Adding timecode from middle of clip

This is partially a request, partially alerting you to a UI issue.

Let’s say I have some clips that don’t have timecode (shot with a consumer-type camera). It appears that Cortex will read the creation time and assign that time as the clip’s timecode. (Example: if the clip was shot at 9:09am, then the timecode for that clip is about 09:09:00:00.)

I right-click on a clip and select “Edit Timecode”. This brings up a small window to edit the timecode. Here’s the UI issue: there’s an option to “Update with settings below” but there are no settings below. Just empty space. Not a big deal - I can still edit the timecode from the starting frame.

Here’s the request: let’s say I am waiting for a smart slate to appear in the clip. Clip starts, after about 5 seconds, someone holds up the slate in frame. I can see the audio timecode on the slate and would like my video timecode to match the slate/audio timecode (for easier sync).

Is it possible to type the timecode of the current frame, then have Cortex do the math to determine the starting timecode? DaVinci Resolve has this feature and it is very helpful when manually entering TC values.

Edit: this is with the latest 1.5.2 beta.

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If its just for syncing purposes, if you are going to be typing in the timecode off the slate anyway, you can hit the * key on the numpad to put focus in the Sync tool’s audio timecode window. Then you can type the timecode you see on the slate. When you hit enter, it should sync to that timecode automatically.

Does that work just as well for you?

Well, that does make it easy to sync. But off the top of my head, there’s a couple reasons why we would want the video TC changed to match audio TC (instead of just changing sync point). IE: Comparing this cam video to other cameras with correct TC, knowing the time-of-day shooting, making video-only files as “new masters”, etc.

If this is a simple addition, it would be nice. If this is a huge undertaking, maybe not.

I don’t think its a huge undertaking, but its not insignificant and we need to think through the UX a bit. The entire ‘Edit Timecode’ feature could use a little love in some other ways so we’ll keep this in mind if we get to spending more time on it in the future.

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