Time Code Burn in to VHS
 

Hi,
I read somwhere that a good way to save the head and motor of your camera is by transfering your dailies to a VHS tape with TC burn in and logging your clips manually using your VCR. Then all you need to do is drop your original mini DV tape into your camera and let Final Cut Pro do a batch capture. However, I haven't figured out how to export the TC window to a VHS VCR. Does anybody know if this is possible with the VX2000?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Tony

Doesn't FCP feature a clip-capture on the fly? Meaning that the VCR isn't shuttled back and forth to capture a clip, it justs ID's each clip as it plays the tape once?

Selecting clips by watching a window burn on a conventional VCR is a trial of your patience since you cannot control the VCR with any degree of accuracy and they are slow to respond to tape motion commands. So if you don't have a commercial VCR on which to do this, I recommend you skip it.

Many of us just capture all the clips and then sort them out in the BIN or timeline. Much faster with regard to personal time spent since capture is an automatic event that does not need your presence.

I must admit that once in a while I can get the status display including time code to appear on an external monitor. But I've never sat down and tried to learn the correct process. This is on my PD-150 but I'd guess the 2000 will do the same.

Thanks for the advice, Mike. Since I currently don't own a large storage hardisk, and won't be able to buy one for some time, because they are twice as expensive in Mexico as they are in the US, I was planning on using the VCR to manually input the ins and outs of my clips. As a matter of fact, I do have a 3/4" Umatic with a shuttle control which would facilitate this process.

In any event, I would still like to know how to export TC burn in from my VX2000 to a deck.

Regards,
Tony

It is a bit obscure but on page 113 of the VX-2000 operator's manual you will find mention of a Display selection in the menu system. The selections are LCD and V Out/LCD. Select the second choice and then press the Display button found behind the LCD panel on the camera body. That will provide viewfinder data on the analog video outputs of the camera.

I tested this on my PD-150 but I'd guess the VX-2000 is identical.

Understand about the expense in Mexico. They really pile on the duty for products not made there. Although I'd bet a lot of disk drives are really made just inside the border at one of the duty-free plants.

250 gig Maxtor's were selling for $279 this weekend here in Northern California.

Once again, thanks for your help, Mike. Another use for exporting burn in TC to VHS is providing clients with tapes which they can use to select the best takes or clips from a shoot, eg., event and corporate videos, and give you a list with the TC of their selections.

I will try your suggestion and post my results on this thread in case anybody else is interested.

Incidentally, I work on an a Flat Panel iMac with a 60GB hardrvive and a Superdrive, which does not accept an additional internal HD. I believe you can plug in an external hardrive, but the iMac will only recognize up to 129 GB. Any recommendations will be welcomed.

Regards,
Tony

If you want to use FCP for your window dub Daniel Barube instructions in the FCP forum.

1. Save your present timeline with your completed project.
2. Create a new timeline and open it.
3. Drop your completed project timeline inside of the new timeline you just created.
4. Highlight your completed project timeline, which is now being treated as a layer of video.
5. Go to "EFFECTS and slelect VIDEO FILTERS>VIDEO>TIMECODE PRINT to apply the filter to your highlighted completed project.
6. Throw your highlighted completed project layer into the Viewer and click on filters in the Viewer window to highlight the Timecode Print Filter Options.
7. Make sure you set Mode to "Generator."
8. Leave your Format settings at 29.97fps(DF) unless otherwise necessary.
9. you can then center and position the TC window anywhere in your frame and set the size of the numbers in the window.
10. RENDER. Note that this filter takes a longer than normal time to render but the results are what you want.

The 129gig limit is per drive. You can daisy chain multiple drives. What OS are you running? I think Jaguar broke the drive size limit also.

Jeff

Wow! Thanks for the tip, Jeff. Actually, I just upgraded to Jaguar last week. I was not aware that the 129GB limit was fixed.

Regards,
Tony