[Joe Marler]

[Thanos Papadopoulos] “What’s the point of unused media filter since most of the time you don’t use all the duration? For example I have 20 or more music tracks for an episode and while using these tracks I want to know which are unused. But all the clips seems to be unused since I am not using all the clip. “

The key is it’s unused media *ranges*, not unused clips. Unused media ranges is normally used in conjunction with other filtering. In most cases you’d never use all recorded media in a project, hence showing unused media ranges for unfiltered content has limited practical use.

Normally you’d rate & keyword the material and subsequently do all content selection from a filtered version of that. IOW after you reject material you don’t want to see that. After you keyword and rate material you normally use only that subset for building the timeline. In that scenario, unused media ranges shows you the unused portion of that filtered group of candidate ranges.

There is an exception whereby you simply want to avoid using a clip range twice — regardless of how it’s rated or keyworded. Say you’re looking for b-roll to cover a cut in a long program, and you have already used many clip ranges to cover various cuts. To avoid redundantly using the same clip, you can filter on unused media ranges with all other filtering turned off. Anything that remains has not been used and is a candidate.

However you are talking about a special case where you want each entire clip containing a used range to be classified as used — even though it’s not marked as used — only a range within the clip is used. In that case you’d have to manually mark those via a keyword then use a filter to exclude them. Here is one possible way:

(1) Assemble timeline as usual.
(2) When you reach the point of needing to check which audio clips are used, click each one in the timeline, match the source clip via SHIFT+H, press X to mark the entire clip then keyword that with “MyUsed” or equivalent. This can be done rapidly using the keyword HUD and a shortcut key. The principle is shown in this MacBreak Studio “Warp Speed Keywording”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azJ4J41JaZk
(3) Create a smart collection which excludes the clips containing a range you’ve used: CMD+F, press plus key, select “keywords”, select “Does Not Include Any” and select the checkbox for your MyUsed keyword. This can also be filtered by Media Type = audio. Save that as a smart collection, then it’s available for future use.

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[Joe Marler]

[Xavier Paredes] “We are hoping to find an application or service that can find possible duplicate videos by analyzing the content of each and create some kind of report that we can then use to make it easier to manually identify the *definite* duplicates…”

Gemini 2 will do this. It will first report “no duplicates found”, then if you click on the report you’ll see suspected duplicates based on some criteria (I think file size). It then allows you to delete the duplicates. For each duplicate you can examine a thumbnail to verify this before deleting them, or you can have it just delete the duplicates without inspecting them. If the file date/time has been altered there’s also an app preference to check for similar files having a date/time within a certain window. There are other tools for this but Gemini is what I’ve used:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gemini-2-the-duplicate-finder/id1090488118?mt=12

[Joe Marler]

Assuming you have a 2016 or later MacBook Pro, in theory the Apple or other types of USB-A-to-USB-C adapters should work. However maybe there’s a software or driver problem, or maybe the camera must be placed in a “drive emulator” mode so the card will show as mounted when the camera’s plugged via USB 2.0 into the MBP’s adapter.

This video shows copying camera data to a USB stick in the camera:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9T64ZyMf3U

This video shows putting the camera in the correct mode to show the mounted drive on the computer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoi939hBh4A

If neither of those work you could try transferring the data to a Windows PC, then to the Mac via network or exFAT-formatted USB stick. If you’ll need to be doing this frequently you should probably get some kind of P2 reader that works on your MBP. This USB 2.0 unit is only $134 on Adorama, but wouldn’t be very fast (even if it worked): https://www.adorama.com/us%20%20%20%20853174.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwl_PNBRBcEiwA4pplRYqin9xd4yY8VKm6c1DJjVLVYl1NHDO5J-JPmcq7KgDRJwZtLJzr4xoClrEQAvD_BwE

The Sonnet single-slot Thunderbolt P2 reader might work, but I agree would be better if someone with a 2016 or later MBP could verify that: https://a.co/cXPV9zz

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[Joe Marler]

[Greg Ball] “Footage…(XDCAMEX) and….MP4 footage and Drone footage…not easily skimmable in the browser…Do I need to transcode the footage first to prores422 first? ? If so how?…Is there a way to see what format this footage/codec is in…What’s the easiest and most efficient way for me to skim through the footage to mark in an out points?…Should I edit in Proxy? If so how do I import everything so I can later output it at full resolution?”

4k H264 long GOP footage can be somewhat sluggish to skim, even on the highest-end Mac. Often the best approach is import with “leave files in place”, also transcoding to proxy either on import or afterward. This can be done in FCPX. By default the proxy files will be placed within the library itself. This is transparent to usage, but it requires storage on whatever volume holds the library. There is a more complex procedure for creating external proxies outside the library which is documented in the Ripple Training 10.3 FCPX Media Management tutorial.

An issue with proxy and mixed 4k and 1080p footage is the proxy resolution is 1/2 the X/Y axis or 1/4 the total pixel resolution. On 4k this is still 1080p, which is adequate for editing. On 1080p it is only 960 x 540, which may be too low. Proxy does not include alpha channel data so transparency effects must be done using original or optimized files. Unfortunately FCPX’s proxy mode is global — you can see either proxy media or optimized/original but not both at the same time. So your choice is either accept this for the 1080p content or transcode everything to optimized media which is original res but will be much larger than proxy from a storage standpoint.

Proxy is ProRes 422 at 1/4 the total resolution, but does not affect image quality of the final product. You can crop/zoom in the proxy frame and upon final output it will use the underlying 4k resolution (if it was 4k). You only must remember to set the viewer back to optimized/original or the exported media will be at proxy resolution.

Relative to H264 long GOP media, optimized media might be about 6x or 8x the size, so this may require significant storage planning. Proxy media adds about 60-70% of the original size.

To see the original media characteristics I use either MediaInfo: https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download/Mac_OS or Invisor, which can compare multiple files in a side-by-side spreadsheet: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/invisor-media-file-inspector/id442947586?mt=12

The only media I externally re-wrap (not transcode) is AVCHD, using EditReady. If I used XAVC-L, I might externally rewrap those with EditReady, because this would allow import with “leave files in place” while embedding any important metadata within the media files.

[Joe Marler]

[David Polushkin] “Everything was done exactly the same as with previous movies. The only two differences I noticed is that this file is larger than my other movies at 4.36 Gb”

The SDXC file system is exFAT so there’s no file size limitation there. However 2^32 = 4.29 gigabytes, so it’s possible the TV itself is using 32-bit file pointers and cannot handle a file larger than 4.29GB. Whether it’s a TV OS or any other OS, that OS *and* app must use 64-bit file pointers to avoid this — no matter what the underlying disk filesystem is. Note this is different from whether the OS or app uses 32-bit or 64-bit memory addressing. The application itself must use 64-bit file pointers and pointer arithmetic.

Although 64-bit file pointers have been used by apps for many years even on 32-bit Macs and PCs, it is unfortunately typical for embedded device operating systems and applications to not use these. I’m not certain that’s the problem, but it’s a possibility. You could possibly look up the tech specs on the TV or call their tech support. Just look for what the maximum supported file size is.

From FCPX you can export a version at 720p or some other setting which gets below that file size limit and try it. If that works you’d probably want to tweak the export parameters to just get below that size threshold while maintaining full resolution. FCPX has limited export options, so you’d probably want to use Compressor for that, or you could export it to ProRes and transcode it with Handbrake.

[Joe Marler]

Besides the good advice you already got, it is difficult to assess these things after they’ve been re-encoded by Youtube. For some content Youtube will deinterlace this during encoding, but this content may have had interlacing baked into a progressive container.

I suggest you examine the output file using VLC which allows manual control over deinterlacing, and selection of various deinterlace modes. You can also confirm both camera file and the output file interlace settings using a tool like MediaInfo: https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download/Mac_OS or Invisor: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/invisor-media-file-inspector/id442947586?mt=12

If the camera material is really interlaced content somehow masquerading as progressive, and if the intent is a deinterlaced output, it might require setting the “deinterlace” checkbox in the Inspector. Select the clip in the timeline, in the Inspector at the bottom right change from Basic to Settings, then above that select the deinterlace checkbox. Export that clip and examine with VLC with deinterlace both enabled then disabled.

[Joe Marler]

[Antonis Ant] “I am shooting 4k video in d-log (Phantom 4) and the raw files play nice and smoothly.

After I complete the editing and export (tried various export settings), I notice that the motion of the video appears somehow choppy.

My computer and monitor can handle easily 4k playback so its not a hardware issue, especially since the raw files play smoothly.”

My doc team has several Phantom 4s and an Inspire 2, and I’ve edited lots of H264 4k content from them. I don’t recollect seeing this problem when exporting to H264 from FCPX. We don’t use D-LOG but I don’t know why that would make a difference.

The Phantom 4 Pro H264 4k bit rate is about 60 mbps. The default FCPX H264 4k export bit rate is about 30 mbps, but that shouldn’t cause this behavior.

You could try exporting to ProRes but that normally shouldn’t be necessary. However it would be a useful data point.

You could also try playing back with VLC vs Quicktime as another test.

I would also suggest creating a test project using the default settings and importing one Phantom 4 clip to that, then export to H264 4k. It’s conceivable your project characteristics were somehow messed up.

[Joe Marler]

[Simon Billington] “there seems to be some redundancy to how FCPX renders versus what it exports, especially if its in the same format….Since ProRes is a form of compression, even if it’s lossless, it may involve quite bit of decoding and re-encoding just to update a specific change. It may have a negative impact on the performance. So FCPX just renders the file fully instead…. It may actually be possible to achieve more effecting rendering when outputting in the same format as you edit, but the devs either never thought of implementing it, or maybe its just not high enough on their list of priorities.”

In general FCPX does “smart rendering”, IOW if the timeline (or portions thereof) are already rendered, it does not blindly re-render that when exporting. This is regardless of whether the timeline is H264, ProRes or H264 which was transcoded to optimized media, and regardless of whether export codec is H264 or ProRes.

This can be easily seen by applying a simple color correction effect which causes the timeline to go non-rendered, then exporting it immediately, then after pre-rendering it (CTRL-R). Whether using optimized media or H264 and whether exporting to ProRes or H264, it exports faster if the timeline is pre-rendered.

This doesn’t mean that pre-rendering should be the standard practice or that background rendering is required. In general FCPX exports so fast that these usually aren’t needed. However if the timeline or portions of it are pre-rendered, then FCPX will use that during export and not blindly re-render it.

There may be more complex effects cases where this isn’t done but in general FCPX uses smart rendering.

[Joe Marler]

[Bret Williams] “What do you do when the camera person has shot something else before you on the same card and they don’t want to hand over the whole structure because it has someone else’s files on it?”

You could use FCPX and selectively import the relevant clips which would be a copy to the library, not “leave files in place”. Alternatively you could rewrap them with EditReady, verify which clips are relevant, and then (or later) import in place.

But in the hustle and bustle of certain shooting environments, neither of those are great options. It’s hard enough to do this if the files are out in the open, much less packed inside an AVCHD bundle.

If someone else has already extracted the video files from the AVCHD package, the main lesson is don’t ever import those with “leave files in place”, but either rewrap with EditReady, then import, or import (ie copy) via FCPX to the library. But AVCHD files are a lot easier to handle at the Finder level if they are rewrapped by an external tool.

This doesn’t fully answer the OP issue but if he had rewrapped them with EditReady, they could have been easily examined with macOS Quick Look before importing them. I assume the files are still available since they were imported “in place”. I’d suggest examining the files at the Finder level and see if they will play or exhibit any other anomalies.

The FCPX performance issues with “in place” AVCHD files apparently stem from improper or inefficient handling of those. From I/O analysis using the terminal dtrace utilities, FCPX acts like it repetitively rewraps each file upon each subsequent reference. I don’t recollect if this is avoided by optimizing “in place” AVCHD material, but I don’t trust that whole area and prefer to (1) Just not use AVCHD wherever possible, or (2) Externally rewrap with EditReady before import.

[Joe Marler]

[Robert Maass] “I shot AVCHD ( 1080p/30) over a number of days, creating 8 files of video….Import was set to ‘leave files in place’ and to ‘create optimized media’. Any suggestions?”

FCPX cannot import AVCHD from either the card or a copy of the card folder tree with “leave files in place”. If you are doing this, you have somehow extracted the bare video files from the AVCHD package. Finder will not even show the video files by default — it shows a monolithic AVCHD package. This is because you are never supposed to extract them from the AVCHD package.

Importing bare AVCHD files with “leave files in place” can cause I/O performance problems and should never be done.

If you don’t have the original folder tree, you can use the commercial tool EditReady to re-wrap the bare files and import in place. That is a very fast workflow, and if you plan on using AVCHD a lot, it’s a good investment: https://www.divergentmedia.com/editready