FCP X: Which Frame Sizes?

[Infrared]

Which frame sizes does FCP X support for:

(a) Ingested material.
(b) Edited material (formerly "sequences").

I sometimes edit screen captures, and these can
be 1680x1050px, which is 16:10 rather than 16:9.

My concern is that FCP X wouldn't be able to import
and work with that material.

 

[TheNightPhoenix]

Not good news, I can't find any way to set a custom frame size.

I've brought in still images in different sizes, but from what I can see you can only choose preset "normal" sizes for projects.

Even if you ask it to set the Project properties based on the first clip, it'll choose the best choice out of the default options.

 

[LethalWolfe]

FCP X limits you to standard TV rasters. Setting custom frame sizes is not an available.


Lethal

 

[Infrared]

Well, that's disappointing, but not entirely surprising.

It almost seems as though FCP X doesn't use Quicktime at all.
In FCP 7, whether you were importing, editing or exporting, you
could choose from the entire array of Quicktime codecs on the
system. And, as you know, custom frame sizes could be set in
the sequence settings.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Well, that's disappointing, but not entirely surprising.

It almost seems as though FCP X doesn't use Quicktime at all.
In FCP 7, whether you were importing, editing or exporting, you
could choose from the entire array of Quicktime codecs on the
system. And, as you know, custom frame sizes could be set in
the sequence settings.

I don't think it is. At least no the QT we've come to know and love. The old QT code (the stuff from the 90's that's been the underlying video 'framework' for all of Apple's products) is being totally replaced with a new framework called AV Foundation. It's still in a rough transition phase from the old QT code to the new (hence why we have both QT 7 and QT X) though Lion is all based on AV Foundation. So, for example, QT X should become more functional in Lion as opposed to now where it's basically just a lame viewer app.

I think the limitations in exporting and the lack of being able to set custom sequence sizes are just limitations imposed by Apple though.


Lethal