FCPX Questions and Answers

FCPX has dropped into the App store along with Motion and Compressor. Those links are App Store links, btw.

Many initial questions are covered here. It's well worth a read.
Macworld has an article on it here.

However, right off the bat with the dot zero release:

1. You cannot currently import FCP6/7 projects into FCPX (see #4)
2. There is no Multiclip/Multicam.
3. Many plug-ins currently do not work.
4. Currently there is no XML Import or Export.
5. Currently there is no native OMF Export or Export to Logic.
6. Doesn't currently work natively with R3D or XDCAM (they need to be re-wrapped first).
An update has already addressed this somewhat.
7. There are no longer distinct Canvas and Viewer windows.
8. You cannot set In and Out points for tape capture nor (AFAIK) is there a batch tape capture ability.
9. You cannot "Save As" to duplicate a project (at least not that easily).
10. Apparently you can't Print (output) to tape, anymore.

Motion 4: May be unable to open projects

Here's a handy tip if Motion 4 refuses to open a project for you after installing Snow Leopard and FCS 09:

To address this issue, be sure Motion is not running. Then, open Terminal (located in ~/Applications/Utilities), and run the following command:

sudo touch /Applications/Motion.app

The Knowledge Base article is here.

What's Touch do? From it's Man page:

The touch utility sets the modification and access times of files to the current time of day. If the file doesn't exist, it is created with default permissions.

FCP Knowledge Base Updates

Troubleshooting Basics
Green frames or other anomalies on render with REDCODE
Quality issue with movies you export from the Viewer with filters applied
Log and capture with DV50 sometimes does not work in French or Japanese
Speed interferes with Smooth Cam
Some imported PSD files may only contain the background layer

Motion quits unexpectedly when exporting to REDCODE

Compressor Troubleshooting Basics

.motn files render as black in FCP timeline

I've mentioned this a long time ago here, and this ridiculous bug still persists.

Basically, when you go from Final Cut Pro (6.0.5) to Motion (3.0.2) and then back again (via saving in Motion) sometimes the .motn file that is initially placed in the timeline will be completely black. Also, sometimes, when you open it in the Viewer, it's fine; putting it manually into the timeline it looks fine but unrendered. Render it and it's all black again.

Bizzarely, create a new sequence and place the .motn file into the timeline and it'll look fine, render it, and it'll be black.

Worst of all, export from Motion and the resultant Quicktime file will sometimes be all black.

There's another thread on this here.

Stranger still, in Motion, Export Selection... will do nothing when In and Out points have been set.

This must be some kind of rare bug (possibly confused alpha channels or frame rate mis-match) or settings issue with Motion or Final Cut that spans software versions, years (yes, years) and Mac models and graphics cards. I'm experiencing this issue on not only with a newer version of FCP than last time, but Motion as well, as well as a model of Mac that wasn't available at that time with a graphics card unavailable at that time.

The solution? For me at least, there is no solution, only a workaround of exporting out of Motion as an 8-bit Uncompressed file then import that into Final Cut Pro.

If you have any information, tips, hints or anything about this please let me know. I'm not the only one dealing with this issue judging from a few people I've asked about it.

Here are some links to threads about this issue (and similar ones) from some emails I've received:

FCP interprets .ipr & .motn files (correctly) with Black alpha. Since when?

Livetype problems since going to FCP 6.0.3 and QT 7.4.5

Livetype problems with K3

Live Type maybe fixed?

Livetype Effects misbehavin'

Suggested Possible Solutions:

01. Change the Alpha of the Motion files from straight to black (or vice-versa).
02. Go to the View menu and change the preset for playback to none or at least something other than what it is set to now.

Opening Old Projects in Motion 3 Problems

Symptoms
Projects created in Motion 2.1 or earlier that use filters including position parameters applied to a 2D layer may behave differently when opened in Motion 3. The center point of the effect may no longer remain with the underlying footage, but may move in the opposite direction.

Resolution
To restore the original behavior, follow these steps:

Open the project in Motion 3.
Choose Window > Layers.
Select the 2D layer in the Layers window.
Select the Groups tab in the Inspector.
Select the Fixed Resolution check box.
Save the project.

Yup. Doing this reminds me of Dan Lyons's great quote, "If your just going to repeat press releases, why have the press?"

Unsupported Video Cards

Just for fun, here's what can happen in Motion when you don't have a fully supported video card.

Motion .motn render Bug in Final Cut

It seems there's a bug or some sort of issue with .motn files being loaded into FCP's timeline and rendered. When un-rendered and you Option + P play them, or scrub through them they look fine. They even play in the viewer normally albeit a bit choppy.

But when you render them in FCP they appear as completely black.

There are a few threads about this at Apple here and here and here.

The solutions offered there didn't work for me so I'm thinking it may be a video card/driver issue, some obscure setting or incompatibility between settings or just a bug.

The workaround is to export a rendered clip from Motion then import that into FCP for me at least with FCP 6.0.1 and Motion 3.0.1.

One interesting thing is that this works as expected when using one of the new glass screen iMacs and FC Studio 2 so maybe it's a video card incompatibility or a limitation of some video cards.