Making XDCam duplicates with correct timecode

Recently, I’ve had to make duplicates of XDCam Masters from a variety of different media- some XDCam, HDCam, DVCPro. Now, making XDCam masters is a pain, especially when you have 100’s of clips on a single disc. There’s no quick and easy way of doing it. No way of batch exporting. No way of simply dragging a .mov onto the disc. You can drag .mxfs onto the disc, but there isn’t a way of batch exporting to mxf. Not only that, but since other people are using these discs as masters, they need to match the timecode of the window burns you’ve given out.

And then there’s this problem:

So what I used to do was this

1. Insert clip into a new sequence.
2. Apple-0 to bring up sequence settings.
3. Set the starting timecode of the sequence to the starting timecode of the clip.
4. Change the audio outputs to dual mono.
5. Export to XDCam.

This method was very error prone, and took forever. One day, I realized I wouldn’t make the deadline for getting the disc out if I did it my normal way. So, I clicked around in Final Cut until I came up with an unlikely solution- Multiclip Sequences. Here’s the simplest way I’ve found to quickly export to XDCam from any source media, while maintaining timecode-

First off, it takes a bit of setup.

1. Go to your User Preferences, and go to the last tab, Audio Outputs.
2. Duplicate the Stereo Monitor: L+R preset.
3. Set up the new one like this:
4. Hit OK, and make sure there is a check mark next to the new preset. From now on (until you change it back), all new sequences will have a dual mono output, prefect for exporting to XDCam.

Now you’re ready to go. To make things easier, I added buttons in the Browser for “Make Multiclip Sequence” and to export “Sony XDCAM” (It’s the second one on the button bar list- the first is to import.) You can also make shortcuts to these commands, and I even set up Spark to hit that shortcut key, then hit enter on the screens that follow.

So now, to actually export-

1. Select the Clip you want to export to XDCam.
2. Make a Multiclip Sequence using the shortcut or button bar. Default settings are fine.
3. A bin with a multiclip and a new sequence called “Multiclip Sequence x” will appear in the browser.
   
4. The new sequence has the right timecode, and if you check your sequence settings, you’ll see the audio outputs are correct.
5. Notice that for some reason, the last frame is cut off. If you’re giving raw footage, this likely won’t matter, but you may want to open the Multiclip Sequence, and type “v” (to select the closest edit- your playhead should be at the very end of the timeline) and then “]” to move the edit 1 frame forward.
6. Now, you should be able to export your new Multiclip Sequence to XDCam perfectly with correct timecode.

Of course, it’s helpful if you have already transcoded the files to the XDCam codec- do it overnight in Compressor, and then the hands on portion will go much faster.

I hope this helps!