[Christopher Mcdonell]

The conversation has continued in the Motion forum. Click here

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Christopher Mcdonell]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for writing in. I tried changing the alpha channel in FCP. The others were all Straight. When changed to Black, there is a modest improvement but it is still not as good as the version with the premultiply checkbox deselected. I found a copy of v 5.2.3 on my backup drive so reinstalled that. I’ve done several tests between the two (v 5.2.3 and v 5.3) and it seems to me that the one and only issue is that v 5.3 doesn’t allow for deselecting Premultiply alpha. I’m quite surprised by this omission and that no one else is speaking up. Fading in titles where the Alpha is premultiplied shows a black background that should simply be translucent. It’s unacceptable. Unless I’m missing something or there’s a workaround, I won’t be able to use 5.3 which is certainly a good-looking update.

See for yourself that the checkbox is missing. Render settings in 5.2.3:

v 5.3:

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Christopher Mcdonell]

Still haven’t resolved this. When text fades in, it begins with the black ghosting. Looks terrible. Can someone suggest a solution given that all I had to do before was deselect a checkbox and now that box is gone.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Christopher Mcdonell]

No one has any ideas? I need to modify some of my text files so have to resolve this issue.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Christopher Mcdonell]

I’ve been editing with 6.0.6 on El Capitan 6 days/week for the last 6 months straight. The earlier versions of Motion and Compressor are incompatible so just have to get the new versions and say goodbye to round-tripping. The colour dropper doesn’t work when using the various filters and I get random crashes here and there. I have auto-save set for every 20 minutes. Other than that, works just fine.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Christopher Mcdonell]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for responding. The problem I was having with the WhatsApp video was that I couldn’t figure out how to bring it into FCP with audio. The video itself didn’t work. First generation attempts with Compressor didn’t work. So I had to export the original file into an .mov with QT 10 (no setting controls) then import that into Compressor and transcode a ProRes version from there.

I guess my question re: the variable frame rate, is why does the iPhone 5 shoot that way to begin with? I haven’t looked into it but I wonder if it shoots constant fps with the 6 or 7. Too late now but maybe there’s an app I could’ve used to control the fps.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Christopher Mcdonell]

Well I solved the WhatsApp conversion problem. Had to export an .mov with the latest version of QT, then import that into Compressor and go from there. Unfortunately, there’s no control over the export (just 480p). But it worked!

Strangely, my attempts with QT Pro didn’t work at all. Wouldn’t even play it properly. Same goes with VLC.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Christopher Mcdonell]

To install PowerPC apps like FCS 2 you need Rosetta (not to be confused with Rosettastone!). If you have or can acquire a copy of Snow Leopard, you can extract Rosetta from it and you’ll be good to go. I think there’s also a workaround requiring a bit of a code hack but you’ll have to google for it. I was lucky enough to buy a copy of Snow Leopard from Apple when they put it back on the market.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Christopher Mcdonell]

“CHristopher, Compressor won’t work with AVCHD files. The best bet is to get EditReady. I have used it and it’s predecessor for years and it’s rock solid. MUCH better than any of the competition.”

Ahh. Sorry. Didn’t know that.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Christopher Mcdonell]

“Tried a third-party converter (Free AVCHD to MOV) and while it worked well, it split lengthy clips in two parts and FCP7 isn’t reading the files properly, so I’ll have to re-export them somehow with MPEGStreamclip or QT.”

It doesn’t sound like you need to be using log & transfer at all. Just transcode your files with a third party and import them, as you’re referencing above. Why not just buy Apple Compressor. You could test one file, make sure it works, then batch compress the whole bunch. It’s only $50 and if time is money, you’ve already spent much more than that looking for workarounds.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM