The project I’m working on is recording picture and sound onto separate devices. Actually, reference audio in the form of a mix-down is going to camera’s channel 1, and the actor’s mics are recorded to a four-track wave file.

Because the camera audio won’t be used in the final mix we’ve had to sync our own dailies in Final Cut Pro 6. How exactly does a person take two different media files, audio and video, and combine them in sync as a usable clip? After much searching and asking around this is what we came up with.

Final Cut Pro has a feature called Merge Clips which combines multiple clips into one based on In, Out, or Timecode. Because our timecode is not synced to camera we used In/Out Point. Mark each clip, select them in the Browser, then use the Merge Clips command in the Modify menu.

The result is a new master clip (but not media file) which includes all audio tracks of the other clips in sync with the video. If the clip lengths are different Final Cut Pro will insert black slug as needed.

More details can be found in the Final Cut Pro manual under the term “merge clips.” You won’t find anything under “audio sync” or “dailies.”

During the edit of a 60-second spot using RED footage I used QuickTime proxy files. Although this meant continuous rendering of transitions and effects it was painless. Eventually I needed to conform the proxies to their 1080/24p ProRes 422 counterparts. I didn’t bother with Crimson because there were only about 20-30 cuts.

With speed changes and video effects reapplied I prepared for the final render. It wasn’t long before Final Cut Pro generated this error message:

The effect ‘Scrub’ cannot be rendered in a sequence of this size with the current graphics card.

The Scrub filter had been successfully used throughout the entire edit: from proxy files to scrubbing the timeline in ProRes. I tested different video effects and received the same error message.

A forum post at CreativeCOW describes a similar problem. This was just one of many issues plauging my project so I took the easy way out by replacing the Scrub filter with one from Joe’s Filters.

While I was writing this I found a solution at LAFCPUG. Modify the render depth from 10-bit to 8-bit in the sequence settings.

This solution is also referenced in an Apple Support document. Unfortunately it doesn’t address why late-model Apple video cards generate the error. Lack of 10-bit color support or a bug?

We’ve had numerous issues with our Final Cut Pro 6.02 project. Playback which simply repeats the same frames, media won’t stay connected, edits that magically undo themselves. Some of these are likely bugs while others are related to the six-year old project file and media.

In the hopes of righting whatever is wrong, we dumped (via XML export) our main sequence to a new project file. All was well until I began cutting it into separate reels and sequences respectively. Upon using the “Export to QuickTime Movie” option and the auto-render which takes place, I was greeted with a dialog box of General Error (48). This occurred 60% into the render.

This is actually an OS X (not FCP) error and according to this Apple Support topic error 48 is described as “Duplicate filename (rename); File found instead of folder.”

There are not many Internet references to error 48 but some suggest deleting SWF files and/or trashing Preferences. Neither of these worked for me.

I found a solution but, unfortunately, but the details are foggy in my head. Until the answer reveals itself I suggest a few places to look:

• Ensure you have enough free disk space on the render and autosave volumes
• Ensure you have sufficient file permissions to all FCP folders
• View project XML in a text editor and ensure file paths are correct

Digital Heaven’s VideoSpace widget, a disk storage calculator for video footage, has a new home on the ‘net: http://www.videospaceonline.com/. Use it anywhere your browser and iPhone can reach.

The ability of the Mac to put internal and external drives to sleep is excellent to reduce wear and lower power consumption. Unfortunately it’s not convenient while editing when your workflow is paused as drives spin up.

I considered writing an AppleScript to automate the on/off of “put hard drives to sleep whenever possible” in System Preferences but hadn’t gotten around to it. Digital Heaven has beat me to it with a start-up application called Disksomnia.

Once loaded it looks for any running instances of Final Cut Pro or Express and keeps the drives from falling asleep. According to the Studio Daily Blog it doesn’t work with Avid or Premiere but we can hope Digital Heaven will support them at a later date. Free download from this page.

[via Studio Daily Blog]