Reverts to non drop frame without a tape

Whenever I try to just log timecodes into Final Cut without a tape, it reverts to non-drop frame timecode. How do I tell final cut to always revert to drop frame?

Well I wasn't typing typing either, but when I do type a semicolon it reverts to a colon

Similar Messages

Edit to tape confusing drop frame and non drop frame

This is a re-creation of a dead thread I found from June 6, 2006. This is the exact problem this other user was having.
OS 10.4.7
FCP 5.0.4
Dual G5 2.5
4.5 GB RAM
KONALH
Trying to edit to a Sony DVW-A500 (Digibeta) in Drop Frame mode.
Read Below for deets.
Problem: When working with a drop-frame sequence, and editing to tape, the program is edited to the tape with an offset of 3 seconds and 18 frames at the end of one hour.
Reproducible: Yes.
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a drop-frame sequence.
2. Edit the sequence in step 1.
3. Perform an edit to tape with the sequence edited in step 2.
What should happen: The sequence should be edited to tape at the time it occurs in the timeline.
What does happen: The sequence is edited to the tape 3 seconds and 18 frames after it should be!
Other observations: 3 seconds and 18 frames is exactly how much time is not in an hour of drop-frame time when compared to non-drop frame time. If you drop two (2) frames in every minute that does not end in zero, the math works out to 2*54=108 dropped frames in an hour. For the sake of simple mathematics, lets say there are 30 frames in a second. So 108/30= 3 with a remainder of 18, or 3 seconds and 18 frames.
It's as if FCP is getting confused about drop and non-drop timecode when the sequence is drop-frame. If anyone can offer any insights, confirmation, or resolutions for what I am seeing, it would be appreciated.
Thanks for reading!

So is the timeline a drop frame timeline, starting at 1:00:00:00?
And then is the DBeta tape prestriped (at least enough to do an assemble edit) to start the program at 01:00:00:00?
In other words, is the FCP timeline timecode matching the Dbeta tape timecode in a 1:1 relationship before you attempt to Edit to Tape?
Thinking further: FCP can't really confuse the two timecodes, it's dependent on the operator to tell it what to do. When it outputs it's not outputing timecode or looking even really looking for timecode. It's looking for your IN point in the Edit to Tape tool.
Message was edited by: loyed256

Drop-Frame v. Non-Drop Frame and Edit to Tape

System Configuration: G5 Dual 2.0, QT v7.0.4, FCP v5.0.4, OS X v10.4.6, KonaLH, Keyspan USA-28x USB-->Serial Adapter
Problem: When working with a drop-frame sequence, and editing to tape, the program is edited to the tape with an offset of 3 seconds and 18 frames.
Reproducible: Yes.
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a drop-frame sequence.
2. Edit the sequence in step 1.
3. Perform an edit to tape with the sequence edited in step 2.
What should happen: The sequence should be edited to tape at the time it occurs in the timeline.
What does happen: The sequence is edited to the tape 3 seconds and 18 frames after it should be!
Other observations: 3 seconds and 18 frames is exactly how much time is not in an hour of drop-frame time when compared to non-drop frame time. If you drop two (2) frames in every minute that does not end in zero, the math works out to 2*54=108 dropped frames in an hour. For the sake of simple mathematics, lets say there are 30 frames in a second. So 108/30= 3 with a remainder of 18, or 3 seconds and 18 frames.
It's as if FCP is getting confused about drop and non-drop timecode when the sequence is drop-frame. If anyone can offer any insights, confirmation, or resolutions for what I am seeing, it would be appreciated.
Thanks for reading!

This may be related to a "bug" or issue that has been around since FCP1. When FCP is using deck control over firewire, The timecode display will default to DF, even if the tape is NDF. Look closely at the timecode dispays in the edit to tape window. If you see a semicolon before the frames place, FCP is seeing the tape TC as DF. Play the tape until you see the TC display change to NDF, then re-set your in point. This has worked for me in the past.
Hope this helps.

"Capturing drop-frame media into a non-drop frame clip" error message

I've logged tapes from what will partly be a 3-camera multi-clip project, and have begun to batch capture.
Logged all but one tape some weeks ago, and captured one tape at the time.
Went to batch capture the balance, today. First tape capture went fine. On trying to capture the next tape in the batch I'm getting this message as FCP begins the process:
WARNING: You are about to capture drop-frame media to a non drop-frame clip. If you proceed, you may experience changes in logged in and out points, problems relinking media, or removal of master clip relationships.
In analyzing the situation, the only reason I can think of for the error message is that some of the reels were logged on a DSR-11 that had been set to NON drop-frame, and for which I didn't have the remote control to change the setting.
I haven't run into this while capturing other clips, but those may have been captured via a different deck that does only drop-frame.
So, I'm looking at next steps:
1: Capture anyway and possibly regret that I did that.
(One person on another list reported the same problem, that he had ignored it without any obvious complications.)
2: Relog all the problem clips using my current deck, speeding up the process by using the "go to" window to drive the tape to the existing in and out points and then marking i/o's...
Or...
Suggestions?
Thanks,
Ted.

We've been seeing this stupid error message since v3 and it's never mattered in the slightest. It is always incorrect, anyway. The clips are always drop and the sequences are always drop. It's an FCP programming glitch/bug/screwup. Someday they may or may not fix the mechanism that triggers the warning.
bogiesan

Non Drop frame capture causing out of sync clip?

Hi, All,
I've been having trouble with sync issues on an hour long tape capture.
The material was captured from a Canon consumer DV cam (z80) using firewire into my powerbook g4. (The material on the dv tape was originally recorded in Video 8mm and transfered to the Canon via firewire from a modern Sony Digital 8 camera.)
The sync on the DV tape looks fine when I play it back through the Canon camera. So I'm guessing that I might be losing sync because the camera is dropping frames that don't want to be dropped. I tried to change the video capture settings to non drop frame (in the device control tab of FCP5's audio video settings preference window,) but as soon as I start the capture from the canon, the settings on my log capture window automatically revert back to drop frame. (I don't know this for a fact, but I do notice that the ":" in the timecode box turns back to ";" every time I start the capture.
Does this sound like it is, in fact, a drop frame problem? And if so, is there any hope of getting a canon consumer camcorder to capture at non drop frame rates?

Well, after trying most of the suggestions here, I did find a reasonably hassle free workaround to capturing the hour and fifteen minute footage of 8 bit 32 kHz video to FCP with minimal sync slippage over the length of the footage.
I finally gave up on capturing the material in FCP and instead hooked the canon z80 up to an old version of Toast Platinum 6 I had on my computer. Toast creates a raw quicktime movie file with the extension .dv. Toast then allows you to edit that quicktime file, add chapters, button pictures, etc. thereby making a new file to replace the raw QT it first created. After some experimentation, I discovered that the original raw QT file Toast creates can simply be dragged intact to the FCP browser window, where it becomes a clip with minimal sync problems. I would caution against trying to use the second improved QT file that Toast creates after you've edited your file, as this second QT movie seems less stable than the raw one it first creates.
A final caveat for Toast users. Make sure you set the preferences so that they don't DELETE the original file it creates. There are settings that will tell Toast to do just that either After a Day, After a Week, When You Close the Program or Never. I'd set that to Never, since it can be highly unpleasant to discover that your program has deleted the very file you were planning to work with.
Hope this is of some help.
Thanks to all who pitched in and offered suggestions. Your help has been invaluable!
I now mark this issue Solved. Or at least as Solved as I plan to get it!

Two camera footage: one drop frame, one non-drop frame

We recently were delivered a batch of tapes for a two camera project that we're doing the post work on. The timecode was jammed to synch the two cameras. Unfortuantely, one of the cameras seems to be drop and the other non-drop. As a result, the tape that is showing as non-drop stops every couple of minutes for a timecode break in order to synch up with the jammed timecode.
The reality is that there is no break in footage in the sense that this footage was recorded as a real-time 30 minute presentation, but because timecode is being jammed, and because the tape was being recorded in non-drop frame, Final Cut cannot capture this footage in its entirety.
My only thought would be to capture through S-video out and place the footage on a timeline, and force the sequence timecode with the appropriate timecode.
Has anyone run into this issue before and know a better solution? Or if the above solution will work?

Update: Rather than S-Video, we're setting the FCP capture setting to non-controllable device. That will give it higher quality, and so far, that is capturing just fine without the breaks.

Drop Frame video (29.97) with Non-Drop Frame Time Code

Howdy All,
I understand that DF TC & Non-Drop frame TC are numbering issues and not frame
count issues, That said,
If I have an encoded file captured from an analog Beta Cam SP that has NDF TC
and that file has been encoded as 29.97, so that the resulting file has
a Frame rate of 29.97 with NDF TC from the source tape,
1) Does this constitute an error?.
2) Will this cause problems for the next guy?.
(having been "The Next Guy" in the past I prefer to handle such things on this end if it requires handling)
I have been looking for a straight answer but this specific cause/effect
is tough to track down.
Thanks in advance for any assistance,
KA

Well, starting as a linear editor I can tell you jam syncing and converting to DF will really screw up the TC. Every 10 seconds you'll have a TC number that's incompatible with the DF counting sequence.
If these are source tapes, you have nothing to worry about. I actually prefer NDF source while editing (I'm very old school) beacuse if I trim 5 frames on a mark I can calculate in my head where the new point would land regarding TC. With DF, I trim and often have to do a double take because the math didn't make sense.
Do NOT ever alter the time code on any source material unless you have a capture failure that you have absolutely no other way of working around.
Anyone can mix DF and NDF source time code on any system without any issues. The only problem with NDF is determining EXCACT running time of a completed program when delivering for broadcast.

Digitizing Pre-Logged Clips: Drop Frame/Non-Drop Frame Discrepency

I have about 100hrs of DV NTSC footage that has been logged and now I need to capture it.
Everything seemed good to go:
• I ctrl+click the clip intended to capture
• Select 'batch capture' (it initializes)
• Settings are (apple setting) DV NTSC 48kHz
• I click okay and I get an error message that reads:
"WARNING: You are about to capture drop-frame media to a non-drop frame clip. If you proceed, you may experience changes in logged in and out points, problems relinking media, or removal of master clip relationships."
Now, the setting noted above is set at 29.97 not 30.
I tried to see if there was anything I could select/deselect in the logged clips and came up dry.
I made duplicated the apple setting and changed the fps to 30. This yielded no error message but did on the second clip I tried.
Does anyone have any idea on how I should be troubleshooting this?
Due to the high volume of footage, and workflow schedule, I'd really rather not screw this up.
I turn to you my faithful FCP gurus.
Thanks.
Ian
p.s. I'm running FCP v.5.1.4

Just check your timecode accuracy before you get any further... i.e. does the timecode in the captured clip match the code that's on the tape. If so, you're good to go on... if not, I'd recapture using the proper TC... it's pretty easy if you do it from the tape in the Log and Capture window.
Jerry

DV NTSD drop-frame vs. non-drop-frame??

My impression has always been that DV NTSC is non-drop frame. I'm having to capture a 100 hours of DV tapes from a Sony WV-DR7 deck. FCP capture is giving me this warning:
"You are about to capture Non-Drop Frame media from a device currently detecting or configured for Drop Frame media. If you proceed, you may experience changes in logged in and out points, problems relinking media, or removal of master clip relationships."
The Sony is all in Japanese, and the rough translation manual does not mention drop frame \ non-drop frame setting choices on the deck.
Would anyone have any suggestions or recommendations?
Ben

Sorry to be confusing~~~~
What I meant was, since I wasn't sure if the VTR you are using actually shows the timecode window, or just a timecode counter (the Sony DSR-11's display does not show the colon/semicolon difference in the display that is supered on the non-digital video outs), I thought the quickest way to assess what flavor of TC you had was to play the tape and use "Capture Now" to capture a few seconds. Then you can look in the bin, check the media start column and see if there are semi-colons or colons. This would be helpful particularly if FCP is balking at capturing from your logged marks.
The other thing I was talking about was a case where I had been given DVCam copies of camera masters, to use for a rough cut. Because these tapes were work prints, they used old DVCam tapes. One of the tapes had originally had DF material on it. When the tape op made the workprint, he started recording the new NDF material about 10 seconds into the tape, he therefore left 10 seconds of DF bars at the head of the reel (the old material). I put the tape in a DSR-11, fast wound up to picture, and started logging. When I was at the end of the reel, I hit rewind on the machine so it would rewind while I was clearing up spelling errors, etc. The machine backed all the way to head of the tape, into the DF area.
So when I hit batch capture, the machine reported back to FCP that it had a tape with the correct name loaded, but the time code was in the incorrect format - the message you received. It took a while to figure it out, but when I wound the tape forward, so that it was in the picture portion of the reel, the machine was then outputting the code that FCP was expecting. So by "parking" the deck in the picture portion of the tape, it would cue correctly from the logged point.
Hope this explains it. hope you have a simple solution, too.
Message was edited by: Meg The Dog to fix typo

Capturing non-drop-frame as drop-frame??

I have to capture a bunch of amateur tapes shot with various cameras. Ultimate destination is NTSC DV. I have a sense that if I capture the non-drop-frame in a standard NTSC DV setup that I might have some buggy problems. Or at least the batch capture is telling me so.
I've never come across this problem before. What should I do? I'm just trying to build a movie database for a CEO using all the stuff he's collected from various sources - wanting all the captured material to be easily editable in FCP.
Any help would be most appreciated,
Ben

Well, after trying most of the suggestions here, I did find a reasonably hassle free workaround to capturing the hour and fifteen minute footage of 8 bit 32 kHz video to FCP with minimal sync slippage over the length of the footage.
I finally gave up on capturing the material in FCP and instead hooked the canon z80 up to an old version of Toast Platinum 6 I had on my computer. Toast creates a raw quicktime movie file with the extension .dv. Toast then allows you to edit that quicktime file, add chapters, button pictures, etc. thereby making a new file to replace the raw QT it first created. After some experimentation, I discovered that the original raw QT file Toast creates can simply be dragged intact to the FCP browser window, where it becomes a clip with minimal sync problems. I would caution against trying to use the second improved QT file that Toast creates after you've edited your file, as this second QT movie seems less stable than the raw one it first creates.
A final caveat for Toast users. Make sure you set the preferences so that they don't DELETE the original file it creates. There are settings that will tell Toast to do just that either After a Day, After a Week, When You Close the Program or Never. I'd set that to Never, since it can be highly unpleasant to discover that your program has deleted the very file you were planning to work with.
Hope this is of some help.
Thanks to all who pitched in and offered suggestions. Your help has been invaluable!
I now mark this issue Solved. Or at least as Solved as I plan to get it!

Drop Frame being read as Non-Drop Frame

Hey,
I'm working in FCP HD 5.1.4 and our guys are shooting audio at drop frame, and video at drop frame, and yet when we import the media into FCP, the Video is in Drop frame, but the audio appears to be Non-drop so we're getting BAD sync (some clips 30 seconds, others up to a min.). We're using TOD T/C and it's really important that we convert it cuz we'll shoot 8 hr days, and the first few clips arn't that bad but after so many hours, the sync gets worse and worse.
We're using XDCAM Sony PDW-1500 deck for the video transfer and the audio is BWFs from an external Audio receiver, then it's backed up on lacie drives (prob using compressor) then we're syncing in FCP.
Any thoughts?
Fraser

FraserPost, according to Apple in the Late-breaking FCP news PDF on pg.4, Broadcast Wave Audio Files imported will always be interpreted with non-drop frame TC.
Highlight the clip in the bin, choose Modify Menu option and choose Timecode. You can then change it to drop frame in the options panel.
Then your material should synch up.
For future reference but still notable, if you import an aiff, mp3 or another type of audio file without TC, the file will create TC dictated by the Sequence preset setting. This I found out the hard way. One has to shut down FCP and start it up again for the change to take effect on material imported.
Macbook Pro 2.16G Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Drop-frame to non drop-frame error

I just upgraded to Final Cut Studio 2, FCP 5.0.1 and I get this error message with every single tape I try to capture: "you are about to capture Non-Drop Frame media from a device currently detecting Drop Frame media." So, I click OK and capture anyway. The media is captured and looks fine - no audio sync problems. Then in the middle of my batch, before the second clip, I get the following error message: a change in time code rate was detected during capture of clip." I click OK and it captures fine anyway. Then later I get the audio sample rate error message too - it says: "The audio sample rate on one or more of your captured files does not match the sample rate on your source tape." But I capture anyway and everything looks and sounds fine.
I tried changing decks. Same problem. I checked the tapes and they were recorded as droop-frame and at 48 KHz 16 bits, same setting I'm using (DV NTSC drop frame 48 KHz)
Does anyone know if this is a Final cut bug or a real problem I should be concerned about?

It's neither... if you used consumer gear to shoot with, you'll get errors like this because consumer formats such as HDV, and DV are plain not that precise, but normally, you can just ignore them. As long as you're set up to capture DV at 48k and you shot DV at 48k, normally there's no problems even if these error messages are recorded.
Jerry

Drop-Frame vs. Non-Drop-Frame Capture question

Hi,
I'm using Final Cut Pro 5 capturing 16:9 anamorphic video and removing an advanced 24 frame pulldown from my Canon XL-2. This is for a documentary for which I have captured over 30 full tapes of footage. I've been logging in the clips FIRST, then going back and batch capturing everything afterwards.
My question is this: I have logged everything the same way with seemingly all the same settings. However, when I capture some tapes I get the warning that I'm capturing Non-Drop frame media to a Drop-Frame clip and it could cause problems in the future with relinking. Then some tapes don't give me that message at all. Is there something I'm not noticing about how I log some tapes but not others? Would it have to do with the presets I have Final Cut set to when I'm capturing a tape? I'm fairly positive I've always setup FCP to the proper capture settings before logging anything...but could something else be causing this? Thanks for your help.
-JD

The thing to watch out for, both in logging and in capturing, is when you log or capture multiple tapes with mixed NDF & DF timecode.
There are three or four things that can affect this:
FCP5 and later allow you to set the TC format of the capture preset, such that the Log & Capture window would default to NDF if you are working with NDF tapes.
Otherwise, Log & Capture will still auto-detect during playback when logging, but you have to be sure to play the tape some before logging the clip. If you capture multiple tapes using capture now, You could easily start recording before the time code format updates. This kind of error results in a clip whose in point is the correct "number", but the format is wrong.
During Batch Capture, the device control is not always able to change the time code format. I'm not sure about FCP6, but I am in the habit of grouping my clips in batches according to the TC format. You ma be seeing this alert because you are switching the TC format of the tapes in the batch capture, but device control is "stuck" in DF mode, for instance. This is not an issue during logging, only capture.
I think it may also be possible to override the clip's logged TC format at capture by unchecking "use logged clip settings".
Capturing clips with the wrong TC format can really mess up recapture later. The offset that happens as the format gets converted back increases as the starting hour of the timecode gets bigger.
So basically you can have clips that get logged wrong, and clips that were logged correctly, but captured with the wrong TC. It's easier to miss it when logging, since there's no alert message to pop up. But the other alert is there to tell you there is a mismatch somewhere, preventing you from making the second kind of error. Your only error may only be that you had both DF and NDF clips in the same batch.
There is a trick to get the TC format to switch to the non-default for batch capture - Open Log & Capture and play the tape until you see the TC format update. Now start the batch capture with Log & Capture still open - device control will stay in that TC format now. Otherwise, I think device control switches to the format of the first clip in the batch, but stays there until you cancel and start a new batch.
Hope this helps -
Max Average

Drop Frame and Non Drop Frame

Does QuickTime Pro 7 allow you to select between drop frame and non-drop frame?

I don't understand your question.
QuickTime Player will automatically reduce the implied frame rate to maintain the file playing. You can observe this by viewing any HD movie trailer on a non supported OS.
Frame rate drops so much that the file is nearly not viewable yet the audio portion continues to play back without issue.
The QuickTime author can't set these parameters and QuickTime Pro users can override the issue by selecting to "Play All Frames". This can quickly bring playback to its knees on older systems but it will not drop any frame during playback. It may take two days to view each frame of a 1080 HD movie trailer on a G3 but you should see each one.

Drop Frame/Non-Drop Frame Warning

Hi,
First off, thank you to the experienced people out there who take the time to explain things and answer these questions.
About the following warning:
Warning: You are about to capture drop-frame media to a non-drop frame clip. If you proceed, you may experience changes in logged in and out points, problems relinking media, or removal of master clip relationships.
I logged about 40 clips by entering In and Out points (from a piece of paper), turned on my camera, went to Batch Capture, and it gave me this warning. I read a little bit about timecode (I know little about it) and realized that I didn't use semi-colons when entering my timecode in the Log and Capture window. Apparently this is important; I have a Panasonic GS500.
I captured anyway, and I have all the video I want; the "handles" inherent in the In and Out points I used should accomodate even several seconds of any timecode discrepancy.
My question: When I am done editing and go to recapture my sequences at full DV quality, will there be a difference between the In and Out points of my clips and the tape? Have I mis-captured media files in some way? How can I tell if the Media Start and Media End information isn't out of sync?
Cyrus

Just check your timecode accuracy before you get any further... i.e. does the timecode in the captured clip match the code that's on the tape. If so, you're good to go on... if not, I'd recapture using the proper TC... it's pretty easy if you do it from the tape in the Log and Capture window.
Jerry

Reverts to non drop frame without a tape

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