Final Cut Pro 10.6.6, Compressor 4.6.4, Motion 5.6.4 Updates

Cheers to FCP 10.6.6. update, release by Apple today. As always out of the blue, although people who follow these kind of things, like Richard Taylor at fcpx.tv, said an update was coming on Tuesday, and there it is.

Like Rich, I wish Apple put more dedication and enthusiasm into developing FCP new features and improvements, instead of branching into a subscription only iPad version. 😩

macOS Monterey 12.6, or more recent. Small update better than no update I suppose. Here is what's new (I'm skipping the iPad blah, because at this point I don't care about it.):

• Automatic HDR/SDR color management with tone mapping. This should be helpful.
• New titles, effects and generators. We'll see how nice they are.
• Color Adjustment effect with presets. Hmmm, kinda like under the previous bullet point isn't it? I hope it's not too gimmicky.
• Again falls under the second bullet point. Scene Removal Mask to remove bkg without green screen. AI powered I assume, we'll see if it's any good.
• ProRes RAW Settings window. That's good. I hope it gives access to all the tweaks available.
• ProRes RAW plug-ins from various camera manufacturers. OK.
• HEVC export up to 8K, hardware accelerated on silicon Macs. I like.
• Export to EXR with Alpha channel. I don't care, but OK.
• Handful of bugs fixed.

Compressor gets updated to v4.6.4. A few improvements: auto center crop, Copy/Paste files now allowed, improved IMF packages, auto surround channels labelling when using command line. What an obscure last entry!

Motion gets updated to v5.6.4. Nothing to get excited about really: auto color processing for better HDR/SDR workflow between Motion and FCP, HDR optimized color processing, no green screen background removal, improved playback/export times on silicon, improved Slice Scale filter, stability improvements.

All right, well I shall update soon as I am in between projects, and I'll report when I get cutting / compressing / motioning on these new versions.

Apple, it's getting boring other here in Pro Apps land... iPad version, who cares? You're getting lazy, imitating Resolve/Blackmagic design, and not leading anymore. Wake up!

Final Cut Pro 10.6.5 The Operation Couldn't Be Completed. Invalid Argument. Error Message

 FCP 10.6.5 is giving me a hard time. I've created a Snapshot of a Project. I want to move the Snapshot from the Event it resides currently, into another Event.

FCP does not comply and gives me this error message:

The Operation Couldn't Be Completed. Invalid Argument.

Workaround: Duplicate the current Snapshot, then the new Snapshot can be moved to the other Event without problem.

Only... I cannot delete the original! FCP is being stubborn and I can't move this Snapshot to the trash. Something is rotten.

macOS Monterey Is In The House, Mac mini M1 With Final Cut Pro 10.6.1 - Part1

 I started using Monterey, it's on a Mac mini M1 with 16GB RAM, 1TB internal ssd.

I have already edited real projects with FCP on it, and I'm running tests.

My current working machine is a Classic Mac Pro 5,1 with 6 x 3.46 GHz cores, 32GB RAM, Radeon 7950 3GB running Mojave 10.14.6.

I have skipped Catalina (10.15) and Big Sur (11) entirely since the cMP is not on the approved list, and I didn't want to risk using OpenCore. I also have a Intel i7 four cores Mini that I use for work, that also has Mojave installed as I didn't want to have mismatched macOSes on my work machines.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

• Boots insanely fast! Seventeen (17) seconds from pressing the power button to the log screen.
• Internal drive speed is nuts. 2800MB/s Read/Write!

• The compartmentalization of the internal drive is something to get used to. APFS introduced with High Sierra (10.13) is evolving. And starting with Catalina (10.15) the System Drive is Read Only! News to me! https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/working-apfs-volume-groups I'm not used to not being able to create a new folder at the root of the disk.
• Monterey is less elegant than Mojave. I don't know when Apple decided to make the change, I prefer the minimalistic icons of Mojave.
• Updating old FCP libraries hasn't been straightforward, often leading to errors:

And after the failed attempt, the Library is definitely corrupted. Make sure you make duplicates before attempting. 

My workaround: Open the library without the Media drive connected (I always store Media outside the Library, on an external drive.) Everything will be offline, but the update will go through without a hiccup. Then mount the Media drive, FCP will reconnect the media by itself, or if it doesn't, Relink the files.

• FCP is super fluid. No waiting time, everything responds very quickly. I dumped my media on a Sata SSD (getting 430MB/s on average) for the small projects I'm currently working on. It's all very fast editing anything, except for non optimized 4K media, R3D specifically. Haven't tried Proxies yet.
• Export times are greatly reduced, especially h264. Exporting to ProRes feels somewhat faster, but not as big a difference. I have to do a real test comparison.
• Compressor is missing some "legacy" Codecs. They are available through Rosetta. I haven't installed that yet.

• Resolve also wants Rosetta installed... Really? Well I don't need Resolve for now, so I haven't installed it yet.

• The Mini does not support eGPU, not a big deal since GPUs have been insanely overpriced for the past 2 1/2 years or even longer. F$*& the hoarders and their stupid bitcoins. Let's see what this M1 is capable of. The old i7 Mini only has a paltry Intel 4000 1.5GB Vram GPU, this new Mini should run circles around it.
• The M1 Mini has a HDMI out for a first monitor, and I can connect my second monitor via a Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI adapter. Leaving the second Thunderbolt 3 for DAS. It's working perfectly. If you need a third monitor you're out of luck as the M1 only supports two. That's fine for me.
• It is near silent. So much so that I now find rotating HD's noise annoying!
• Exporting h264 or ProRes doesn't start the fans, the box is not even warm. Compared to the i7 Mini which starts the fans as soon as Safari is open, and becomes as loud and hot as a steel plant when encoding h264 or ProRes, it's amazing!

That's it for now, more soon!

Final Cut Pro 10.4.4 is out, and so is a reminder that Apple is ditching legacy media

Today Apple released Final Cut Pro 10.4.4, Compressor 4.4.2 and Motion 5.4.2

As always before upgrading, wait until you are in-between projects, and backup your current apps, and your current Libraries.

On the news release page you will notice this small paragraph:

Compressor, the advanced encoding companion to Final Cut Pro, moves to a new 64-bit engine that takes advantage of all the memory in a user’s Mac for improved performance when encoding high resolution, high frame rate video. Compressor maintains support for 32-bit codecs, so editors can continue to work with key legacy formats. And the app now supports SRT closed captions, which is an important format for delivering captioned video to the web and international markets.

Nick Montgomery @Merch_Media Tweeted another notice from Apple:

Legacy media files are compatible with macOS Mojave, but they won't be with future macOS releases. Legacy media can include footage recorded with cameras like Sony HDCAM-SR cameras, footage from GoPro cameras recorded in the CineForm format, video files in the Avid DNxHD/DNxHR format created with software, footage shot with many other older cameras, or files modified with older software.

Here we are confronted with macOs Mojave being the latest of the OSes to support 32-bit apps. With the next release of macOs in fall of 2019, 32-bit no more. That includes Quicktime7.

We knew this was coming with the 2013 announcement of Apple transition from legacy Quicktime to AVFoundation. So Quicktime Player 7 will stop working, and any legacy media files will need to be converted.

For understanding this transition, here is a great article by Larry Jordan: Media Doesn't Last Forever from July 2018.

And a in-depth article by digital Rebellion: Thoughts on 32-bit codecs being phased out in macOS.

What are the concerned codecs one might ask? Apple is vague at best. Luckily Charlie Austin comes to our rescue:

Here is the list on my machine:

ApplePlanarRGB

SorensonVideo

SorensonVideo3

AppleBMP

AppleCinepak

AppleH261

AppleH263

AppleMotionJPEGA

AppleMotionJPEGA

AppleMotionJPEGB

AppleMotionJPEGB

ApplePNG

AppleNone

AppleNone

AppleVideo

AppleGraphics

AppleTGA

AppleTIFF

AppleComponentVideo

AppleJPEG2000

ApplePixlet"

Most of these are obsolete and personally I have never edited with any of these in the past. I had many esoteric codecs coming from client, but the first thing for me is to always convert any exotic codec into an editing friendly codec.

I think this ditching of legacy codecs is a necessary move from Apple in order to make and keep FCPX fast and smooth. Just like I would not edit with h264, it makes sense to me that we need modern tweaked-for-speed codecs to work with. Not to mention codecs that are capable of more bandwidth to accommodate improvements in camera capture, although that's another subject.

That means yes, we will have to do more transcoding in the future. I am not too worried: there are tools for that, and there will still be tools to convert legacy footage into modern codecs to work with in FCPX for the years to come.

Here is a newer article by the guys at Latenitefilms/CommandPost: Legacy Media in Final Cut Pro that explains the situation even better, specifically the .mov wrapping part, and it confirms what I'm thinking.

Random "Modified File" message in FCPX - Offline Media.

I'm being hit by a random media getting offlined by FCPX. The Clips show the Message: "Modified File", even though nothing changed to my knowledge.

Relinking doesn't work, weirdly. FCPX shows the proper file name, but trying to reconnect to the actual media does not work.

I thought of re-importing and manually replacing the clips, but what seems to miraculously work is to actually drag the offending media file from the Finder into the Browser.

All of a sudden the media gets recognized and the clips are re-linked and online again.

Quid?

How to Deal With Cinema DNG from BlackMagic Cameras in FCPX

 FCPX does not like Cinema DNG and does not understand it, period. It probably never will now that ProRes RAW is out in the wild.

So what do you do when you receive a ".dng" image sequence and want to edit with FCPX? You will have to go the Offline Route, and use Resolve to do it.

Not a bad thing anyway since you will likely grade and finish your film into Resolve anyway. Probably not the only option, but one that works for me.

STEPS:

• Import your footage into Resolve.
• Select a day's worth of media (or half day, whatever works for you.) Generate a new Timeline from the selected media. It's good Practice to create one Timeline for each day or half day of shooting. Name it in a way you know what's what.
• Optional: Into the Color Tab/ Camera Raw, set the Decode Using to Cinema DNG Default to make the image look somewhat normal as opposed to the washed out RAW look. If you prefer, you can leave the Setting to Camera Metadata for a log output, and turn the Log Processing to BMD Film in FCPX instead. From my experience it does not slow down editing in FCPX.
• Optional: You can add Timecode and Clip Name Burn-in, (or any info you need visible) from Workspace/ Data Burn-in Menu.
• Go to the Deliver Tab.
• Select Render to FCPX.
• Select Format: Quicktime, and Codec: Apple ProRes LT. You can choose whatever you want, LT makes things fast for me in FCPX.
• Select the Resolution of your choice, I use HD or UHD depending which I am finalizing into.
• I like to check Use Constant Bitrate.
• Browse /Create a New Folder, name it "FCPX Proxy Media" or whatever you want, it will be your export folder.
• Click Add To Render Queue. Resolve will add the Job to the Render Queue, Click Start Render.

This way Resove makes an XML that will open in FCPX and load all the low resolution/proxy clips that are a breeze to edit with in FCPX.

Edit away!

When you are done editing, Export an XML of your cut from FCPX. Import the XML into Resolve. Uncheck Automatically import Source Clips into media pool (we don't want Resolve to relink to the low res files.) Resolve will automatically link to the Cinema DNG files and populate the Timelime, ready for Color Grading / Finishing.

I give you... ProRes RAW

ProRes was a game changer, will ProRes RAW be as successful? It certainly looks promising.

LumaForge presentation from Atomos' Jeremy Young at NAB 2018:

https://youtu.be/9f3G9mP9Tsk

Excerpts:

• Capturing 12 bit from Japanese cameras, will improve over time.
• 16bit capable, capable of even more as it is bit independent, resolution independent, frame rate independent.
• Two flavas: RAW (DataRate less than ProRes 422) and RAW HQ (DataRate less than ProRes 4444.)
• Variable DataRate, lower if properly exposed image, higher if noisy sensor output.
• Faster rendering times than real time (up to x4.)
• Not a Mastering format, will be Mastering to ProRes4444. Indeed there is no ProRes RAW option for Export/Share in FCPX 10.4.1. Which brings the question: what about VFX roundtrips?
• Atomos devices screens up to 10.5 stops 1500 nits HDR high brights, LUT capable, RAW to normal conversion.
• Atomos devices support input up to 15 Stops, 12 bit RGB (will support higher bits),  up to 5.7K (at 30fps?), 4K at 60fps, up to 240fps (at 2K), 12Gb/s SDI, Camera Data (Camera, F-Stop, ISO, Shutter, Lens, Iris, WB, ND.)
• Selected Atomos devices are HDMI RAW capable - ALTHOUGH THERE IS NO HDMI RAW OUTPUT FROM ANY CAMERA AT THIS TIME - SDI ONLY. Which manufacturer will announce HDMI RAW capable first?
• "In HDR it looks phenomenal". Evidently that's the push: ProRes RAW the to-go solution for HDR production.
• Real performance with FCPX: PIP 5 simultaneous streams of 6K, 4K (x3), 2K with mixed original frame rate 24p to 240p. Do you need an iMac Pro for that?

Thank you, Lumaforge!

FCPX Audio Meters

 FCPX has a particular audio metering. It scales from minus infinity to +6dB, with intermediary marks at -50dB, -40dB, -30dB, -20dB, -12db, -6dB and 0.

FCPX audio meters showing a 1kHz tone played at -20dB.

FCPX audio meters showing a 1kHz tone played at 0dB.

According to Apple:

"The audio meters show the audio levels of clips in Final Cut Pro and warn you if a particular clip or section of a clip reaches peak levels, which may result in audible distortion.

When an audio clip is approaching peak levels during playback, the level color changes from green to yellow.

When an audio clip exceeds peak levels, the level color changes from yellow to red, and the peak indicator turns red for the respective audio channel or channels. The peak indicators are reset when you stop and start playback.

To avoid having clip volume exceed peak levels, adjust the volume. Although the proper level for a clip depends on the mix, it’s important to make sure that the combined level for all concurrent clips doesn’t exceed 0 dB during the loudest sections."

The Zero being the actual 0dB MAX FULL SCALE. In other words, FCPX has a +6dB buffer up there. Obviously, the absolute loudest sound in your program should not go above zero, even though we have this +6dB buffer for occasional - to be dealt with, or not - incursions.

For film work the median level for dialog is -23dB Full Scale (EBU) or -24dB Full Scale (ATSC-85), on the FCPX meter this translated to a position in-between marks as seen below:

FCPX audio meters showing a 1kHz tone played at -23dB.

A specialized meter display like the YouLean Loudness Meter has  different display for film work, here marking -23dB (the marking can also be set to show -24dB.) Note the YouLean meter has no headroom above zero. That's the absolute max.

YouLean audio meter showing a 1kHz tone played at -23dB.

In practice FCPX meters are fine. Note that they are the PPM kind, not the VU kind. Meaning they show instant Peak values, as opposed to averaged values. For a constant volume sound (like the tones shown above) it's all the same. For dialog which is inherently varying in volume all the time, that's a different story. See below for the same speech displayed on FCPX meter and on the YouLean meter.

FCPX (PPM) meter showing speech played at an average of -20dB.

YouLean (VU) meter showing values for the same speech played at an average of -20dB.

FCPX meters are much more "alive" jumping up and down with huge variation. The YouLean is more tame and tranquil, with limited incursions. Same signal, PPM vs. VU representation.

Starting with a proper range will make the transition into mixing easier. While editing in FCPX it is good practice to have most dialog levels in the -20 to -6dB range, visually "dancing" most of the time in the -12dB vicinity.

MacPro 5,1 Sierra 10.12.6, Radeon 5770s and 7950 FCPX, BruceX, Compressor, AME Speed Comparison

II just swapped the CPU from a quad core 3.2GHz to six core 3.46GHz on my MacPro 5,1 main machine. I will soon install macOs High Sierra and FCPX 10.4, but need to run some test first.

Also I'm looking towards buying a Radeon RX580 in the near future (when the prices are down), but in the meantime I still rely on my trustworthy Radeon 7950 Mac edition.

Also just for kicks I installed two Apple Radeon 5770s to run some processing comparisons, see results below.

A) The machine is a MacPro 5,1 mid 2012, Quad Core 3.2GHz, 16GB RAM running macOS Sierra 10.12.6. No other app than FCPX is opened, saving to the internal system SSD.

FCPX BruceX, Share ProRes4444QX
One 7950: 53sec.
Two 5770s: 45sec.

Compressor BruceX ProRes4444QX file to Youtube "Up to 4K" h264 Preset
One 7950: 75sec.
Two 5770s: 61sec.

Adobe Media Encoder BruceX ProRes4444QX file to Youtube 4K h264 Preset (GPU acceleration OpenCL)
One 7950: 13sec.
Two 5770s: 29sec.

B) The machine is a MacPro 5,1 mid 2012, Six Core 3.46GHz, 16GB RAM running macOS Sierra 10.12.6. No other app than FCPX is opened, saving to the internal system SSD.

FCPX BruceX, Share ProRes4444QX
One 7950: 53sec. (Same speed as quad core! That wasn't expected.)
Two 5770s: ??sec.

Compressor BruceX ProRes4444QX file to Youtube "Up to 4K" h264 Preset
One 7950: 42sec. (Faster than quad core, as expected.)
Two 5770s: ??sec.

Adobe Media Encoder BruceX ProRes4444QX file to Youtube 4K h264 Preset (GPU acceleration OpenCL)
One 7950: 9sec. (Faster than quad core as expected.)
Two 5770s: ??sec.

FCPX 10.3.4 to DaVinci Resolve 14.3 Observations

I just downloaded DaVinci 14.3 and out of curiosity exported a fcpxml of my current FCPX project to see how well things translate. I'm currently using FCPX 10.3.4.

Let's start with audio and then we'll look at picture:

1) My FCPX project starts at 23:59:57:00 to allow for a 3 sec. preroll and then start the first image at 00:00:00:00. Well Resolve handles this differently and continues playing Timecode at 24:00:00:01 and counting... What?

What is this BMD?

Fairlight counts correctly to 00:00:00:00 pass 24hr., but does not like crossing over and plain STOPS there. Even signifies its refusal with a "T" mark in the time bar. And trying to click further down the time bar doesn't do anything.

You won't go pass that 00:00:00:00 point.

Changing the Timeline Starting Timecode to 00:00:00:00 or 01:00:00:00 effectively removes the "T" mark, or better it's out of the way, and Fairlight plays happily.

2) The Disabled Clips in FCPX Timeline are correctly Disabled in Resolve/Fairlight Timeline, EXCEPT for clips grouped into a Secondary Storyline, see below, thus creating chaos.

3) Stereo clips are brought in as Mono L/R. Why we still have to deal with this ancient mode in modern NLEs are beyond me. Are you listening engineers, programmers? We want proper multi channel audio track handling.

3) The order in which Resolve brings audio clips seem very random, and in any case doesn't take Roles into account in any way.

4) Audio grouped under a Storyline in FCPX translates into Resolve as "Secondary Storyline_L/R clip instead of the proper audio clips name. Thus creating additional chaos.

5) Some audio grouped under Storylines are NOT PRESENT in Resolve Timeline. I don't know why some audio is being dropped. That's wrong.

I guess we cannot use Secondary Storylines for audio for this workflow or we have to take all audio clips out of Secondary Storylines before exporting fcpxml.

6) Gain (a Logic Pro Effect) is ignored. Alex4D Sound Only (a FCPX/Motion Transition) is ignored.

7) Volume is ignored.

8) Fades are ignored.

So all in all, not a very satisfactory first impression audio wise  I mean we live in times where we must keep as much as possible of the information from system to system, and this is clearly not a good example of that. Sending fcpxml to X2Pro to ProTools via AAF is a much more advanced workflow. As far as Audition goes, it still can't open fcpxml, you have to roundtrip through Premiere and loose most of the info there. Audition cannot open AAF, so cannot make use of X2Pro either. Then there is Logic, but I don't have any info at this point. If you do, please leave a comment.

As for picture:

a) Basic Titles with single formatting/font translate correctly. All others do not.

b) Speed changes have been working correctly for some time now, and still do.

c) Stills translate correctly, but not the Ken Burns Effect which is IGNORED. Stills in Secondary Storylines translate as "Secondary Storyline" instead of the name of the still. Plus some seemingly random stills are discarded, and I cannot figure the reason why. That's WRONG.

d) Fades and Cross-Disolves still translate correctly.

e) Effects (Vignette, Color Correction, Gaussian Blur, Drop Shadow) are discarded.

f) Transform and associated keyframes do translate, but appear quite shifted, so adjustment will be necessary.

g) Generators are not understood and continue to be replaced by Roundtrip Dummies.

At this point all the known limitations are still in action, we continue to be in "Bake everything into QT before exporting to fcpxml" mode, or too much is lost in translation. Secondary Storylines are still a no-go and a cleaned-up FCPX timeline is your friend.

Here we are again with FCPX cutting stills in-between frames

OK, so I imported and edited a still image in a FCPX project, all is fine. Then I need to tweak the image in Photoshop say, I save the image and it's screwed-up back in FCPX Timeline.
I mean, sub-frame editing is fine and dandy with audio, but with image? There is no sub-frame images in a progressive 23.98 Project. And yes it is visible on playback = I can see an actual jump. And it stays that way unless I re-import the image. Not right!

An image cut in-between frames ???

FCPX Missing Plug-in (Effect) difficult to track down - pt5 (X-FX Handler)

Couldn't hunt this missing Effect down, so I downloaded X-FX Handler from Spherico: http://www.spherico.com/filmtools/X-Files/X-FXHandler/

Exported an XML of the Project, loaded it into X-FX Handler, and Kaboom!

Look at this missing Hawaiki Effect! FASLE! That's right! But, but, hold on a second... That's fine and dandy, but WHERE CAN I FIND IT IN THE TIMELINE?

Ah! Ah! Here is the secret weapon: double click on the missing Effect and Kabaaahm!

It's enabled on CLIP0000180 - THAT I CAN SEARCH FOR IN THE INDEX.

Three Clip0000180 in my Timeline indeed, and the third one wins the missing Effect prize.
(It was actually OFF!) Delete. Good riddance.

Thank you Andreas Kiel, Spherico.

FCPX Missing Plug-in (Effect) difficult to track down - pt4

Here we are again at this topic: how to ID and find missing Effects, Titles and Transitions in FCPX? An ongoing battle.

See my two previous rants here:
http://humanuser.blogspot.com/2015/05/apple-has-to-make-it-easy-to-find.html
https://humanuser.blogspot.com/2017/02/missing-effects-and-titles-in-final-cut.html

Allright, so I discovered by inadvertence that FCPX (10.3.4) is giving SOME hints as to what is missing if you select the Project in the Browser, it will show SOME information.

Right, right, Hawaiki Color is missing, and Adjustment Layer is missing. That's progress.

It's better than showing this, right?

Unfortunately it doesn't help with finding the missing elements in the Timeline. I would like to jump to the actual place in the Timeline where this or these missing elements are being used and review and/or delete them. But I can't. Well for Titles, yes I can since I can isolate Titles in the Index.

So if there is already Titles listed in the Index, it's not too much asking that all other Effects, Generators and Transitions be added to the list, is it? And maybe it's not too much asking that any missing element be FLAGGED in the Index list, is it?

Thank you Apple.

FCPX 10.3.4 The operation couldn't be completed. Invalid argument

Getting the error message from FCPX 10.3.4: "The operation couldn't be completed. Invalid argument" when trying to move a clip between Events.

Well the culprit in this case is a filename containing a dot (in addition to the dot extension), something like: "clip.ver.mp4"

FCPX doesn't like the dot in the filename, so I renamed the clip: "clip_ver.mp4", relinked the file and all is good.

Emojis on macOS Sierra

Call on emojis on Mac by punching: Control + Command + Spacebar. Boom, the emoji/symbols window pops-up.

[Control, ⌘, Spacebar]

As demonstrated by Ben Mercer and Jan Willem den Bok among others, it's a great way to quickly visualize information in FCPX. For example I like to add a ❌ to my "do not use" cuts, and a ✅ to my current cuts.

This way I see immediately that FCPX has opened the proper cut or an old cut in the Timeline without deciphering the names themselves.

I'm still experimenting, and I suppose if you use too many emojis, things start to get blurry again, so it's a balance.

Why does Final Cut Pro X 10.3.2 suck at handling a large number of files - Update: it's the cache!

As much as I like FCPX, its my to go NLE these days, it sucks when dealing with a large number of files.

Disclaimer: I'm on an old fashion mid 2012 Mac Pro, with a 3GB Radeon graphic card.

The core of FCPX is the database, well it's not a very efficient database when it starts to slow to a halt trying to deal with ~4000 files at once.

I am building my SFXs library so it's available and handy within FCPX, of course forget adding Aliases to the Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Final Cut Pro Sound Effects, it's terribly unresponsive and crashes the app with a large number of files.

Instead, create a SFX Library LIBRARY and import and organize your sounds within said Library. (Are you confused already?)

Anyway, alll this is fine, except that I have a 10,000 files in an Adobe sound library I want to import, and oh boy! is FCPX freaking out!  I actually have to make it into smaller batches, else it crashes. Under 1k files is much more digestible it seems.

Then after this pain, it's time to assign roles. I want to assign the same Adobe_CC2015_Library role to these 10k files...  Forget it. FCPX is totally crippled.  Again, I have to do it in smaller batches, 4k or so files. Which brings the beach ball of death and oooops! I'm not touching anything, holding my breath... Nope, can't hold my breath for this long... 1min. 2min. ... All right! Finally it happens! Hooray!

Man! Just trying to select ~4k-6k files brings the beach ball of death!  It finally does what it's told, but it's certainly is not responsive, got to have patience.

Switching from one Event (one SFX Library) to another takes some time... Like 4 or 5 sec. of the beach ball right there with the 10k files library. Hmmmm.

I actually have another audio library that's near 100k files... Well I might wait a little before I bring this one in.

What's your experience in dealing with a large number of files in FCPX?

---UPDATE
Best practice is to store FCPX cache on a separate drive, preferably a SSD. That will speed up things tremendously.

FCPX Missing Plug-in (Effect) difficult to track down - pt3

Oh the joy to open an old project on a new computer...

I ranted some time ago that FCPX dos not make it easy to find what's missing in the Timeline when the only thing that shows is a lame red rectangle with a yellow exclamation point.

Apple has one for missing Files - Well OK, this one works, and the remedy is to relink:

But then it has this one for Effects: 

And one this for Titles:

Great! But what is REALLY MISSING you ask? And there is no way to know until you click on the clip and look into the Inspector to see what can be identified there. Not much.

In this case I was missing an Adjustment Layer and the Apply Basic LUT from Coremelt. This makes troubleshooting difficult.

On the other hand, someone (Denver Riddle at CGC) has been paying attention:

Now this is useful! As it is telling you exactly what's missing!

Now I notice this "feature" is not coming from Apple, it's coming from the plug-in developer, but hey, it's proof that it's possible to flash something useful. Thank you!

BlackMagic Design Desktop Video continues to be a pain with FCPX...

I'm at version 10.8.4 of the Desktop Video app by Blackmagic Design, the "driver" app that allows your favorite NLE to output video to an external monitor, and it's still incredibly unstable with FCPX (now at version 10.3.2.) Like I turn A/V Output on in FCPX, and 30sec. later... CRASH!

What game are you guys playing Apple and BMD? I know that Apple allows to output video directly from Thunderbolt, yet I don't have that luxury, I use video cards. Aja does not have that instability.

I am now a year later, two major OS X upgrades, and two major FCPX upgrades from when I first posted this problem, and I'm on a different machine!

Why is it still unstable. Why?

Users have to go back to version 10.4.1 of the app (released June 10 2015!) to have some stability:

FCPX Crashing w/Desktop Video + Ultra studio Mini

Really? Well thank you for making it available, but one would thing that after three full versions releases you would have fixed this pesky Desktop Video problem, why do you not care BMD?

Final Cut Pro 10.3.2 !!!

Apple updates Pro Apps across the entire line!

The new Final Cut Pro (10.3.2) is out!

So are updates of Compressor (4.3.1), Motion (5.3.1) Logic Pro X (10.3) and Garage Band (10.1.5)

Final Cut Pro puts a big emphasis on the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar:
http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/whats-new/
http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/what-is/
http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/resources/
http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/specs/
The ecosystem is featured:
http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/resources/ecosystem.html
Supported cameras:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204203

Motion is still a 2D app with limited 3D for text:
http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/motion/

Compressor - Where is h265? Maybe I missed it:
http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/compressor/

Logic:
http://www.apple.com/logic-pro/


Note that Pro Video Formats (2.0.5) was updated on Jan 1:
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1898?locale=en_US

From Pro Video Formats (2.0.4):
https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1396?locale=en_US

Some digging into FCPX 10.3 - Import

For starters, importing all kind of footage from my sample footage folder:
- Atomos Ninja Flame
- Canon C300, 5DMKIII
- Panasonic GH4
- Sony A7S, A7RII, F5, FS5, FS7
- DV, DVCPro, DVCAM, HDV
All these guys check, looking good, with proper Timecode, yeah! I notice that the Log setting is available for ALL, even footage that's not Log originated. Interesting.

- Red R3D, nope!
Ah! Need to install RED APPLE WORKFLOW INSTALLER from Red website.
OK, done, and check, all good.

Here is the list of formats officially supported:

Supported media formats

You can import and work with the following video, audio, and still-image formats in Final Cut Pro:

Video formats

• Apple Animation codec
• Apple Intermediate codec
• Apple ProRes (all versions)
• AVCHD (including AVCCAM, AVCHD Lite, and NXCAM)
• AVC-ULTRA (including AVC-LongG, AVC-Intra Class 50/100/200/4:4:4, and AVC-Intra LT)
• DV (including DVCAM, DVCPRO, and DVCPRO50)
• DVCPRO HD
• H.264
• HDV
• iFrame
• Motion JPEG (OpenDML only)
• MPEG IMX (D-10)
• QuickTime formats
• REDCODE RAW (R3D)
• Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2
• Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2
• XAVC (including XAVC-S)
• XDCAM HD/EX/HD422
• XF-AVC

Audio formats

• AAC
• AIFF
• BWF
• CAF
• MP3
• MP4
• WAV

Still-image formats

• BMP
• GIF
• JPEG
• PNG
• PSD (static and layered)
• RAW
• TGA
• TIFF

Container formats

• 3GP
• AVI
• MOV (QuickTime)
• MP4
• MTS/M2TS
• MXF