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

Anamorphic footage in FCPX


Got some of the above and whatever i do in FCPX I can not get FCPX to recognise then anamorphic files as anamorphic with the original letterboxing. FCPX views them in the browser as letterboxed on the side not top and bottom.

I've got the correct aspect ratio and spatial conform settings in place and still it doesn't force FCPX to recognise them as they should be.

Yes there is a work around I can put both the XAVC files and the 6K Sony Venice files into Resolve but I'll have to export all them individually. I just want FCPX to recognise them for what they are.

Anyone know a workaround in FCPX?




[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: XAVC anamorphic footage

Posted on Dec 10, 2025 6:26 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 13, 2025 1:39 PM

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.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 13, 2025 1:39 PM in response to marc smith6

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.

Dec 12, 2025 9:05 AM in response to marc smith6

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


Dec 13, 2025 3:11 PM in response to joema

Thanks for taking time to look at this Joe.


So the main reason why FCPX wasn't able to automatically know what to do is because there was no meta data from the lens because it was a manual lens that make sense.


FCPX doesn't scale independently so scaling the X to 150 kind of worked but then you have to of course redice the master scale of the clip (in a 6K timeline) to get the respective scales to X - 100 Y - 66.67


This has helped and shone a light on workflow for this and for the future.


Your input has been valuable and greatly appreciated.


Dec 11, 2025 11:30 AM in response to marc smith6


@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.

Dec 12, 2025 3:16 PM in response to joema

Thanks for the detailed reply.


Thanks for the heads up with the plugin I didn't know that was available for FCPX. It does allow me to import the X-CON files but I still get the same display problems that I did with the XAVC files. There were not proxies sorry for the confusion. They were captured on set in the second slot as a backup in case the X-CON files didn't work or I had problems. The XAVC files were 4K (4096 x 2160)


I had the same problems with both the X-CON and XAVC files they just would not display properly even with playing around with all the display options or preps.


What I did find though if I import the clips into Resolve they did import and display wrongly however a simple change of the 'Pixel Aspect Ratio' in the clip attributes settings to 1.5 instantly changed the clip to display in the viewer how it was shot. I've attached a screen shot of the before and after in Resolve. FCPX isn't interpreting the pixel aspect ratio properly thats why it is having problems displaying it properly. This is because there isn't as much granular control in FCPX than there is in Resolve?



I'll upload a sample clip its one of the MXF files can't share much more because its a secret project.


Let me know what you think.

Dec 11, 2025 6:32 AM in response to BenB

The thumbnail was 100% accurate same look in the thumbnail as with in the timeline.


The original 6K X=OCN footage from the Sony Venice was not supported in FCPX I also had 4K XAVC footage that was also recorded on the shoot. I tried to put that in FCPX (thumbnail) and FCPX would just not display it properly even with messing around with the spatial conform settings (none, fill, fit)


I also tried to select different anamorphic settings in the video inspector and they didn't allow me to display the footage properly either.


I had to use Resolve Studio to render out the 6K footage and adjust the pixel and de squeeze settings to allow me to render out a 6K image with the top and bottom letterboxing so then I could simply use the ProRes HQ footage natively in FCPX.


This type of footage has been around for a long time it is about time the FCPX team implemented support for it to make everyone's life a bit easier instead of the round tripping I've had to do for a good few hours.


There also needs to be better support for anamorphic footage.


Resolve just works and does all this kind of thing very easily.



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

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