Auto-generate Chapter Markers every 5 mins?

Use Toast10.

This would be such a great feature.

Something like Mark > Markers > Multiple and then a dialog box that states "Place a marker every _ minutes. Okay."

Here's what I do in FCP (you may already be doing something like this):
1. Press Home.
2. Press "+" on the extended numeric keypad or "shift +" on the standard keyboard. You'll see a "+" appear in the Current Time Code text field.
3. Enter 5.00.00 (you can leave the periods out, but I use them to double check my text entry).
4. Press Enter. The playback head will move five minutes toward the end.
5. Add a marker (I press "m" then "m" again to add a marker and then open the Edit Marker dialog box).
6. In the Edit Marker dialog box, click Add Chapter Marker and then press Ok. (Since you're using all keyboard shortcuts, you can position the mouse to hover over where "Add Chapter Marker" appears to make this step a bit faster).

Repeat from step 2 until you have as many markers as you need.



Or…

1) If you're using DVD Studio Pro, create a text document (.txt) as follows:
00:00:00;00 Chapter 1
00:05:00;02 Chapter 2
00:10:00;02 Chapter 3
00:15:00;04 Chapter 4
00:20:00;04 Chapter 5
01:25:00;06 Chapter 6
01:30:00;06 Chapter 7
01:35:00;08 Chapter 8
01:40:00;08 Chapter 9

2) Continue this list until you have enough markers to span the duration of your video. (Note: if using drop frame time code, the frames will increase 2 frames every 10 minutes).

3) Save this as "<project name> Marker List.txt" (insert the name of your project where it reads <project name>).

4) In DVD Studio Pro, right click or control click above the timeline and select Import Marker List and select the text file that you saved.



-Warren

When working with video running at 30 frames per second, you have two methods of measuring time with time code: drop frame and non-drop frame.

If I remember my video history correctly, drop frame came about in 1969 as part of the NTSC standard for broadcast television. Two frames are renumbered (or "dropped") every minute except for the tenth minute. Using drop frame, you'll get from 0:00:00;00 to 0:59:59;29 sooner than you would if you used non-drop frame. And, an one hour will have passed on the clock. If you don't use drop frame time code, by the time you get to 0:59:59;29, more than an hour will have passed. As a broadcaster, you need to be accurate to the hour.

It's common for a frame rate of "29.97" to indicate that drop frame time code is being used.

No.
PAL is just plain 25 fps. So you're lucky.

I don't think it's that common for a frame rate of 29.97 to indicate drop frame time code. It's certainly not the case in fcp or any other software I work with. Usually colons in the timecode indicate ndf and semicolons indicate df. In fcp, it's just the last timecode colon/semicolon that indicates fcm (frame code mode). All NTSC video is 29.97 fps. And be careful, cause everyonceinawhile you will see video files that are actually 30fps.

Good point, Michael.

Indeed, it's not as simple as 29.97 and 30. I was forgetting that I'm on an FCP forum and not an After Effects forum (In AE, 29.97 fps is always drop and 30 fps is always non-drop when you're in the Composition Settings panel). Even though the .03 difference between 29.97 and 30 is meant to account for the time that's gained by dropping frames, this is not consistently followed.

So, you could be in an application and have "29.97 drop" and/or "29.97 non-drop" and then in another application and have "30 drop" and "30 non-drop".

One should always look for the visual indicators (as Michael mentioned), like a semi-colon (";") for drop and colon for ":" drop. On video hardware (like a camcorder or deck), it's likely to take the form of a period (".") for drop and colon (":") for non-drop, but even there might no indicator difference. You might just see ":". It largely depends on whether it's pro hardware or consumer hardware.

Perhaps most importantly, if you're not sure then visually inspect the time code. If at minute one you go from 0:00:59;29 to 0:01:00;02, then you're using drop frame time code. But if you go from 0:00:59:29 to 0:01:00:00, then you're using non-drop. This skip from ;29 to ;02 would present itself very minute except for a tenth minute.

An of course, this is only applies to SMTPE time code. QuickTime's inspector window reports in 1/100 ths for the frame count. Unless there's a Time Code Track embedded in the file, you're looking at numbers like 05:02:22:33.334 instead of 05:02:22:10.

Fun, fun.



-Warren

this stuff used to make me crazy in the wonderful world of linear editing on edls. there were all sorts of gotchas in mixing fcms, etc. Nowadays, I really don't have to pay attention to it.