FCPX shows a black screen on half of every source video?

[Jukas]

Folks,

I've got a weird quirk that I'm hoping to understand. I was trying to cut together a quick video from about 10 difference source videos that were captured with FRAPS on a windows machine about a year ago..

The problem I'm running into is that when I am looking at the source video only the first half of each clip renders in FCP. All clips are between 1min and 5min in length and all play perfectly in QuickTime and VLC so I know the footage is actually there.

So far the only way I've found to see the second half of the footage is to use handbreak to re-encode them to m4v format which while doable is kind of a PITA when you start dealing with lots of source clips that need to be re-encoded.

I've attached a screenshot showing an example..any idea why this is happening?

 

[THX1139]

The problem is that you are working with beta software. Try working in an NLE that has a some history to it and you'll see better results. FCX might be ready for primetime by next summer, until then... look to Adobe to serve your edit needs.

 

[VideoCave]

Re

I don't use FCPX but with FCP these are things I do.

For one m4v is not an editing codec and HandBrake is not what you should be using to encode video. This software compresses video thats it.

You should use QT Pro or MPegStreamClip. Even though its said you can drop anything in FCPX and edit which is somewhat true. All its doing is re-encoding the video for you to its preferred format. But dont always believe what people tell you.

Unfortunatly to make sure everything is really correct for editing including video codecs and audio format, you should really re-encode yourself with one of the mentioned softwares. It may take time but if you want less problems to deal with like the one you are now and others that may come up during editing and exporting your final video. Unless you have/know for sure that the video you are working with has come directly from the camera properly encoded always check its specs which can be easiely done by opening a clip in QTPro and then bring up the info window and it will tell you what codec, size, fps, aduio format that it currently is. And if anything is not what you need re-encode.

 

[Jukas]

I don't use FCPX but with FCP these are things I do.

For one m4v is not an editing codec and HandBrake is not what you should be using to encode video. This software compresses video thats it.

Good to know.

You should use QT Pro or MPegStreamClip. Even though its said you can drop anything in FCPX and edit which is somewhat true. All its doing is re-encoding the video for you to its preferred format. But dont always believe what people tell you.

MpegStreamClip is attractive in that and it supports batch re-encoding. I must admit that I'm very new to video editing on a Mac as I've always had PC's before and the source avi's from FRAPS or consumer dv have always just worked. I'll also mention that I video edit as a hobbyist, so I don't have the knowledge of codecs as a working pro would


There are many output choices when re-encoding with Mpegstreamclip, at the risk of sounding a noob how do I know which format to export to, to be sure it'll work in FCPX?

 

[VideoCave]

Re

FCP and FCPX preffered format is Apple ProRes. You will be fine with Apple ProRes 422 or 422HQ. Then there is apples new ProRes 4444 which basically is 422 with an alpha channel.

I've been editing for 7 years and still learn something new all the time. Or have problem that I have never had before. And yes video is over complicated. Especially with every camera manufacture coming out with their own specific codec and resolution for each of their different cameras. There is absolutely now reason for this nonsense but what are you going to do.

Hollywood people are just stupid.

Now when you go to export a video its a whole other mess but more simplified.

To keep is simple just use a .mov with and h.264 compression. You don't need to export anything that is in a raw uncompressed format unless its going to another editor to continue working. Or you would like to have a Master to export to additional formats as needed. This way you don't need to export from the timeline each time and will be much quicker export renders.