prerequisite knowledge for fcp, beginner questions
 

I'm going to reserve this thread for my stupid questions as i learn FCP 4.5, hopefully having some of these answers in the same place will help other beginners. If this is somehow inappropriate, I welcome the mods to crack down on me and banish this thread to oblivion. My only arguement would be that the learning curve on FCP is pretty steep, and to the newcomer, who may not even know what questions to ask, having a beginner's resource at the top of the page is a bit more inviting than the search option.
we're not locked yet? okay, lets get started.

Learning FCP is kind of like learning the bus system in a metro area. There seems to be a certain level of assumed knowledge by those who ride the bus every day. As the new guy in town, I'm a bit confused about which lines run to where.

I've moved into basic editing and what not, but I have some questions about the material I've already "covered".

Logging clips: Do you need to know the timecode already? I mean, do you need to have it written down somehwere like in a notebook? How do you know what it is otherwise? Am I missing something here?

If you want to log & capture, you play through the tape and set in and out points with the i and o keys on your keyboard. Hit log clip to log that clip. When you get to the end of the tape, you can do a batch capture.

If you have a (high-end) DV deck, you can use the jkl keys to shuttle backwards/forwards through the tape which can save you time. Consumer cameras are less responsive at that.


Or, use this alternative workflow which works only if shooting miniDV (date/time MUST be set on the camera).

Capture now on the whole tape.
Use DV scene start/stop detection under tools on that big clip once you've captured. Make subclips out of them.

Buy more hard drive space if necessary... There's good rebate deals out there usually if you don't mind rebates.

This method will work over TC breaks (unless you have FCP3 or lower), while log & capture will not handle it well.

Thank you for the clarification.
 

Hard drive space is NOT a problem for me, nor do I think it ever will be. I have 360G internal and 160 external, and depending on how things go I will probably have 600-800 internal (sata) by the end of the year.

no not really but it never hurts if you have the time to actually write it down when you shoot. Yeah logging the clips first is a quick way to get through the tape and see what you shot, plus you can move onto other things while FCP is batch capturing( hoping you didnt log a clip that has a time code break in it) keep the Q's coming ouve got a lot of people here who can help you out. there are a few website out there where you pay to watch tutorials or you can buy the DVD the one i use is lynda.com this site does very well, something to look into maybe to help you get an idea of how to use FCP

Glenn...
Where can I find this "DV scene start/stop detection"? I looked for this in the Tools menu but couldn't find it. I have FCP 5.0
Just wondering an easy way to make these long clips into subclips without going through and picking each.

Thanks,
Jay

I don't really use Final Cut Pro anymore so I'm not sure where it resides in FCP5. Have you tried reading the manual?

2- It may only be available for DV footage??

i dont really recommend this capture the whole tape and then make subclips thing it can cause you great headaches later on down the line when you need to recapture the footage( most of the time what people do is they keep the FCP file which is very small and clean their HD of all the clips which they can then capture new footage for a different project) anyways yeah so when you go to revive this project, since you captured the whole tape, FCP's timcode is off because your tape might have timecode breaks in it, which when you use capture now it goes right over those timecode breaks and by the time you get to the end of the tape you could be a whole 10 seconds off in you timecode. So you still will be able to capture and stuff but the clips will be off. I have actually had this happen to me its great cause it saves you a little time, but it makes for a serious problem in the end. Just teach someone else how to log and capture that way all you have to do is edit. :) ...........but the best way to learn is by doing so sometimes you just have to stick it out and grit your teeth and do it. :)

Kevin:

If you know you have TC breaks and you know you need to re-capture, you should dub the tape beforehand so it gets continuous timecode. If you did capture now from FCP, just throw that footage back onto tape (print to tape, assemble edit, whatever). It'll have continuous timecode if you print it back from FCP like that.
The capture now thing should work fine, and you'll be able to re-capture if you need to.
***FCP3 and before did not handle timecode breaks well, so this won't work.

I forget if capture now picks up timecode. I believe it should. Otherwise you can just do an end search, log and capture from 2-5 seconds in to whatever the last timecode is.

2- Log and capture will have problems with timecode breaks too.

DV scene detect is under the Mark Menu. When it's done you'll see a twirl down arrow next to your clip in the browser. When you click it, it will display a marker icon for each of you segments, you can then highlight them and go to Modify-Make Subclip for easier editing, and if you want you can go to the media manager to create separate media files on your HD.

Thanks for the tip Nate...I was wondering if there was an easy way to do this. I know I could have looked in the manual before this question was asked, but just nice to have a quick reply from someone who knows.