I need to make a 30 second commercial for work. I will be using final cut studio for the first time. And, I dont know jack about broadcast television. So here it goes… (with no manual!)

I know from the tapes I get back from the guys that do our editing now that there are color bars and count down timer that start are at the beginning of all the commercials. So we will start with that.

Color Bars, Slate, Countdown, Frame 1.

I found this graphic on the University of Texas communications department webpage “laying a prject to tape with a timecode in fcp”

I wont be doing that, I plan to output to a dvd, but the same set of variable for putting these at the front of your project also show up when you select print to video.
(my print to video cannot be selected unless you highlight all your clips first)

Im not sure if its going to add this autmatically to me exported video or not, I will have to test that.  For now it  shows me the color bars and slate the print to video mode… will get back to this one.  At least I found out what the standard set up is.

This page at apple talks about a filter that corrects  you project to make the colors safe for broadcast tv.  Link - this might be handy.

More to come…