Matchframe and Multicam Bug Will Leave You with Bad Sync

[Mike R.]

Today I'd like to talk about a problem in Final Cut Pro that I stumbled upon a little while ago. I'm very curious if anyone else has had experience dealing with this because it could foul up a whole show if left unchecked.

My situation was something like this. The lab was syncing dailies and sending me a tape. Being a good assistant, I would check the sync on each clip once they were captured from tape. Sadly the lab couldn't get it right (it turns out they didn't have the right equipment to lock up the tape at 23.98), so I needed to re-sync many of the clips before the editor got them. I also combined some of these new re-synced clips into Multicam clips.

I've discovered that if you use these Multicam clips in a new project, or make the clip independent, Matchframe stops working correctly. It dangerously brings up the original clip and the original sync, or the in sync audio of the other angle. In other words, it is wrong.

Anyone notice this? I'm running Final Cut Pro 6.0.5, Quicktime 7.6 and 10.5.6, but I first noticed this sort of problem back in Final Cut Pro 5.

I have a partial solution that I'll share in the next post.

[Mike R.]

So many takers 

Anyway, my solution to this problem was to recapture my footage, but this time have Final Cut Pro separate the audio and video into their own files (there is a preference for this). I then built merged clips from the two files, and multicam clips from these. Matchframe will not always work in this configuration, but at least it will never bring up a clip with the wrong sync.

Not perfect but it helps.

I'd love to hear about other people's experience with merged clips and multicam.

[steveb]

FCP really has to address this type of issue.  Merging sound with video and then using multicam clips has issues.  I am really hoping that Apple will refrain from "bells & whistles" additions to the new version of FCP and address a lot of the "under the hood" issues it has already.  Supposedly they are doing it with Snow Leopard, maybe they will do it with FCP.  We can hope right?

[TIMMY]

Safest way to resync a clip is to export with In and Outs as a new QT file, then import and group your cameras with the newly created file. Its time consuming, but saves you when the time comes to doing your outputs. Any other way has come up with issues and unreliability.

[Mike R.]

Yes but that will destroy the audio timecode. If you had a catastrophic failure of your RAID, or you needed to reconstruct a old show where the media is long gone, you can not recapture the clips.

I mean the video can be recaptured but what do you do about the audio?

[guyedit]

Similar thing happens to us.  You merge multi-track audio clips (from DVD-RAMs) to the DVCam video clips (removing the DVCam audio mix), then bring that merged clip into another project or system, and when you match frame, it takes you back to the DVCam clip with just the DVCam audio mix. 
Big problem!
..and it happens slowly, scene bin by scene bin over time, so it's inconsistent to boot..

Final Cut needs to fix its syncing, merging, and match-frame infrastructure, asap.

[steveb]

I have run into the same problems.  The best solution that I have come up with is exporting as TIMMY said.  The problem is that you do loose audio timecode so you first have to everyone (the sound dept) to agree to just work from the audio you give them in an omf.  Of course, there are still lots of cases where this is still not a viable option.

[guyedit]

yeah, like 99% of cases in features.

[JustinB]

Count me among those who have experienced multiclip matchback madness in FCP. We had a feature that was about 90% two camera, and a couple months into cutting my editor started complaining about match frame problems.

The odd remedy in our case was to change the angle order of one of the clips in the viewer, then change them back to the original order. I still have no idea why this worked, but it did the trick.

As steveb mentioned, this is exactly the kind of thing Apple needs to make a priority of. I'm still very leery of any kind of multiclip in FCP, especially if it's dual system.