to keep up with the sustained write involved in a "capture now"

�If at all possible, DO NOT USE CAPTURE NOW.

Can't stress that enough. It's for home movies. It often creates "long" start frames and if you do have hidden TC breaks, well now, you might have to recapture in sections anyway!

If you must capture an entire tape in FCP, log the starting timecode, zip to then, and log the ending timecode. Then batch the tape.

But I would also avoid *long* clips. FCP actually likes short clips. When faced with hour-long sources, I divide them into 4 15-minute clips, and my DVCAM editing is nirvana.

If you capture an hour-long clip and you cut instances from here and there into the timeline, here's what you're asking FCP to do:

1) Keep track of these numbers from within this superset of numbers.
2) Oh, wait a minute, you've changed something in the timeline, hold on while we rebuild the pipes. Meanwhile here's a spinning beachball.
3) Oh now you want to consolidate? Hold on, I have to look through an hourlong clip to determine which part to-- oh, never mind, here's the whole clip!!

It's getting much better with faster machines but the housekeeping still has to be done, and it's quicker and healthier with Log and Capture.

- Loren