[Randyp]

I think I know what you’re asking. I learned to use FCP and Boris at the same time, which resulted in much confusion. For a while I just could not get the Boris Transitions to work. The I finally got a grasp of it. If you’re asking how to do a Boris Red Transition in FCP, here’s one way to do it without placing a copy of your video in the numbered video wells; Boris uses your actual clips:

The clips where the transition is taking place have to be on the same track on your time line, butted up end to end at the points where the transition is to begin and the transition is to end. There also needs to be enough extra unseen overlapping footage to create the transition for the duration you seek.

Click on the seam between the clips. This will highlight the place where the transition will go. Select Effects > Video Transitions > Boris > Boris Red Transition. A gray Boris Red Transition symbol appears where the clips meet.

Make sure your playhead is over the transition. Double clip on that Boris Red Transition symbol to open the Boris Red Transiton in the Viewer. In the upper left, enter the duration of your transition in seconds and frames.

Then double clip on the red Boris Red customize bar, where it says “click for options.” This takes you into Boris Red without leaving FCP.

Choose your transition from the Library and be sure you click on “Apply” at the bottom of the Boris Timeline window when you’re ready to return to FCP. This will apply the transition to the clips on your FCP timeline. This method results in the video used in the transition being in sync with the clips the transition is going between.

Hope this helps.

[Randyp]

I had this kind of thing happen to me once in awhile in FCP 4.5 before I upgraded to FCP 5.0.4. It usually occurred when I had a large project open and left it idle for a long period of time, like overnight. Closing the project and FCP, restarting the computer, and then reopening the project in FCP seemed to set everything back to normal. I suspected some cache files FCP 4.5 was using were going corrupt over time, but that’s just a theory. Eventually I got into the practice of not leaving FCP open overnight, and even restarting the whole system and software at least twice daily. Any time FCP began doing something it wasn’t supposed to do or acting strange was a cue for me to shut down and restart. See my previous posts for more details.

Like i said, this was under FCP 4.5. No problems like this under FCP 5 so far.

[Randyp]

I use FCP 5.0. My co-worker across the hall is still on FCP 4.5. We have exchange captured video clips without any problem so far. We both happen to have our systems set to the same compression and capture the clips at that setting, but I’m not sure if that is a compatability issue more than a “need to render” issue. Give it a try.

[Randyp]

This interchange of ideas is why I love Creative Cow and find it more helpful than trying to wade through some manufacturer’s (typical poorly) written user manual.

Another suggestion to pass along to you:
When I close FCP, first I right click (or Control-Click, if you don’t use a two-button mouse) on the Project Tab–the one with the specific project file’s name on it–in the Browser and close that tab. This will close the file, and the sequences/nests that go with it, separately from closing the FCP program itself. If I’ve made any changes, a window pops up asking if I want to save any changes to the file. After this, I close the FCP program.

The reason behind this is to avoid any corruption of a file or sequence that might occur when closing the program. Maybe this isn’t a problem any more with FCP 5, but evidently some users have run into it in past versions and suggested this procedure on the Cow. (if you’ve been burned by a project that wouldn’t open, you’ll gladly take all precautions available.)

[Randyp]

Thank you all for your suggestions.

I tried globerider’s suggestion [globerider] “Change your sequence settings on the timeline to Compressor>Animation
Then go into the “Advanced” settings and turn on Millions of Colors+”, and it does work. The issue for me in using this method is in changing the sequence settings. Right now they are at “Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2,” and changing them to “Animation” and “Millions of Colors +” appears to result in some compression which lowers the quality so that some clips with a “push in” transition acquire a jerkyness to their motion.

Arniepix suggestion to export to an image sequence may have similar quality issues in this case.

Walter’s suggestion to create a Matte/Travel Matte of the logo is what I’ll try if I need to continue working on this intro in FCP. In the end I may just recreate the whole thing in Motion or Boris Red, which would have the added bonus of eliminating the flicker problems I encountered when applying both a drop shadow and the Mask Feather filter to some clips (see my post thread from 3-3-2006).

[Randyp]

[chrino21] “a) what this error was
b) how to get your project back
c) the cause and prevention”

a) Sorry, we never have discovered the specific error in FCP. Recently my system was upgraded to OS X Tiger and FCP 5.0.4, so maybe those problems were left behind.

b) Unfortunately, the best I could do was go back to the most recent autosave or backup copy and go on from there.

c.1) We have only theories about the cause, which is either a corruption over time in the “undo” cache or some kind of software volitility because of the size, number of short clips, and frequent complex transitions in my project.

c.2) Here are some steps I’ve implemented after experiencing problems opening FCP project files myself. They won’t help you open a corrupt file, but might help you prevent file corruption in the future:

c.2.a) I strongly suggest regularly saving copies of your project. Auto Save is not always a “lifeboat,” because I found that I could be running an already corrupted project (corruption I wouldn’t discover until after closing FCP and trying to re-open), and Auto Save would faithfully copy multiple already-corrupted-versions to the Auto Save Vault. I’d discover the project wouldn’t reopen and that the Auto Save files also wouldn’t reopen, and would have to search back in time through those files to finally find one auto-saved before the corruption set in. After learning this sad fact, I finally began regularly saving the project file to a new version name in the morning and to a new version name after lunch. (I add the date and “AM” or “PM” to the file name in the new versions.)

c.2.b) In addition to this I also have my Autosave set to save about every 5 to 7 minutes. I have lots of memory for Autosaved copies, so if there is a problem, and I can restore from the Autosave Vault, I hopefully don’t have to recreate some edit or change I’ve just made.

c.2.c) As a routine preventative step I also restart my computer first thing in the morning and then once or twice during day to refresh all the cache files, the connections to my Medea, and the FCP application software. If I start getting drop-frame warnings, a restart will usually correct those too. (It’s usually when I restart that I immediately save my project to a new file name, as I described two steps above, before I proceed with editing.)

c.2.d) I also found if I leave FCP running for untended for long periods sometimes something corrupts all by itself, without me making any changes, so I try to avoid leaving the software and project open overnight or on weekends.

c.2.e) A sign of impending trouble I noticed in particular with my FCP 4.5 was that after working on a project for a while I could no longer “undo” changes. Whenever I noticed this, it was immediately time to “save as” and restart the system.

c.2.f) Occasionally I will “Select All” and bulk copy my entire timeline of video and audio clips over to an new, empty sequence. (This is something I used to have to do when I edited on the old Turbo Cube and the Stratosphere to rid my project of “ghost” files, the traces of files deleted and changed which seemed to accumulate over time. I don’t know if FCP has a “ghost” file problem, but I do it anyway, once in a while, just in case.)

I can imagine how frustrated you must feel about your project. No horror quite like creatively working all day and then finding you’ve lost all that work. Hope this helps you avoid that feeling in the future,

Randy

[Randyp]

I tried the method you suggested, using a slug set to 0 opacity on the top most video track, but that didn’t take away the flicker in this case.

Thanks for your input, though. At least I know it’s most likely some sort of software issue, not something else to track down. I’ll try the method Billy suggested in the previous post, creating a drop shadow effect using a slug underneath, if nothing else works.

Randy

[Randyp]

What drive are you rendering to? For me, when I got this same error message, the solution was simple. It turned out that I had tons of space on my RAID, but I was actually rendering to a file on my Mac hard drive, which, as I discovered, was practically full with other files.

Randy

“You are:
1. Untalented but excessively persistent
2. Unbelieveably stupid
3. An artist
4. All of the above”

–Norman Rockwell

[Randyp]

If you trashed your FCP settings because of your crash or in restoring your system after the crash using FCP Rescue, the “Open Recent” cache is a part of the settings that were trashed.

Randy

“You are:
1. Untalented but excessively persistent
2. Unbelieveably stupid
3. An artist
4. All of the above”

–Norman Rockwell

[Randyp]

This is kinda elementary, but are you trying to load the FCP application apart from any specific project file or are you trying each time to load a specific FCP project file? If the project file is corrupt, it won’t open no matter what you do.

Randy

“You are:
1. Untalented but excessively persistent
2. Unbelieveably stupid
3. An artist
4. All of the above”

–Norman Rockwell