When I import media into Final Cut Pro the first second of each clip has no audio

To get a better idea of what might be going on can you be more specific of typically how many clips you get from a one hour tape? Do the number of scenes you have recorded on a tape correspond to the number of clips imported?

If for example on a one hour tape you have recorded ,say ,35 scenes ( record button pressed on and off 35 times)

then are you saying you get 35 clips into FCP? If you get 35 clips in this instance then as Luis says, that is how it should be. If you are getting more than that number ( gazillions ?), in this particular scenario , then obviously something is wrong.

Sometimes using a camcorder to play back tape that was not the original cam' that recorded it can cause import issues.

Also if the cam' recorded at LP instead of SP then again problems can occur on import.

One and a half hours of video on an "hour" tape would indicate LP mode.

Have you tried to clean the tape path and imported a tape to see if it makes a difference?

As Luis says, try QTP, but if you really are getting "gazillions = a huge number" of clips per tape then something might be going on that QTP can't even overcome.

I can understand that if you are getting a huge number of unexpected scene breaks then editing out the first second of video with missing audio may not be practical.

I would be curious to see if a short import into iMovie results in same issue or not.

Might be worth checking that this issue is not " on the tape "

Have you played tape back on the Canon's built in lcd screen and speaker to check that audio is there for this initial second in time?

Hopefully you don't think this next question is stupid but is it essential that you have this first second of video minus it's audio in your timeline. If not then just cut this first second of recording out.

I don't know if this will help, but anyway: you may try to import using Quicktime Player instead.

FCP will break the tape into multiple clips.

Quicktime Player can import a whole tape, you want, or any portion thereof, as a single clip.

Then you may impory this clip to FCP, like you would import any other clip that is already in your drive. By importing all at once, I expect that this problem is sound cutting on the first second will be moot. You can then use FCP to mark, favorite or reject parts of that clip.

Do you have Background Rendering enabled in FCP Preferences? That may cause the library to become bloated. To delete the render cache. Select the library in the browser, choose File->Delete Generated Library Files... Choose All Render files.

Unless FCP is having trouble playing back, disable Background Rendering.

Manage render files in Final Cut Pro for Mac - Apple Support 

FCP always make new clips at each break in timecode. This could be either due to the recording start/stop, or some defect in the tape, anything that breaks the timecode sequence. Having a one-hour tape result in a gazillion little clips when imported to FCP is par for the course. IMO that alone is a good reason to import using Quicktime Player instead.

When I used to load a lot of tape-based media I remember always something called Start/Stop Detection where it would divide up the "clips" into individual files. I'm not sure if FCP or QT does that now though.

The manual isn't clear on why FCP would stop now that I looked into it. They should clarify what "The end of the tape is reached" specifically means:

"Importing begins immediately from the current location on the tape and continues until one of the following occurs:

• The end of the tape is reached.
• The storage device you’re importing to is full.
• You stop the import session by clicking Stop Import or Close (to close the Media Import window) or by pressing Escape."

Import into Final Cut Pro for Mac from tape-based cameras - Apple Support

W. Raider wrote:

• The manual isn't clear on why FCP would stop now that I looked into it. They should clarify what "The end of the tape is reached" specifically means:

"Importing begins immediately from the current location on the tape and continues until one of the following occurs:

The end of the tape is reached.

• The storage device you’re importing to is full.

• You stop the import session by clicking Stop Import or Close (to close the Media Import window) or by pressing Escape."

Import into Final Cut Pro for Mac from tape-based cameras - Apple Support

If you record, then stop, record, then stop, and so on, on one tape, then FCP will import the whole tape, and each of these times you recorded and then stopped will be a separate clip. That is consistent with what the manual says. You can think of each these sections of the tape with continuous recording (and hence continuous timecode) as one "clip" in your tape, just as it would on a card based camera. Does that make sense?

Oh yeah. It's been a while since my FCP7 and earlier days when everything was tape based. I couldn't recall if it broke it up into clips then reached the end or if it was one continuous clip with demarcated Start/Stop breaks which other NL systems did back then.

Good that you found a way forward with QTP.

I am still curious to know how many clips you typically obtained when importing a one hour tape into FCP.

20 to say 100 clips might not be regarded as unusual but 300 or more might, and would therefore suggest that an error is occurring with the import apart from the missing audio that you are aware of.

Did the number of clips correspond with the number of scene breaks ( record start/stop) or did you get many more clips than scene breaks. Just trying to get a measure of your interpretation of the quantity of gazillion.

Hundreds of clips, thousands of clips???

Thanks for that.

Good luck