Limit capture file size.

[krestofre]

I'm brand new to FCP, so if this is a simple one, forgive me. I searched, but didn't find anything about this.

If I apply a 2GB file size limit in the System Settings of FCP, and try to capture some footage, when the file size hits 2GB, FCP stops capturing and says that I'm out of disk space. The drive I'm capturing to has 173 GB of space free, and if I remove the file size limit, then I can capture any amount of footage that I want.

Now what's confusing me is that according to the manual, this file size limit of 2GB is only supposed to apply to individual chunks of footage. Meaning that it shouldn't limit me to only capturing 2GB, but rather once I pass the 2GB mark it should start writing the capture to a second QT file, and then a third QT file, and then a fourth. So that I end up with five 2GB QT files instead of one 10GB file. But that's not happening.

So, am I misunderstanding something, or if FCP not handling this correctly? I'm running FCP 5.1 on a 17 inch G4 Powerbook.

Thanks.

[krestofre]

Did I stump everyone my first question out?

[uhrgl]

I'm still a FCP newbie (I miss you, Vegas), but I think that limit is when you do a "Capture Now," although my settings tell me "Capture Now" is limited to 30 minutes.

I use "Capture Clip" with in/out and only use "Capture Now" when I have a timecode problem. I have had no luck with the "Capture Batch." Vegas automatically breaks clips up so I usually capture whole tapes and let the NLE do the work, but I haven't figured out similar workflow in FCP.

[krestofre]

Vegas automatically breaks clips up so I usually capture whole tapes and let the NLE do the work, but I haven't figured out similar workflow in FCP.

DV Start/Stop detection may be what you're looking for.

I have no problem using log and capture methods. But if I mark a clip that's longer than 10 minutes, it's still not going to capture it because that's over 2 GB.

Maybe I'm worrying about this for nothing, but it was my understanding that if you capture large QT files, then FCP has problems loading them with long sequences and that it was recommended to keep the chunks of video to around 2 GB.

Any advice out there? The media management in FCP is causing me stress.