Ingesting & Importing A Screen Recording .mov into Final Cut Pro

As if we didn't have reason enough to hate QuickTime X here's another:

You can't just ingest a Screen Recording you make into FCP. Nope. You have to convert it first to something else.

I suspect it's because of the odd frame rates that screen recordings are in. Take a look at this example:

8.23 FPS.

If you try and ingest it into FCP you'll see this:

What's going on? How can  you load a QuickTime movie (a format by Apple) made by Quicktime X (software from Apple) into Final Cut Pro (Video editing software made by Apple)?

Insane, right?

I think it has something to do with the frame rate. Although I can't fathom why, FCP seems to want some "normal" frame rates in this case.

Test #1 - Export using QuickTime 7 to H.264 @ 29.97 FPS

Result: FCP will accept.

Test #2 - Export using QuickTime 7 to H.264 @ "current" FPS (8.23)

Result: FCP will NOT accept.

Test #3 - Export using QuickTime 7 to ProRes (non HQ) @ "current" FPS (8.23)

Result: FCP will NOT accept.

Test #4 - Export using QuickTime 7 to ProRes (non HQ) @ 29.97 FPS

Result: FCP will accept.

Bonus Test #1 - Export using QuickTime 7 to ProRes (non HQ) @ 8 FPS

Result: FCP will accept.

Bonus Test #2 - Export using QuickTime 7 to H.264 @ 8 FPS

Result: FCP will accept.

I have no idea why QuickTime X records Screen Recordings at a frame rate that FCP doesn't like. Likewise, I have no idea while FCP won't accept certain frame rates, but at least there's a work-around.

Btw, this is FCP 6.0.6. I haven't tested it under FCP 7.x yet.

I'd recommend transcoding your Screen Recordings into ProRes at 8 FPS which will make them a bit smaller compared to 29.97 (obviously) and less CPU intensive.

Trim accurately in QuickTime X with AppleScript

MacOSXhints.com has a neat little tip from "Anonymous" on using AppleScript to trim on the frame with QuickTime X. Just the fact that this is a tip should let you know enough to steer clear of QuickTime X.

tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
trim document 1 from 0 to 600
end tell

Viewing small movies at correct size in Quicktime X

I really really really don't like Quicktime X.

Here's a rather unusual tip to view small movies at their correct size since QTX resizes and scales up smaller movies.

"To quickly view a movie without this restriction, I drag it into a new mail message. The player used in Mail has the old-style controller at the bottom, and plays the movies at the correct size."

It may be further evidence that QTX is just window dressing to the old standard QT core technology that's been around for a while now.

Quicktime Player Launcher preventing always "Open With" QuickTime Player 7

Try this in Snow Leopard:

01) Get Info on a typical .mov file.
02) Set "Open With" to QuickTime Player 7. (which will be in your utilities folder...)
03) Hit "Change All".
04) Watch the Open With pulldown magically change to QuickTime Player Launcher...which will launch QuickTime Player (X)...sigh.

What is QuickTime Player Launcher? It's an application INSIDE the QuickTime Player 7 app. Right Click on it so Show Package Contents to see it. Then if you want, do that again on QuickTime Player Launcher itself.

What does it do? I have no idea other than seemingly prevent a Snow Leopard user from opening their movie files in something other than QuickTime Player (aka QuickTime X). Seems a little heavy-handed to me coming from Apple.

Here is a thread about it:
Setting .mov files to play in QuickTime Player 7



There is a workaround but I have no idea how "safe" it is.

01) Right-Click on QuickTime Player 7 in your Utilities folder and Show Package Contents
02) Goto Contents>Resources and locate "QuickTime Player Launcher".
03) Right-Click on it and select Compress "QuickTime Player Launcher". The resultant .zip file may appear on your desktop because you probably don't have Write permissions to this folder. Just drag it into the folder and Authenticate when it asks you to.
04) Drag (or highlight and Command + Delete) the original QuickTime Player Launcher to the trash. Authenticate if needed.
05) Empty the trash. (Command + Shift + Option + Delete)

Now, Get Info on a .mov (or whichever) file and tell it to Open With QuickTime Player 7 and Change All and then all of those files types should (so far for me) open with QT7.

The only issue you may see are some messed up QT icons in the Finder, either blank or the generic Unix app icon. Possibly because the OS thinks QT now has an unregistered extension.

I'll update this post if any weirdness happens.

QuickTime X Preference Pane

MCS (Megabyte Computing Solutions) has created an unofficial Preference Pane for Quicktime X.

You can see it's known issues which are significant in the 1.0 release here.

I'm always leary of 3rd party stuff so I haven't tried this out yet but it's good to know it's there if you dislike using the terminal since it's just a GUI for "defaults write".

(You can start learning about terminal commands for QTX here.)

QuickTime X's Plans

Here's a really interesting article from arstechnica which may allay some trepidation about QTX (although it's still not useful to Pro users at all).

As anxious as developers may be for a full-featured, 64-bit successor to the QuickTime 7 engine, Apple itself is sitting on top of one of the largest QuickTime-riddled (and Carbon-addled, to boot) code bases in the industry: Final Cut Studio. Thus far, It remains stuck in 32-bit. To say that Apple is "highly motivated" to extend the capabilities of QuickTime X would be an understatement.

Nevertheless, don't expect Apple to rush forward foolishly. Duplicating the functionality of a continually developed, 18-year-old API will not happen overnight. It will take years, and it will be even longer before every important Mac OS X application is updated to use QTKit exclusively.

More QT X Failure

You can't export more than one thing at a time even with QT7.

- While it's exporting some people say you can't even use QT7 at all for other functions.

- All of QT7's capabilities are available to other apps, like the pro app series but QT X does not have access to them.

- You can no longer hit a button to jump to the beginning or end of a video in QT X.

- Control + Clicking on a QTX Video will remove the title bar and floating control window (moving the mouse will bring it back) allowing you to take a clean screenshot of the window with Command + Shift + 4 then Spacebar.

- QTX does not seem to be able to play DV footage while QT7 can.

- You can't export a frame as a still image.

- You can't click and drag out a Movie Clipping.

QuickTime X's Titlebar Obscures Content

See the Mac's menubar under the titlebar of the QuickTime X window? What a horrible design. If someone was watching a screen recording and paused it to see what menu was clicked on they wouldn't see it clearly.