Final Cut Pro Tip #007 – Use Batch Lists
Batch lists are a great way to log clips offline, or on a system without FCP. All you need is a spread sheet or text editor and some basic info for FCP.
If I have clients that want to log from a DVD with a window burn I usually give them a excel spreadsheet that has a few basic columns to be filled out. The only trick to make these work with FCP is to have the the first line contain so text so FCP know what you are talking about. Basically you only need to tell FCP 4 things; the MEDIA START, MEDIA END, NAME and REEL. Media Start in basically the in point of the clip, FCP handles this a bit differently that you might expect, the in point is a marked in point not the actual frame where the clip starts. The timecode needs to be entered correctly in the 00:00:00;00 format (be sure to use a ; for DF and a : for NDF). I am sure you can guess what Media End is and the reel is obviously the name of the tape (this is very important is you have several tapes). Name is very important too, and each name need to be unique. All you have to do is save off the log as a tabbed text file and import it as a batch list into FCP and you have logged clips!
If you start with a blank FCP project and export a batch list, it will automatically contain all of the headers that are in the browser. It is best to setup the spreadsheet from here so all of the information transfers. You can easily delete any of the columns that you don’t need. There is a lot of ways to use batch lists, so have fun!
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