Limiting the duration of the capture now process, Capturing an entire tape using capture now, Limiting the duration of the – Apple Final Cut Pro 6 User Manual
Page 282: Capture now process
Chapter 17
Capturing Your Footage to Disk
281
IV
There are several reasons to capture entire tapes:
 Reviewing footage is easier once it is on your computer, allowing you to easily
rewind and loop sections of footage while you take notes.
 Capturing entire tapes causes less wear to the original source tapes because you only
play the tapes once while capturing instead of rewinding and fast-forwarding them
during logging and subsequent batch capturing.
 With some DV footage, Final Cut Pro can detect breaks between shots, allowing you
to create clips of each shot without setting In and Out points manually. This feature is
known as DV Start/Stop Detection.
 For footage without timecode, you have to use Capture Now because Final Cut Pro
can’t locate In and Out points for batch capturing.
Once you capture all of your tapes, you can break these large (up to an hour or more)
clips into smaller, more manageable subclips. For instructions on creating subclips and
smaller media files from larger clips, see “
Automatically Creating Subclips Using DV
” on page 283 or Volume II, Chapter 2, “Creating Subclips.”
Limiting the Duration of the Capture Now Process
When you use Capture Now, the captured media file increases in size until you
manually stop the capture process or until the Capture Now time limit is reached. This
limit can be set in the Scratch Disks tab of the System Settings window.
To set the Capture Now duration:
1
Choose Final Cut Pro > System Settings, then click the Scratch Disks tab.
2
In the Limit Capture Now To field, enter the maximum duration (in minutes) that
Final Cut Pro will capture when you use Capture Now.
For example, if you have a 1-hour tape, you can set the limit to 64 minutes (60 minutes
plus 4 additional minutes to be safe), begin the Capture Now process, and then leave
and return several hours later. Instead of capturing until your scratch disk is filled,
Final Cut Pro stops capturing after 64 minutes.
Capturing an Entire Tape Using Capture Now
Make sure that your camcorder or deck is connected to your computer and that you’ve
chosen the correct Easy Setup and specified a scratch disk. For more information, see
“
Are You Ready to Log and Capture?
You do not need to set In and Out points when you use Capture Now. The In point is
determined when you press the Capture Now button, and the Out point is determined
when you press Escape, or when a maximum number of minutes that you specify
is reached.