What should be seamless videos in FCP timeline, are not seamless

Deepstar48 wrote:

I recently recorded video and audio for a community Christmas concert. The video files on my camera are limited to 4GB.

What camera? What are the properties of the source files?

Is the audio and video recorded by the same device, or are they captured separately?

When I added them to the library and inserted into the timeline, for some reason they are not seamless.

How do you import them into FCP? Via the import function, or by dragging from the source card into the timeline?

What does "not seamless" mean? You see a disruption at the point where one 4GB file ends and another begins?

Something else?

They are off by a frame or 2 (shooting at 30 fps).

What is off? The audio sync? The clip duration? Are you confident the project you are working in has the exact same frame rate as your source material?

I have an older iMac and FCP is an older version and cannot be updated because of the age of my hardware.

Exactly what hardware and what version of FCP?

MtD

Some cameras like the GH4 use segmented files because of the 4 GB FAT32 file size limit. Newer cameras that use ExFAT don't do that.

The segmented files must be "spanned" or stitched together by the NLE. I can't remember the exact FCP behavior, but there are several items that can effect this:

• Whether the files are imported from the original folder tree, vs "bare" or isolated .mp4 files
• Whether the files are imported using the FCP file>import dialog or via drag/drop from Finder to FCP.
• Whether the files are imported using "copy to library" vs "leave files in place"

I think some combinations of the above will import them as spanned files, but I cannot remember the details.

If you want the benefits of "Leave Files in Place" (saving disk space) and the benefits of spanned clips (one long file), you may need to use an external tool to span them before importing to FCP. I think the commercial tool EditReady or the free tool Shutter Encoder will do that, but I haven't tested that in years.

1) Since the files work in other editors correctly, I think we can assume the files themselves are Ok and contain all the expected frames.

2) I haven't worked with spanned files in a while, but IIRC you select the first file in the Import pane for ingest and the others are automatically concatenated to create the working file in FCP, is this not what happens? Again IIRC you should not have to import the clips separately and assemble them in the timeline.

3) As Joema suggested, you could use a 3rd party app such as EditReady ($$) to assemble the master clip, if you are on deadline.

4) None of this explains why you are getting unexpected results if you are following the same workflow that has been successful before and there has been no hardware or software change.

MtD

The OP is using FCP 10.5.4 from 2021. There were some fixes back then about spanning clips on import. I don't remember the details. It's possible he doesn't have those fixes or the fixes for one scenario broke something else.

For a closer inspection, he would need to provide us sample clips exhibiting the problem, along with the exact procedures for his import. IOW was it "leave files in place" or not, using the FCP import dialog or not, imported from the original folder tree or not, etc.

If it was an actual bug, any fix would be done on the current version of FCP, not a custom "hot fix" to 10.5.4. Since the OP cannot upgrade, that implies he could not use a fix, even if it were a bug and Apple fixed it.

Since there are so many different import combinations, it's possible one of those might make the GH4 clip spanning work. If that doesn't show any benefit, using the free Shutter Encoder utility may span the clips before importing into FCP.

If it's just a couple of frames per segment, a "quick and dirty" approach is just to cut the video at those points. Even for minimally edited event shoots, it's considered good practice to cut those to tighten them up.

Have you tried "Save As" to another video format prior to importing into your Final Cut Project?

You can always change the frame rate within a project; however, that may not yield the same results.

Smiliñ 😎 Brian

You can easily merge multiple video files using only QuickTime Player. I don't know if it would exhibit the same skipped frames behavior as FCP, but you could try it. Just search in Youtube for "How To Combine Videos On Your Mac".

Hi (bonjour),

• Did you try to open two adjacent clips from finder in QuickTime Player to check if there is missing frames in between
• Do you edit in drop frame or non drop frame time code?

Michel B.

joema wrote:

You can easily merge multiple video files using only QuickTime Player.

In addition, you can edit (split, select, etc.) the video with Command + E (edit).

Smiliñ 😎 Brian