.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.

PAL to NTSC DVD Conversion

Here's another reason to lament VisualHub's passing.

A client needed a PAL DVD of dailies converted to NTSC that day. Looking at the structure of the DVD I saw that there were luckily no menus, just four VOB files.

I launched VisualHub, dragged the VOB files into it, told it NTSC, Author as DVD, Burn When Done and popped in a blank DVD. About an hour later I had an NTSC DVD for them.

So if you need a fast simple way to convert a PAL DVD to NTSC (that's not copy protected) and don't want to worry about 720x576@25fps vs. 720x480@29.97fps, VisualHub is a pretty straight forward route.

You can also name the DVD in the Advanced window and tell it to create chapter stops every 5mins or so if you'd like.

Here's looking forward to Transcoder Redux in the future world of tomorrow as a VisualHub replacement.

Looping Video Playback in the Timeline

Someone emailed me the other day asking how to loop video playback in FCP's timeline. After thinking about it for a little bit (and way over-thinking how to do it) it hit me and it's simple.

Set your In and Out points in the timeline. Don't bother with Option + A to select the portion of your sequence within the In and Out points. Tap Control + L to turn on Loop Playback, then hit Shift + \ (backslash) to just play the portion of the sequence between the In and Out points.

(Thanks to Josh for bringing this up!)

Digital Cinema Desktop Can Crash Final Cut Pro

Apple just noticed a long standing bug in FCP.

Changing system display settings causes Final Cut Pro/Express to quit unexpectedly

Wow. News.

Here's their solution:

Avoid making changes to the system display settings while Final Cut Pro/Express is using Digital Cinema Desktop. Set the display size, arrangement, and color profiles before activating Digital Cinema Desktop in Final Cut Pro/Express.

Here's the link.

Video Monkey

Video Monkey is a Mac-only application for the conversion of video between a variety of formats. It borrows concepts from the great, but now defunct Video Hub software.

While they probably mean VisualHub, I'm not sure this is using it's open sourced code. Video Monkey, which I didn't try yet is only at version 0.1 as of this post so it's something to watch but not something to rely on day to day.

I didn't install it because it comes wrapped up in a .pkg file and I've never liked installers exploding files all over the place, although the installer just as the application within it. So, I extracted it via Pacifist and here are the screenshots:




As you can see lots of export options are greyed out and there are the handy "Check Box 1" and "Check Box 2" already checked for you. If the developer keeps this app updated and actually adds in all the greyed out export options this could be the next VisualHub. However, my first test failed when it failed to recognize a .flv I dragged into it.

Super-Quick Way to Import CD (RedBook) Audio

Here's a quick one:

If you need to "rip" some music from a CD a client has burned off as a regular (RedBook) audio CD, don't bother going into iTunes or QuickTime or anything like that. Just pop the CD into the Mac, open it up in the Finder and Drag the audio files to your project's media folder, then load them into FCP.

The process of dragging them from the CD's window in the Finder to your Media folder (or anywhere else) rips them as .AIF files automatically.

How to keep HD Aspect Ratios when exporting to SD

Apple updated a little article today called "How to maintain aspect ratio when exporting high definition formats to standard definition".

It helps you figure out how to export an HD project to an SD file and still maintain it's proper aspect ratio. It basically says use a Reference Movie for non-IMX formats and create a new preset for IMX exports.

Final Cut Assistant - YAFCT

Final Cut Assistant is YAFCT (Yet Another Final Cut Tool) that will trash your prefs, user settings, etc... but does one interesting thing that I haven't seen other apps do: Deactivate Final Cut Studio. Now, I haven't tried this app but it likely just deletes a certain file that contains the registration number for FCS which is an interesting function to offer.

From their site:

Deactivate Final Cut Studio
If you want to install Final Cut Studio on a different computer, you should first deactivate it on your computer to avoid serial number conflicts.

Use the Deactivate Final Cut Studio command to remove the licensing information without uninstalling Final Cut Studio.

It's similar to FCPRescue from the BeforeTime™ and free so maybe it's worth having around although it does nothing that can't be done manually in the Finder. There is a screenshot here, which shows Final Cut Assistant being a menubar item which is a nice idea.

Maybe one day Apple will just include some of these basic functions from within FCP itself, just like iCal has a Backup and Restore option under it's File menu.

How to Name Projects and Assets

Apple has updated it's standard Knowledge Base article on how to properly name FCS's Projects and Assets.

Basically it's generally a good idea to stick with "0-9 A-Z a-z _ -" when naming project save files and media files, using anything else may cause issues here and there. I like their three categories though:

Tried and True
Best to Avoid
All the rest

That's essentially AppleSpeak for YMMV.

fcPrefsManager

The oddly named fcPrefsManager has been released as a 1.0 app.

fcPrefsManager provides functions to easily manage and backup all you Final Cut Pro preferences. A unique function creates deployment droplets allowing you to copy settings to other systems without the application installed.

You can read more about it and download this free app here. They even have a handy online storage calculator to calculate how much space a given amount of a given codec requires.

I haven't tried it but I like the idea that it can do it's thing without having the app installed via droplets. Luckily, it's free because a simple function like this isn't hard to replicate with a basic AppleScript.