Acquiring Media

Concepts

One of the great things about Final Cut Pro is that it allows users to work with almost any sort of digital media. In the labs, we have found that most people wish to work with DV, and possibly some still image components, such as Photoshop documents. This section will cover the basics of getting the most commonly used media into FCP for editing.

VHS Capture

Although Final Cut Pro was designed to work with modern digital video, there are still many people that have media they wish to edit in VHS format. To help those people get there work done, we have several JVC Mini DV/S-VHS VCRs. The VCRs can work with both DV tapes (helping to avoid wear on personal cameras) and VHS tapes, to work with legacy media. In order to work with a VHS tape, you must first push the large SVHS button on the VCRs front. This will force the controls you use to control the VHS deck.

To capture VHS footage:

1. Turn on the miniDV deck. Make sure that it is properly connected to the computer with the Firewire cable.
2. In Final Cut Pro, go File > Log & Capture. You may need to turn OFF Device Control in order to get FCP to work with the VHS tape correctly, sinse the VHS part of the deck can not be controlled by Final Cut Pro. This is set in the preferences tab on the right side of the Log and Capture window.
3. Place your tape in VHS deck (You may want to lock your source tape by punching out a small tab at the back of VHS to keep it from being over written).
4. Push the S-VHS button
5. Select the RIGHT arrow on the Dub Direction control (pointing to the left). This tells the DV deck to send the DV signal through to the VHS tape.
6. Set the channel of the deck to F-1.
7. Cue your source tape to the point where you want to start recording and pause the video. While using the VHS the deck cannot be controlled from the computer. Use the physical controls on the deck.
8. Once you have found the material you would like to capture, press Play on the deck and click the Now button in the Capture area with in Final Cut Pro. The clips will be automatically imported into the default capture bin.
9. When you have capture all the video that you want, press . to stop capturing. This command is shown on screen.
10. You should now save the captured footage somewhere safe where you can find it.

DV Capture

Final Cut Pro was made to deal with digital video in all its forms, but of particular interest to us is the Mini DV standard that most people are using to capture video they wish to edit. Final Cut Pro is able to take full advantage of the DV standard, including capturing video based on time code.

Time code is just what it sounds like. When video is shot in the DV format, a track of information is put down on the tape that marks how long it has been since the last break in time code (when time code breaks, it starts over at 0). A break in time code usually happens when the camera is turned on and off. To help avoid breaks in time code, you can first record over a new tape once, and just film with the lens cap on, and no audio source (this is known as black masking your tape). Breaks in time code are bad, as they can confuse capturing programs such as FCP when you try to recapture media.

To capture DV footage:

1. Turn on the miniDV deck. Make sure that it is properly connected to the computer with the Firewire cable.
2. In Final Cut Pro, go File > Log & Capture. You may need to turn ON Device Control in order to get FCP to work with the DV tape correctly. This is set in the preferences tab on the right side of the log and capture window.
3. Place your tape in miniDV deck (You may want to lock your source tape by sliding the small tab on the back of DV tape to keep it from being over written)
4. Push the DV button.
5. Select the LEFT arrow on the Dub Direction control (pointing to the right). This tells the DV deck to send the DV signal to the DV tape.
6. Set the channel of the deck to F-1.
7. Cue your source tape to the point where you want to start recording and pause the video. The deck may be controlled from the computer by using the playback controls. If this doesn't work use the controls on the deck.
8. Once you have found the material you would like to capture, click the Now button in the Capture area. The clips will be automatically imported into the default capture bin.
9. When you have capture all the video that you want, press . to stop capturing. This command is shown on screen.
10. You should now save the captured footage somewhere safe where you can find it.

Once the Log and Capture window is open, there is an area to the right of the preview window that holds information about the shot (its name, what tape it is from, etc.). This information is how FCP identifies where clips came from. This is very important for reimporting video clips, and should be filled out as completely as possible.

This is a very simple way to capture media quickly in FCP, and may be needed in order to capture data from a tape that has breaks in its time code. However, it is more useful to take advantage of the time code information on the tape, and simply mark all of the clips that you are interested in, and have FCP pull them all off the tape at once. This is called a batch capture.

A Batch capture is created by marking the In (starting) and Out ending) points of each clip they are interested in, and FCP capturing them to a Logging Bin. The logging bin is just a folder in the browser. Create a new folder, then select it, and choose Set Logging Bin from the File menu to create a logging bin in any project. The Log and Capture window has buttons like those found on a VCR at the bottom of the preview window (shown at the right side of the graphic below). Those can be used to move through the tape. When a clip is found just fill in the info about the clip to the right of the preview screen, movies the playhead in the preview window to the first frame of the clip they are interested in, and clicks the Mark In button (a triangle pointing right to a bar). Then move to the last frame of the clip and mark it with the Mark Out button (a triangle pointing left to a bar). Repeat for all clips on a tape. Once all clips are marked, just click the Batch Capture button in the log and capture window. FCP will do the rest.

In and Out Markers are located in the lower left part of the viewer window, and circled in the image below.

Importing Other Media

Final Cut Pro is based on QuickTime, and can therefor import a great number of file types. FCP can import most audio formats, most still image formats, and most movie files (.mov and .avi files). Divx is not yet supported. The most interesting file type that FCP supports is the Adobe Photoshop file format. FCP can import a *.psd file, and retain its layers. Final Cut Pro does not use Photoshop layer styles or layer sets, so a really complex Photoshop file may need to be simplified. Each layer can then be modified over time independently of the others. This gives the user the ability to take complex images and animate or move parts of them, or use advanced features like alpha channels with video. MP3 files are not suggested for use with FCP, but such files can easily be converted to some other format that will work (such as AIFF).

To import files into FCP, the user can either select "Import" from the file menu, or just drag a file or folder from the finder into the File Browser. Once files have been imported to FCP, a copy of them is stashed away by FCP, so the original is not modified by FCP at any time. Changes to the original file will not be reflected in FCP. The files can then be used like any other media in FCP. By default, still images have a time duration of 10 seconds. But that can be changed in the general preferences of Final Cut Pro.