[Ben Balser]

You can and it’s easy enough as Jeremy says, with a caveat. You said PNG, so you should be safe. The issue could arise that their graphic doesn’t have an alpha channel (if I had a nickel for every time I got one like that…). If not, it will cover your Timeline and you won’t be able to use it. Either way, I bet you anything it matches what’s built-in to FCPX, because it’s an industry standard. I’ve never seen a situation where a TV station needed some odd “custom” zone settings.

When I ran TV broadcast, we sent a graphic out because we never knew the level or software of who we were contracting with. I’d ask what NLE they used, and had them explain action and title safe to me on the phone. If they knew, I was fine. If they didn’t or stumbled, we sent out a file with alpha channel, explained how to use it, and what it was for.

But you should be fine, it seems.

[Ben Balser]

Well, I’ve always just purchased what I needed, as each job required, and work the cost of those plugins and templates into the job quote. I’ve never needed dozens of templates and plugins for one single job, and I’ve been t this for 30 years. Plus, I’m not that impressed with what Motion Array offers for FCPX, and there’s next to nothing worth while for Motion. I find more and better assets with SVM, Industrial Revolution, MotionVFX, FxFactory, etc. But, this really is an opinion decision, not a technical decision, so you have to decide what works for you, no one else’s experience it the same as yours. Definitely not a technical question with an easy answer. I will say, shop around. $30/month is cheap, but how much “useful” product is there for the types of work you’ll be doing?

[Ben Balser]

Have you tried simply putting the original footage I an FCPX 30fps timeline, then export, see what it looks like?

[Ben Balser]

Get the most power you can afford, it’ll perform better, and have more longevity. Simple as that. A short film, unless is has a ton of special effects, shouldn’t require a lot of power, but what happens after that? You’ll do more work, more challenging work, be prepared.

[Ben Balser]

I use CrumplePop audio plugins, and never had any playback issues on any of the Macs in the TV station I ran production for.

[Ben Balser]

The answers are “never” and “it depends on your workflow”.

[Ben Balser]

As a professional dog trainer (retired from TV production), really, fantastic you have a dog who does well alone. I use Petcam cameras which are motion and sound sensitive and will record a bit when triggered. But aside from that, and wildlife can move too fast for those motion triggered cameras often, yep, manually scan. But a motion detector would be cool. I beta test on occasion for Coremelt and may ask them if such a plugin would be doable.

[Ben Balser]

Yeah, OTS shot, I’d be tempted to learn Blender… But, there is an mO2 users group on Facebook. I strongly urge you to join it and post there. Folks who are very mO2 experienced there may have some better advice.

[Ben Balser]

I’ve never seen a motion detection plugin for FCPX (or any other NLE). Aside from placing it in a timeline and using the skimmer, which is pretty fast. Or if hitting the L key a few times to play fast forward, unless the movement is too brief and you’d miss it that way. Or put it in a timeline, make it really tall, zoom in the perfect amount, and just look at the thumbnails. But an automated motion detection system, not in FCPX, really.

[Ben Balser]

I have just discovered an H.264 clip I downloaded from Vimeo won’t trim. So I guess there are some undocumented limitations. I re-encoded this clip with Handbreak to H.264, and it worked fine. Seems to not be format, but how it was encoded. Everyone has their own flavor of everything now. What a royal PITA it has become.