Final Cut Pro HD | H•O•T Hands-On Training [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

"But, Wait A Minute…!"

I hear you exclaim, "There's something wrong here."

Well, yeah. I'm playing a little fast and loose with the truth. Everything I've told you about using Edit to Tape is true. Except, on all DV decks that cost less than about $8000, you can only start timecode at 0:00:00:00. This means you can't stripe a tape to start at 1:00:00:00.

And why did the broadcast station want 1:00:00:00 in the first place?

All broadcast programs start at 1:00:00:00 on tape because starting at this time makes it very easy for the broadcaster to time the length of a show just by looking at the drop-frame timecode. No calculator required. This has been true for at least the last 50 years.

So, if you need to output a tape for broadcast, you'll need to buy a tape with the correct timecode on it from a professional videotape supply house, or make friends with the engineers at the broadcast station and have them stripe the tape for you.

Also, I mentioned earlier that most professional tapes start at timecode 00:58:20:00. This is because if your show starts at 1:00:00:00, you need to leave room before that for the pre-program leader material, such as bars and tone. Here's the timing of a "normal" broadcast tape:

In my programs, I sometimes build these pre-program materials into my main sequence, and other times I use the Mastering settings. Depends upon my mood.

If you are editing to a professional deck (specifically for an Insert edit), check in the Final Cut manual about editing settings.