Comments

rs170a wrote on 7/2/2005, 9:14 PM
The "Sony Timecode" effect applied to the clip in the Media Pool (rt. click on the clip -Media FX) will show the time it was recorded. Unfortunately not the date though - this would have to be a separate text event. Applying this as either a Track FX or Video Output FX displays the timeline timecode. HTH.

Mike
filmy wrote on 7/2/2005, 10:08 PM
There is an excellent, and free, program that will do that. DV Date. Works fast and you can choose the font and font size. And did I mention it was FREE? :)
dmcmeans wrote on 7/3/2005, 1:49 PM
filmy, thanks for the DVDate tip. Exactly the result I was after.

I tried adding Timecode to the clip in the media pool. If there was a way to specify the Timecode affect's begining offset, then it would have been what I wanted. As it was, it respected the clip (as opposed to the timeline), but it always began with 0.

I'm sure this has been asked before, but any chance (Sony) you can add a checkbox to the Timecode to display the actual time in the clip? Available in version 6?
johnmeyer wrote on 7/3/2005, 6:38 PM
I keep a log of various past posts and I have two that may be of interest:

Burnt-in Datacode DV tape timecode show up on video

A very, very nice Date/Time stamper for DV files DV Date and Time stamp utility

I think one of these may point to the same thing that filmy referenced.
rs170a wrote on 7/4/2005, 9:15 AM
I tried adding Timecode to the clip in the media pool. If there was a way to specify the Timecode affect's begining offset, then it would have been what I wanted. As it was, it respected the clip (as opposed to the timeline), but it always began with 0.

The only reason (that I can think of) why this didn't work for you is that either you neglected to set the time on your camcorder or the footage is from an analog source. I just tried it with 2 clips shot on different days at differnt times on the same tape and I got correct clip time.

Mike
filmy wrote on 7/4/2005, 1:16 PM
Actually dmcmeans was/is talking about the time the footage was shot, not the tape timecode. Dropping the TC window filter onto the media will show tape TC if the footage was captured with the Vidcap mod or SCLive. If the footage was captured with, for example, Premiere it will, in fact, always show "00:00:00:00" because of the way Vegas handles the TC info. And yes, this will also happen with analog footge as well.

There is a way to set the clips TC, but it is only relative to Vegas - in other words it does not change the footage itself. You can right click on the media and it will bring up a little window and under the Timecode options you can either "use timecode in file" or "use custom timecode".
rs170a wrote on 7/4/2005, 5:29 PM
... the time the footage was shot, not the tape timecode.

Thanks for the clarification filmy. Too bad camcorders don't allow you to select "time of day" time code like the pro gear does :-)

Mike
filmy wrote on 7/5/2005, 9:09 PM
>>>Too bad camcorders don't allow you to select "time of day" time code like the pro gear does <<<

I think we are still crossing paths on this. Most all camcorders *do* allow the user to set the date and time, or "time of day". Very few consumer/prosumer camcorder allow the user to set the timecode. Fewer yet allow users to set userbit info on the timecode.

To break it down a bit more - those tiny little internel batteries last for years so unless you are in another timezone when you are shooting the date/time should be fine. But because you can change this at anytime it would not be that hard to travel around the world and re-set the date/time every time you shot in a new location.

So to even fuirther define this -
Date - the date the shot/tape was shot on. As in "October 10, 2005" or "10/10/2005" or the like.
Time - The time the shot/tape was shot. As in "11:30 am" or the like.
Timecode - the code of the tape - the time in a "00:00:00:00" format normally. Hours, minutes, seconds,frames. In the pro set ups it is common place to assign the hour to tape numbers - so "01:00:00:00" would be tape 1. "02:00:00:00" would be tape 2 and so on.
Userbits - user defined info. Could be any number of things. If you had multi-camera you could add an "a","b","c" depending on which camera it was. The userbits could also be used for production number or date info.

And there is another term that made things more confused - tape run time. This is when, with lack of any sort of timecode info, you "set the counter to zero" when the tape is full rewound. Most consumer camcorders and VCRs use this concept. But this is not based on any sort of tape recorded code. And this isn't the same as "control timecode" which was sort of a VHS/SVHS thing to be able to edit with non-TC tapes and decks. But, IMO, not too far from the whole "set counter to zero" concept.

P.S - and I almost forgot about being able to set "drop frame" or "non drop frame" timecode - in the consumer and most prosumer decks and cameras you can't do this.

P.P.S - For a bit more info on the whole "mess" -
All in Good Time(code) basic intro from Adobe.
DVTimecode by Adam Wilt.