Timecode question

[Dan McCain]

Forgive the basic question but I dont exactly understand how timecode/edgecode works.

What I would like to do is set the project so that one can have continuous time code over multiple media, similar to tape or P2. I cant find anywhere in the menus to reset or manually enter timecode so I guess I dont quite understand how this works. Could someone either explain where I am going wrong or how I use timecode?

 

[Cail Young]

You can't have one continuous TC across your project. Sorry.

Can you explain why you want it? I do keep running in to this in discussions with a colleague and for the life of me I don't get it.

All TC lets you do is track (with some accuracy) what frames are what in a given shot. RED's "TC" which is time-of-day will be unique across shooting days (except if you're shooting high-speed back-to-back) and the edge-code which is unique across the media will differentiate in that instance.

You still have the clip names and reel names to differentiate shots so - why do you need One Timecode To Rule Them All?

 

[Dan McCain]

1.) You can tell how much footage you have shot at a glance
2.) You can sort by timecode in FCP and if you see any gaps you can tell that footage is missing
3.) Everyone is used to doing it this way with video and P2 so I will get asked alot about this

 

[Mark Toia]

1.) You can tell how much footage you have shot at a glance
2.) You can sort by timecode in FCP and if you see any gaps you can tell that footage is missing
3.) Everyone is used to doing it this way with video and P2 so I will get asked alot about this

/Users/Mark/Desktop/timecode.jpg

 

[Cail Young]

3.) Everyone is used to doing it this way with video and P2 so I will get asked alot about this

"How much footage" at a glance - given you're shooting to data, just look at your storage device, it will tell you your footage size, then you can use VideoSpace or similar to work out your total footage time if you really need to know. I can't imagine too many situations where you need to know RIGHT NOW how much time all the footage takes up.

Big T took care of number two up there.

The "Everyone's used to it" argument is what I get from the colleague, and my reply is this:

Suck it up. Continuous TC is really helpful for tape-based capture because it's a good backup way to know if you've got the right tape in the deck if your logging isn't the greatest. You can use a combo of reel name and time-of-day to acheive the same thing when you're conforming from data instead of tape. As to why P2 lets you do REC RUN, that's a holdover from the codec's tape-based days. Not ultimately useful. To get what you're asking for isn't impossible software-wise, but it requires even more vigilance on-set - if you're relying on some kind of "Project Timecode" that's unique across everything you shoot then you better hope you don't reset that number. EVER.

The compromise I'm using for the only situation in which human beings need to see TC (rushes review for paper edit) is to window-burn the time-of-day and split things up by shoot day (and camera, if necessary).

Would you expect to have a continuous Project TC if you were shooting on film? You get keycode, but that's a bit different.

 

[Cail Young]

2.) You can sort by timecode in FCP and if you see any gaps you can tell that footage is missing

Switch the camera to edge-code and it will place per-media TC in the proxies; you can now do that check if you like. Just bin by reel. Won't tell you if the last clip's missing, though.

Alternately, use a paper trail to track the number of clips in each reel and that becomes redundant.