How to correctly display anamorphic XAVC footage in Final Cut Pro X?

The simple answer is FCP can easily compensate for this case. In the video inspector under Transform, you just enter Scale X: 150%, while leaving Scale Y: 100%.

To avoid doing that to each clip, put them on the timeline, do one, then do Edit>Copy, select all the other clips and do Edit>Paste Attributes to the rest (including the changed transform).

Or you can make a compound clip out of the anamorphic clips (or a group), then apply the 150% X scale to the compound clip. That keeps the de‑squeeze centralized, while still letting you go inside the compound to do per‑shot work.

The issue was caused by using a manual anamorphic lens with a 150% squeeze ratio. It had no electronic data communication with the Venice body, so all the lens metadata was blank (even in Catalyst Browse).

As you might expect, on a large production, it's important to keep track of lenses and lens settings for each shot. With electronic lenses, it's automatically captured.

I believe the normal production procedure is use the Venice camera menu where you manually set the de‑squeeze ratio. The relevant control is the camera’s De‑Squeeze setting. In the operating manual, it’s listed as:

Project > Basic Setting > SxS/Output > De‑Squeeze

Options include Off (1.0×) / 1.25× / 1.3× / 1.5× / 1.8× / 2.0×

That said, the Venice manual also states: “The Anamorphic license is required to enable ratio settings, other than Off (1.0×), for the de‑squeeze function.” So if the camera body did not have the anamorphic license enabled at the time, the crew could still shoot 6K 3:2 X‑OCN, but they couldn’t set 1.5× de‑squeeze in-camera (beyond Off).

In that case the procedure is to log it on the slate and camera report or DIT notes. It's a good idea to do that anyway in case of metadata problems.

It occurred to me the adjustment can vary based on your FCP project (aka timeline) resolution. E.g, if you create an "auto" project, then the first clip added is the Venice 6048 x 4032 clip, FCP will create a 7680 x 3840 timeline because that is the closest standard.

Or you might create a manual project sized at 6048 x 4032, or maybe one at 4096 x 2160 or maybe 3840 x 2160. To produce the correct image aspect ratio and not truncate any image area, each of those requires different compensation in FCP's video inspector for Scale (All), Scale X and Scale Y. Below is a simple terminal script that does this. You still need to enter the values in FCP, but it tells you exactly which numbers to use for any FCP timeline resolution, assuming an anamorphic squeeze factor of 1.5x.

To create it, just copy/paste to the macOS terminal command line. It creates a script file named fcp_ana15. Before running it the first time, you must grant execute permission:

chmod +x fcp_ana15

Examples of running it with different FCP timeline X/Y dimensions:

fcp_ana15 7680 3840

fcp_ana15 4096 2160

fcp_ana15 3840 2160

fcp_ana15 6048 4032

Example of output for 4096 x 2160:

 fcp_ana15 4096 2160

Timeline: 4096x2160  (AR=1.896296)

FCP Spatial Conform Fit base: 53.571429%

Set in FCP > Inspector > Video > Transform:

Scale All: 126.420%

Scale X:   126.420%

Scale Y:   84.280%

Script below. If pasted into macOS terminal it should create the script file fcp_ana15.

cat > fcp_ana15 << 'EOF'

#!/bin/zsh

fcp_ana15() {

local TW="$1" TH="$2"

python3 - "$TW" "$TH" <<'PY'

import sys

TW = float(sys.argv[1])

TH = float(sys.argv[2])

WC = 6048.0

HC = 4032.0

S = 1.5

fit = min(TW/WC, TH/HC)

w0 = WC * fit

h0 = HC * fit

g = min(TW/(w0*S), TH/h0)

scaleY = 100.0 * g

scaleX = 100.0 * g * S

print(f"Timeline: {int(TW)}x{int(TH)} (AR={TW/TH:.6f})")

print(f"FCP Spatial Conform Fit base: {fit*100:.6f}%")

print("Set in FCP > Inspector > Video > Transform:")

print(f" Scale All: {scaleX:.3f}%")

print(f" Scale X: {scaleX:.3f}%")

print(f" Scale Y: {scaleY:.3f}%")

PY

}

EOF

We're all end users here, just like you. To try and help, I just tested numerous anamorphic Venice X-OCN clips in FCP 11.2, and they all work OK. I'm confused by your description of XAVC files as related to Venice anamorphic clips. FCP itself cannot interpret X-OCN files without using the free Nablet X-OCN Media Extension (which seems to work well). So that implies if you are editing this on FCP, you probably have that media extension. Are you using that or something else?

I'm just taking a wild guess, but maybe your Venice recorded anamorphic X-OCN externally to the AXS-R7 recorder and simultaneously recorded some kind of desqueezed XAVC 4K to internal SxS memory cards. Technically, those are not proxies but a separate, second encode recorded in-camera.

How that takes place and what metadata is used in the XAVC MXF container is not a standard, but some proprietary Sony method. Nobody can effectively troubleshoot that without having samples of matching XAVC and X-OCN files. However, I tried to put together some possible scenarios; see the attached graphic. Part of this is from a downloaded Venice manual, and part is conjectural.

If your XAVC files did not come directly from the Venice camera but have been processed by something else, all those details are needed.

If you can upload matching out-of-camera XAVC and X-OCN test clips to this write-only secure location, I'll examine them: https://we.tl/r-oqJyNvoG6b

I'd not trust a thumbnail to be accurate. What happens when you put them into an actual Project timeline?

@marc smith6, please submit feedback to the FCP dev team via Final Cut Pro->Provide Final Cut Pro Feedback... or Feedback - Final Cut Pro - Apple Including a link to a short sample of the problematic footage could help them identify an issue.

As Luis asks, if you can share a short sample of the original footage (a couple seconds is adequate) others here can also take a look at it. Send it to yourself with a file transfer service and then post the link here.

Please give specific details of this footage, and of the project you are using it on.

Is it possible to share one such original file so we can test?

I got your sample clip, am studying it, and will post a reply tomorrow morning.