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FCP 5 RT Sequences have to be rendered in FCP 6?
Hi:
We upgraded from Final Cut Studio 1 to FCS 2 a week ago to upgrade Final Cut Pro to 6.0.4 to be able to read XDCAM EX clips a client sent us. That all worked fine.
But I’m encountering problems today when I open older projects and sequences. Our main focus is motion graphics, which we create in After Effects, and we often render to the Animation codec for best quality. After rendering a composition we’ll often go back and tweak something, then render out just those few seconds and edit the revision into the overall animation in FCP. This always worked fine in FCP 5.0 and earlier. I’d make a sequence with the same settings as the rendered Quicktimes (usually 720×480, D1 pixels, field dominance-none, Animation codec) and drop those into the sequence with no problems.
Today, however, I opened up a project and a Sequence I’d created using the Animation codec, and it showed a solid red bar for the whole 7 minute animation (except for two tiny slivers of blue at the fade up and fade out.) The canvas says Unrendered. This same sequence played fine in FCP 5 ten days ago.
I’m not attempting to play this to tape or anything. I just edit the pieces together to view the whole piece realtime and output a complete Quicktime for compressing to a DVD or whatever.
As a test I made a new sequence from scratch (720×480, D1 pixels, field dominance-none, Animation codec) and dropped a clip (720×480, D1 pixels, field dominance-none, Animation codec) into it and got the same result; the clip had to be rendered. I then went ahead and rendered the clip. I opened the resulting clip from the Render folder in Quicktime player, and it identified the clip as 720×480, Apple Animation Codec. So FCP compressed the clip to the same size and format it already was.
Older sequences using the Photo JPEG codec behave as normal; the sequence plays real time with no rendering required.
Was there some change in FCP 6 that prevents me from playing these Animation codec Quicktimes realtime? I’m not going to be happy if a bunch of old sequences suddenly become unplayable.
Thanks.
Shawn Marshall
Marshall Arts Motion Graphics -
2 Replies
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You my have set Safe RT. Try changing to “Unlimited RT” in your RT tab.
Rafael -
Hi:
Thanks for your reply. There are no Safe or Unlimited RT options available for the sequence. I assume that RT options are limited to certain codecs.
The problem seems to be limited to FCP 5 projects that I’m opening up in FCP 6. I made a new project from scratch and created a 720×480 sequence (D1 pixels, progressive, Animation codec) and dropped one of the problematic clips into it. The clip plays fine in the sequence with a dark grey “no rendering required” bar displayed above it.
On the old edits I’m having problems with I found that if I set RT to “Play Base Layer Only” the sequence will play without rendering, although it still displays a red “rendering required” bar over the whole clip.
Here’s a screen grab of the clip properties and Sequence settings. As far as I can see they match exactly, and they worked fine in FCP 5.
Here’s some additional weirdness. I open my old FCP 5 project in FCP 6 and the old sequences show that they have to be rendered. If I make a new sequence with the settings exactly matching my clips and then edit those clips into the sequence, it shows that all the clips require rendering.
Now if I create a new project on another tab, create a new sequence with the correct settings and drop the same clips into that sequence, the clips play fine, no rendering required. The exact same clips will play fine in a new project but not in the old project. Saving the FCP 5 project under another name and reopening it doesn’t help.
There’s something going on with the FCP 5 files that’s screwing things up.
Shawn Marshall
Marshall Arts Motion Graphics
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