Customize countdown in Print to Video--How to??

Question

Customize countdown in Print to Video--How to??
FCP 4.5HD.
Ted.

Answer 1

If you didn't use black after the couple of frames of the "2," what would you put between there and the starty of program?
You CAN change the black if you want... but there's a reason for :02 of black:
It's expected and necessary in live television.
Black is necessary on the tape in order to be able to go from "black to black" as when going into a commercial break.
------- stop here if you don't want the background on why---
The tape is cued to a specific number of seconds ahead of sound and then rolled when the director calls a "roll tape" or "Roll VTR _" cue. The countdown rolls by in the monitor, and the director and technical director can see when picture's up, then take the video.
There's usually a fade to black out of program and then eithe a cut or fade to the next video/audio source.
A similar process happens at the end of the commercial. At a specific number of seconds before the end of commercial #1, commercial #2 is rolled... then taken... and so forth if things are coming off of separate tape machines.
Black at the head and tail of spots lets a simple routing switcher make the change from playback device to playback device.
In the "olden days" before automated tape playback machines, commercials were either on film reels (edited together into clusters with a countdown at the beginning and black leader on the tail,) on a videotape that was edited together in a similar fashion... or... (sometimes dangerously so) rolled from four or five different tape machines "live" on the air.
If things were rolled "live," one right after another, I'm sure that there were a lot of praying break operators in stations where equipment was old, maintainence was lax and Murphy was a regular visitor.
The countdown and black on each commercial was a necessary timing tool in order to get through the break cleanly. I can tell you from experience that NOT having them made life verrry dicey when it came to getting in and out of program elements cleanly.
The RCA TCR 100 Cart machine and the Ampex model that did the same thing) would play all the elements in a break and do the switching in between... simplifying the process... until there was a breakdown of the machine, and then you should have seen the scramble in Master Control and/or the tape room.
Its a lot different these days if the station or network airing the commercials plays spots (commercials) off a file server... it's a different game entirely.
Everything is automated and "trimmed" when it's transferred (or start and finish marked on the file).
In that case. the countdown is not needed to get the commercial on the air... but is included to ensure that there's a reference for where the spot actually begins. The :02 of black is still included, since stations traditionally fade or cut to black between spots.
The countdown itself was designed to allow theater projectionists make smooth changes from reel to reel as a movie was projected on the screen.
The projectionist would thread the film on the incoming projector so that the first "10" was in the gate.
As the outgoing reel ended... little cue dots in the upper right hand corner of the screen "cued" the projectionist when to roll the upcoming reel... and then a specific number of seconds later—ten in our example—a second set of cue dots (four frames worth) on the screen would cue him to hit the changeover button, opening a douser on the incoming projector and closing one on the outgoing projector... and swapping audio sources at the same time.
The countdown performs a similar function in live television: The tape is cued to a specific number of seconds ahead of sound and then rolled when the director calls a "roll tape" or "Roll VTR _" cue. The countdown rolls by in the monitor, and the director and technical director can see when picture's up, then take the video.
You'd think that woould be the case for movie packages and syndicated television shows, right?