[Doug Metz]

“Big Sur will not open old tape-based media such as Hi8 or DV.”

Can you elaborate on this a bit?

-still getting used to the new forum intricacies-

[Doug Metz]

Hey Matthew,

I’ve been using a plugin for this purpose (for quite awhile now):

https://www.fcpeffects.com/collections/effects/products/quick-easy-ken-burns

The main attraction for me was that it’s a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ proposition. If you need to shorten or extend the duration of the image, the animation scales to fit automatically so you don’t have to re-do any keyframes. Cheap, too. Has saved me countless hours over the years.

[Doug Metz]

I will second the recommendation for NeoFinder. Been using it for nearly 20 years, and have all of my backup media cataloged and searchable. The developer is great, the app is inexpensive, and I couldn’t do without it.

EDIT: Forgot to mention Final Cut Library Manager – lots of goodies in there, too.

[Doug Metz]

Hey Ken,

We’ll need some information to make sense of your issues.

– What are your system specs (machine, OS, RAM, external hardware / drives, etc.)?

– What version of Final Cut are you running?

– Where do your Libraries and media live, on external drives or on your boot disk?

The degradation in usability suggests you may have some file system corruption, and should run Disk Utility on your drive(s) as a precautionary measure.

Cached files are deleted through the app (File -> Delete Generate Clip Files…)

– Do NOT go digging through the Library package! It’s a database and if you move / delete things in there through the Finder, you’re asking for problems.

[Doug Metz]

I’ve got an app called “Vidi” for this which worked well the last time I used it, but:

a) I don’t remember where I got it, and

b) I haven’t needed to use it since Mojave (on Catalina now).

The app wouldn’t control the camera, but can be used in freerun – just hit play on the device, then hit record in the app. Capture to a DV file, then import for edit.

[Doug Metz]

This sounds like a perfect job for Roles. I typically set up distinct roles for lower thirds, different categories of gfx, etc. This allows you to switch them on/off in the timeline index.

[Doug Metz]

One other question… can you walk us through your workflow? Specifically, the steps between finished shoot and FCPX import.

[Doug Metz]

How did you import the footage into FCPX? If you used the Import window (instead of drag-n-drop), you should see an option there to remove pulldown.

This gets into all kinds of media management questions, and you have options.

What I’ve done in the past is remove the pulldown prior to import. Cinema Tools was great for this, as was JES Deinterlacer. Compressor has the capability to do the job now, too.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve needed to do this, so there may be other avenues to explore.

[Doug Metz]

I’d bet it’s recording 24p over 60i, resulting in 29.97 with 3:2 pulldown. A reverse telecine pass should eliminate the extra frames (and interlacing) and get you to 23.976.

[Doug Metz]

Working as expected here – when you select a column header, a carat will appear on the right-hand side that you can toggle to change sort order Ascending / Descending.

Doug Metz

Dalton Agency