How do I avoid losing 5 seconds at the start on the tape when capturing?

Question

I am just capturing off a MiniDV Camera but my problem lies in the fact that when I am logging the clip for capture it needs to start 5 seconds into the shot because if it is any shorter it isn't able to cue the tape when it goes to capture.
So my question is how do I get it to capture right from the first frame of the timecode? or am I just hoping for to much?
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I've had similar problems with a second camera person. I record 45 seconds of color bars on tape, and position the tape to 30 seconds in; but inevitably, someone will hit "rewind" and then start recording from zero.
I use "capture now." You get a few seconds to let "now" see time code, so, I poise my finger on "play" on the camera, click on "capture" now, then hit play. It seems to get almost all the frames, maybe a few drops right at the start, but less than a seconds worth.
No pre-roll is done.
You can either capture the whole tape this way or just 10 seconds or so. Then you may capture clips in the usual way.
Note, that this technique works if you have some tape drop out which stops "capture clip." I've had tapes where there was a single frame drop out in the midst of a critical sequence which "capture clip" would stop on, and then discard what was already captured. To fix that, I would capture up to about 10 seconds before the clip, use capture now to get the part right up to the break (where it would stop, but keep what was already captured), then position the tape to exactly the frame where stuff got OK again, do another 10 second or so "capture now," and then stop it and set start/end points to capture the rest.
As far as I can tell, FCP has no means to allow "capture clip" to just proceed through a small drop out, or to stop there an keep what was already captured. Sigh... I submitted feedback on this a while ago. It sure would be nice to have a "fault tolerant" capture clip feature, and a way to capture clips from the beginning of the tape. You can't set "pre roll" short enough.
Ed