FCP: i/o error, out of memory- stills in timeline?

Well if autosave is enabled, the folder should be in your scratch disk. Default is User / Documents / Final Cut Pro Documents / Autosave Vault. You can check and see if autosave is enabled in FCP by going to User Preferences and it is the box on the bottom left. If it is set you can see where the files are being saved by going to system settings in the FCP menu and the location these are saved at is the third choice under the capture box.

Now, you may want to delete prefs and empty trash before relaunching...
User / Library / Preferences / com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist
User / Library / Preferences / Final Cut Pro User Data / Final Cut Pro 7.0 Prefs
User / Library / Preferences / Final Cut Pro User Data / Final Cut Pro Obj Cache
User / Library / Preferences / Final Cut Pro User Data / Final Cut Pro Prof Cache

Now restart your comp and see if that solves the problem. If not, try remaking that wonky sequence. If that doesn't help you can double click a still in the timeline and then in the viewer click the motion tab and the first variable is the scale of that still. If all your still are the same you can highlight the adjustment, command+c to copy the properties, now highlight the rest of your still in the timeline, right-click and select paste attributes. check the box that says basic motion and it should rescale all the rest of the images for you.

Good luck. I've done tons of still work Ken Burns style in FCP and haven't had an issue like you describe just due to the stills. Worst case scenario, maybe bring them into photoshop and resize there and re-import???

 

My standard still size is 5184 × 3456. That gives me plenty of res to reframe, pan/scan and not lose resolution and jpeg compression "jaggies". Those you mention should not really be that big of an issue. What kind of a machine are you working on?

Any time I have got an out of memory error, a simple trash of the prefs and restart of the machine solved the problem. It shouldn't really continue.I would start a brand new project, drag and drop the GOOD timelines into the ew project and start the wonky timeline from scratch again and hopefully the problems will stop. Hopefully.

 

Sequence wont open

I don't know if in the end you will be able to open your sequence that has problems, but when working with images in FCP there are some rules.

Image Optimization:
1. Nothing over 2000 pixels in width or height
2. RGB images only (no cmyk or greyscale saved images.
3. jpegs, pngs, tiffs I would stick with

Now when you are saving your images to use in FCP DPI has nothing to with the quality size of the image. Its the pixel size you need to be concerned with.

Steps for saving images
1. Open in Photoshop
2. Go to "Edit" drop down menu then "Image Size" option
3. If different then 72dpi change it to that, but note your current pixel dimensions. For example your dpi says 300 and pixels are 3300x1890 or whatever. Drop the DPI to 72 and you will see the pixel dimensions change to a lower number, just push them back up by entering what ever number you want as long as you don't go over 2000 in width and/or height. Hit OK, then save in one of those three options from above, then place in your timeline.

The reason why you change your dpi to 72 is because this is what all video is and anything higher just increases file size but not quality.

Never just take for granted images that are given to you to be put in video always open them check their settings and change if necessary or just do it anyways to make sure. FCP is temperamental about what it likes.

Now if you are using Motion or AfterEffects these apps don't care what you bring in, they take almost anything. But I would still adjust the dpi and pixel settings to a little more then what you need to keep file sizes down.

 

Funny, I use, as stated above, 5184×3456 stills in 1080p24 time lines all the time with no problems.