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FCP X destroys my audio
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[Jeremy Garchow] “While Color is supper straight forward, it has trouble with 4k sources, the LUT implementation is all or nothing (not clip based), and making changes are a real pain as keyframes are very hard to edit. The tracking is just OK, and matte creation could be better.”
Agreed. The last 4K-sourced feature I graded in Color was an all-RED project. I found it earlier to “pre-grade” in RCX, then export RedLogFilm 1080p ProRes4444 files, after which I then did the final grade in Color. Worked like a champ and ten times more responsive than trying to grade native RED files in Resolve even today. I almost never use LUTs, preferring to create the curve from scratch myself. But yes, Color only uses a display LUT approach. Resolve’s tracker blows every other tracker in a color correction tool away.
[Jeremy Garchow] ” If you don’t have a super set plan going in, or something changed midstream, Color has some rigid handcuffs without starting a whole new Grade,…”
Yes and no. On the Alexa-sourced film I referenced in the other post, my starting point was to use the Primary In as a place to neutralize the shot. Then S1 was my basic “look”. S8 was for edge vignettes. This left me S2-S7 from all other adjustments, like isolations for faces and other such “power windows”.
In a dialogue scene cutting back and forth between two angles, I might have PI/S1/S8 the same on all shots, but then have something on S2-S7 on only one angle. Very simple to add the secondaries to each alternating shot simply by moving through the timeline. Then go back and tweak as needed.
I find that maintaining this kind of a structure in Resolve is harder. You can really get confused with how you’ve set up nodes from shot to shot over the course of 1,000-2,000 shots in a typical 2 hour film.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Color does work well with Red as Red supports it, even today. But if you have other 4k sources, it’s a lot harder unless you do a crap ton of transcoding. I’m over all of that.
[Oliver Peters] “This left me S2-S7 from all other adjustments, like isolations for faces and other such “power windows”.”
Right, but you might not know which order you need those in, so you start in the middle, like S4. But if you need S4 to move to S5, you have to start all over. And S4 will effect S5, so you might have to go back and adjust S5 to get it back to where it was. It’s a pain.
But, you can also use this to an advantage and work backwards. I do this a lot in Color. Start with the primary out, and work back, and then circle back to primary out.
FCS3 is dead, long live (insert something else here)!
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Oddly enough, I’ve had that exact problem with FCP7 a few times over the last year, maybe two. It always involves an imported WAV file, not AIFF, so I think something my be going on at that level. I had just assumed that it was part of FCP being set loose to drift away like a ghost ship, and it hasted my move back to Avid and Premiere. Maybe its a WAV/Foundation thing.
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[Chris Harlan] “I had just assumed that it was part of FCP being set loose to drift away like a ghost ship, and it hasted my move back to Avid and Premiere. Maybe its a WAV/Foundation thing.”
Great. You’ve made me feel even more comfortable with these tools ;-( Windows anyone?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
The other very odd thing that seems to happen with imported .wav is that they will occasionally become unstable in the FCP timeline and drift off their internal timing momentarily to create a weird loop while also cutting out a portion of the file that can’t be gotten rid of other than matching back to the source file. Its really annoying, and completely unpredictable.
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[Chris Harlan] “he other very odd thing that seems to happen with imported .wav is that…”
I’ve never run into that with FCP, but I have run into weird issues with double-system sound sync in earlier versions of Premiere.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I did a little more sleuthing on this issue. It appears to boil down to mixed sample rates. Although it seems to be a bug as to why it’s happening. Here’s the situation.
The points on the timeline that cause the distortion on export are places where I used a specific set of B-roll shots. These were 25fps H264 clips that I externally converted to ProRes 23.98 and imported into FCP X. (Converted via MPEG Streamclip and then conformed with Cinema Tools.) The transcoded video is ProRes at 23.98, but the resulting sample rate of audio in the new files is about 46KHz due to the frame rate change. The audio is never used and these clips appear in the timeline with volume reduced to nothing. Audio was not detach or removed – only silenced – but still present as part of the clip in the timeline.
When I detach and remove the audio from these clips, there is no distortion on export in these areas. If I copy-and-paste only the connected audio clips (my WAV dialogue and my AIF music cues) to a new timeline, also no distortion. So that leads me to pinpoint these specific B-roll clips as the source of the distortion – even though none of their audio was ever in the mix.
I have done this sort of thing for a long time with both FCP “legacy” and FCP X, so it would appear that with Mavericks and/or FCP X 10.1 something has changed regarding the tolerance for mixed sample rates. Maybe an AVF issue?
FWIW – this project has other clips that were transcoded/conformed externally from 59.94 and/or 29.97 to 23.98, as well. None of these seem to pose any issues. Only the clips that started as 25fps.
At least, that’s the preliminary analysis as of today.
Cheers,
OliverOliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
It could be not FCPX or the 25fps were the issue but the specific encoding of those 25fps files. Did they all come from the same source?
I recently had a similar issue with audio peaks AND video glitches when I encoded some h.264 files I got from an agency into Windows Media (it was supposed to play in a Digital Signage system). After Effects, Edius and MPEG Streamclip on the PC failed.
I then tried MPEG stream clip and QT7 on the Mac side of my studio. No chance to get them clean. And MPEGStreamclip doesn´t fail very often!Finally tried FCPX (without much hope)….worked like a charm. Don´t ask me why and how, but it was the only software that was able to re-encode these h.264 move into ProRes which I could then work with normally. All this was while I maintained the 25fps. No conforming necessary.
So maybe their is something with the GOP order or keyframe settings that FCPX didn´t like in your case. If they all come from the same source, maybe their settings are exactly what throws FCPX off, while the ones I got where apparently the other way round.
If they are different sources /encoders, then we might see more of this and it could be a conforming issue.Did you try to conform them to 23.98 within FCPX instead of Cinema Tools (now called auto-speed, was conform-speed).
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[alban egger] “Did they all come from the same source?”
Yes. These were from the same source and I transcoded in MPEG SC to ProRes, changed the frame rate to 23.98 using Cinema Tools and embedded TC/Reel ID in FCP 7. Real-time playback is fine in all places. No indication of any problems.
[alban egger] “Did you try to conform them to 23.98 within FCPX instead of Cinema Tools”
I didn’t do that with these, although I had some 29.97 sources that I conformed in FCP X that way.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[alban egger] “I recently had a similar issue with audio peaks AND video glitches when I encoded some h.264 files I got from an agency into Windows Media (it was supposed to play in a Digital Signage system). After Effects, Edius and MPEG Streamclip on the PC failed.
I then tried MPEG stream clip and QT7 on the Mac side of my studio. No chance to get them clean. And MPEGStreamclip doesn´t fail very often!”
Alban,I had a similar problem, but opposite result with video last year. I had one user on my website with a newer Android device that couldn’t view any of my video. I first thought it might be a Flash Player problem or an issue with HTML5 video, but he couldn’t even get the .mp4 video to play on his Android when I just sent the file over.
I typically use the x264 codec, so I then tried straight .mp4 exports from Compressor, FCPX, and QT7, but none would work for him. I then tried an export from MPEG Streamclip using x264 and he got it to play. He’s the first and only user that has reported this problem, but it does seem odd.
Dave
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