[Alan Okey]

First, apply the transition to a clip in the sequence. Next, adjust the transition parameters to your liking. Then, drag the transition from the viewer to the browser, right-click and set default transition. That should accomplish what you’re asking. The key is to tweak the transition parameters before making it the default transition.

[Alan Okey]

Your version of FCP is probably older than the version used to create the project.

Make sure your computer is connected to the Internet, then run Software Update, located in the Apple menu in the menu bar. Install any FCP or Pro App updates and try again.

[Alan Okey]

[Lee Warner] “The aspect ratio of EX is not square. XDCAMHD is square pixel but EX is I think 1.33.”

That’s not correct. XDCAM EX is in fact full raster 1920×1080 square pixels. XDCAM HD is 1440×1080 @ 35mbps 4:2:0 and 1920×1080 @ 50mbps 4:2:2.

The EX cameras have a lower quality 25mpbs 1080i mode that is 1440×1080 (HDV compatible), but all of the HQ modes are square pixel full raster formats.

[Alan Okey]

[Shane Ross] “God…this is worse than “rickrolling” us.”

Here’s the antidote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi00ykRg_5c

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[Alan Okey]

After looking at all of the clips (not just the one with the flower petals), I’d guess that they probably shot them all on a Phantom:

https://vimeo.com/groups/21986/videos/9170294

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[Alan Okey]

AJA data rate calculator:

https://www.aja.com/products/software/

[Alan Okey]

As you have discovered, the current version of FCP cannot smoothly edit h.264 in its native format. There are no ways around this other than transcoding to ProRes.

Your only options are:

1. Buy more storage

2. Switch to Premiere Pro, which handles h.264 natively

3. Wait to see what the next version of FCP brings…

[Alan Okey]

What are your sequence settings, exactly?

[Alan Okey]

[Charles Mouyat] “you think if I push the sequence up to the higher res I may have a more “native” rendering capacity?”

I suspect that your slow rendering times are due to the sequence codec, which I’m guessing is probably HDV. Long-GOP intraframe codecs like HDV can really bog down a machine when rendering. ProRes is an interframe codec, which is much easier to work with and render.

As for the 1440×1080 vs. 1920×1080 question, some codecs like HDV use a “thin raster” format in which the horizontal resolution is slightly compressed in order to save bandwidth. There’s no good reason to do that if you’re not working with video footage that was shot in a thin raster format. Full-raster formats are 1920×1080 square pixels. Since you’re working with stills, which inherently have square pixels, it makes more sense to work in a full-raster format.

Unfortunately, if you’ve been handed a project that’s using a 1440×1080 sequence, every clip that’s been added to the timeline will have already had a slight distortion added to them automatically by FCP in order to match the square pixel images to the non-square pixel sequence format. Once you change your sequence settings dimensions to 1920×1080 square pixels, you’ll need to get rid of this slight distortion that was applied to your clips by selecting all of the clips in your timeline, right-clicking (or control-clicking) and selecting “remove attributes.” Next, check the “distort” box and proceed. This should reset any pixel aspect ratio distortion that was previously introduced and return all of the images to their native undistorted square pixel aspect ratio.

[Charles Mouyat] “I’d appreciate any insight to codecs and sequence settings that will mitigate my problem.”

As others have mentioned, simply open your sequence settings, change the sequence dimensions to 1920×1080, make sure the pixel aspect ratio is set to square pixels, and change the sequence codec to ProRes 422. Next, perform the procedure outlined above to remove any distortion introduced into the clips in the timeline.

With any luck, your render times should improve substantially.

[Alan Okey]

If your project consists only of stills, why did you choose a thin raster sequence instead of full-raster 1920×1080? What are your sequence settings? What is the sequence codec? If it’s a long-GOP codec like HDV, then you’re just asking for trouble.

If you absolutely had to do this in FCP instead of After Effects or Motion (which are much better suited to this type of work), then I think you would have been better off working in a 1920×1080 ProRes 422 sequence.