Final Cut Pro 10.1 includes some major changes to the inner workings of the app, including the addition of libraries for managing projects and events.

The locations of your libraries are stored in the preference files, so after trashing preferences with Preference Manager you may not see any projects or events after relaunching FCPX. This will also occur after using other tools that rely on Preference Manager such as QuickFix.

To get them back, go to File > Open Library > Other > Locate in FCPX and browse for the library files on disk.

Our recommended workflow for all applications is not to trash preferences, but to instead preemptively backup the preferences when they are stable and then restore the backup when things go wrong.

It's common nowadays for videos to be processed through one or more applications prior to editorial. Unfortunately that can result in camera metadata being stripped from the processed files. This can cause lots of problems later on if you need to relink back to the original files for grading.

QT Edit solves this by letting you import metadata from another QuickTime movie. Here's how to do it:

1. Open up the destination movie.

2. Go to File > Import > Metadata. Browse for the camera original source file.

3. Select the metadata items you'd like to import or just import all metadata from the source file.

4. Save the destination file.

Being able to choose the metadata that is imported allows you to copy metadata fields between files even if the source file isn't the camera original version. Metadata can be added, removed or edited after import.

Pro Media Tools helps studios, production companies and freelancers alike forge new workflows every day. To find out more view the feature list, read the user manual, watch the overview video or download the free trial.

Does your editing application crash when you scrub to a particular point in the timeline? Does it crash or fail at the same point each time you export or render? It's likely that you have a corrupt clip or render file in your timeline.

Corrupt render files are easy to resolve. Most NLEs offer a way to clear out render files, so it's best to try this first to see if it fixes the problem.

If that fails, you'll need to figure out the exact clip that is corrupt. The manual method is to divide and conquer - split the timeline in half, then half again, and so on until you narrow down the offending clip. This can be very time consuming so an easier way is to use Corrupt Clip Finder to scan the project and test each file it finds.

It will scan the project files from most NLEs (FCP 7, FCPX, Adobe Premiere and other apps) but you can scan an entire media directory for applications not supported. In fact, for large projects it can be quicker to scan the media directory than the project file.

Not every file it flags up will be corrupt, as it will also flag up files that could potentially cause problems, such as CMYK image files or video larger than 4K in FCP 7. You can see the reason it flagged up a file by hovering over the filename in the list.

Once the files are identified, you can choose to quarantine them by moving them to another folder, delete them or attempt a repair. You can also color code them in Finder, which can be useful for highlighting files that appear to work fine but may potentially cause an issue for future reference.

Avid Media Composer and Symphony ship with a wide range of old and modern codecs. They can also be downloaded free of charge for systems without Avid products installed.

SD codecs

Avid DV - SD codec used when exporting DV material
Avid MPEG2 50 - SD codec for MPEG 30, 40 or 50 material
Avid Meridien Compressed - SD codec for compressed material
Avid Meridien Uncompressed - SD codec used for 1:1 OMF outputs

Meridien Compressed has various compression ratios ranging from 2:1 (36 Mbps) to 35:1 (12 Mbps).

SD / HD codecs

Avid 1:1x * - 8-bit lossless 4:2:2 codec that produces very large file sizes
Avid Packed - Essentially the same as 1:1x except it supports 10-bit media
Avid RGBPacked - RGB version of the Packed codec
Avid DV100 - HD codec used for exporting DV100 media

* x normally refers to 10-bit codecs but in the case of Avid 1:1x it was used to designate MXF during the transition away from OMF

DNxHD Codecs

DNxHD is the most likely codec to be used in Media Composer. Each variant is named according to bitrate and bit depth, so for example DNxHD 120 means it's a 120 Mb/s 8-bit codec and DNxHD 185x means it's a 185 Mb/s 10-bit codec (the x indicates 10-bit).

Offline Codecs

DNxHD 36
DNxHD 60
DNxHD 80
DNxHD 90

Medium Quality Codecs

DNxHD 100
DNxHD 115
DNxHD 120

Mastering Codecs

DNxHD 145
DNxHD 175
DNxHD 185
DNxHD 185x
DNxHD 220
DNxHD 220x
DNxHD 440
DNxHD 440x

Similar Bitrate Codecs

Try to choose a codec that matches the bitrate of your acquisition format. All codec bitrates are calculated at 23.98 fps.

DNxHD 36 - DV, IMX40, XDCAM EX, XDCAM HD
DNxHD 60 - DV50, IMX50, Apple Intermediate @ 1080, XDCAM HD422
DNxHD 100 - AVC Intra 100, Cineform 444 @ 720, Digibeta
DNxHD 115 - Cineform 422 @ 1080
DNxHD 120 - DVCPRO HD, Motion JPEG @ 1080
DNxHD 145 - HDCAM
DNxHD 220 - Sony SR Lite
DNxHD 440 - Uncompressed 422 10-bit @ 720, Sony SR SQ, HDCAM SR

Approximate ProRes equivalents

All codec bitrates are calculated at 1080p 23.98 fps.

ProRes Proxy - DNxHD 36
ProRes LT - DNxHD 80
ProRes 422 - DNxHD 115
ProRes HQ - DNxHD 175x
ProRes 4444 - DNxHD 440x (444) (although ProRes 444 is actually closer in bandwidth to DNxHD 220)

Other variants

Avid Media Composer 6 and higher can also wrap ProRes in an MXF wrapper. This is only available on the Mac version of Media Composer.

Calculating storage space

Our online calculator will calculate storage space for some of these but our Mac and iOS calculators have more options and codecs.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC now supports control surfaces, allowing us to significantly improve integration with Cut Notes. Plugins are no longer needed (although we will keep the plugin on our site for CS 6 users) and you can now control playback directly from the iPad.

Here's how to set it up:

1. Launch Audio MIDI Setup (in /Applications/Utilities) and double-click Network to open the MIDI Network Setup window (you may need to go to Window > Show MIDI Window first to see this).

2. Under My Sessions, click the + button and name your new session Cut Notes.

3. In Cut Notes, setup your project and then tap the cut to go to the note-taking view. Tap the sync button next to the timecode and choose MIDI.

4. The iPad will now appear in the Directory section of the MIDI Network Setup window. Select it and click Connect. (Make sure the rest of the options look like the screenshot too.)

5. In Premiere CC, go to Premiere Pro > Preferences > Control Surfaces. Click Add, then select Mackie.

6. Click Settings, select Mackie Control and click Edit (or Add if the window is empty). Then set Device Type to Mackie Control and the MIDI input and output devices to Network Cut Notes.

7. Close preferences and scrub or play your timeline. The timecode should appear in the Cut Notes window and you should be able to control playback with the buttons on the device.

Adobe Premiere Pro has a little-known Console window that provides access to hidden functions. To access it, press Cmd+F12 on the Mac or Ctrl+F12 on the PC. You may have to also hold down Fn on a laptop.

A blank window will appear. Click the dropdown button in the top right and select Debug Database View.

A list of various hidden options will appear. Here are five useful things you can do with it.

Enable the Time Warp filter

Adobe disabled the Time Warp filter in CS5 and subsequent versions. If you still want to use it, change TimeWarpFilterEnabled to true then relaunch Premiere.

Suppress peak file generation

Peak files allow Premiere to cache waveform information so that it doesn't need to be regenerated every time the project opens. However, these files take up space on disk and the peak file generation process can take time for certain formats. If you'd like to disable peak file generation, change SuppressPeakFileGeneration to true.

Display out of sync indicators

When you unlink video and audio and then adjust it, Premiere does not show that the clips are out of sync. You can enable that by setting TL.SupportsUnlikedSyncIndicators to true.

Note: this only appears to work on video clips that were imported with audio attached, rather than clips where the audio was manually linked.

Apply QuickTime gamma level

This respects the gamma level of the QuickTime movie as specified in its gama atom (you can add this in QT Edit). To switch it on, set QTUseSourceGammaLevel to true.

Hide Adobe Media Encoder presets

You can hide the list of AME presets that appear in the Export dialog by setting AME.EnablePresetDB to true (yes, this is counter-intuitive).

Some of you may have experienced the beachball of death when FCPX tries to load a project and eventually resorted to force-quitting the app.

In most cases, the app hasn't hung at all but is just taking a really long time to open the project. If you leave it long enough (8-12 hours) it should eventually open. We recommend running our Project Repair tool to optimize the project file before doing this, as the optimization process lowers the file size and can shave off some loading time.

The reason it is taking so long is that the project has become too complex. A common cause of this is over-use of compound clips, especially compound clips inside multiclips. I have seen this lead to multi-gigabyte project files, even though the timeline was only a few minutes long.

Once the project opens successfully, begin the process of removing the compound clips. FCPX will hang for a short while whenever you try to do anything, but as you reduce the number of compound clips it will become more and more responsive.

Sometimes you need to swap out an audio track if there's a problem or you need to provide multiple languages or different soundtracks.

Instead of compressing the video again, QT Edit makes it really easy to do this in just a few steps.

1. Open up the movie file in QT Edit.

2. Select the existing audio track and press the - button to delete it.

3. Click the + button and select Audio. Browse for the new audio, which can be an AIFF, WAV or another movie file.

Important: QT Edit inserts the track at the current playhead position so make sure the playhead is at the beginning. If you make a mistake, manually set the start point of the new track to 00:00:00:00.

4. Double-check sync in the preview window and then hit Save.

5. You will be asked if you want to flatten the movie. This makes the movie self-contained. In most cases you will want to flatten, but if you want to create a reference movie select Don't Flatten.

QT Edit is just one of many useful utilities in the Pro Media Tools suite. To find out more, check out the feature list, watch the overview video, read the user manual or download the 15-day trial.

This past weekend I used Adobe Encore for the first time to create a Blu-ray for an important screening. I'd previously tested the workflow and everything had worked well, but this was my first time using it on a project.

I initially had some issues encoding the Premiere Pro sequence to H.264 because Adobe Media Encoder told me it would take 42 hours, and after leaving it for a few hours it seemed to be making good on that promise. I eventually narrowed the problem down to a corrupt Dynamic Link cache which I trashed with CS Repair and got the more respectable prediction of 10 hours (it was a 90 minute feature with 10-bit RGB source files).

I checked the original source files and they were fine. I checked the AC3 and it was fine. I restarted Encore and the problem was still there. I cleared the media cache from within the preferences menu; no change. I thought it might just be the preview but the problem existed on a test disc that I burned.

I eventually traced it to project corruption. There is a file in your project directory called ProjectMedia.acx. This is what the end of the file looked like:

The file should end with the closing XML tag </EncoreProject> (and there should only be one) but extra data has been added at the end. To fix this, close Encore, open up the file in TextEdit and delete everything beyond the first </EncoreProject> tag.

Then trash your media cache. For some reason the button in preferences doesn't remove everything so I'd recommend removing all files from the media cache directories at ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common or by using Housekeeper.

I relaunched Encore, everything worked properly and I was able to create the disc and breathe a sigh of relief. I would definitely recommend keeping an eye on ProjectMedia.acx though because I just checked it again and more corruption has crept in.

Need to restore a backup or import a project from another system into FCPX? It's not as simple as it seems at first glance. You would think that you could just double-click the project file but that produces the following error:

Final Cut Pro X is expecting projects to be contained in a folder inside your Final Cut Projects directory (or Final Cut Events if you are importing an event). The default locations of these folders are in ~/Movies.

To successfully import these files, you must create a new directory inside your Final Cut Projects or Final Cut Events folder and then copy the project to this new directory. FCPX will determine the project name from the name of the directory but the project file does not need to have the same name.

It's also worth noting that there is a difference between double-clicking an XML file and importing it via File > Import > XML.

Double-clicking seems to import the file without modifying it, so you will get errors if a project already exists with this ID or the event is not in the exact location as specified in the XML file. However, if you import it via File > Import > XML, it is more intelligent and will assign a new ID if necessary and find the new location of the event if it has changed.