This is a common question and there are several answers:

First, the Final Cut Pro Canvas usually shows titles and graphics more pixelated and lower quality than the actual quality. Render a title and play it on a real monitor – or render and export a 10 frame test to disk and view to see the true picture.

Read these articles on monitoring: http://www.dvcreators.net/tag/monitoring/ for more info.

If you are rendering to the DV codec, you will see an instant drop in quality. But don’t worry, as long as you export to a lossless codec your final project will look great.

This article shows how to export in high quality.

If you are delivering on SD DVD, you have a challenge. NTSC and PAL are not perfect formats- and SD is low resolution and fuzzy. If you’re a graphic artist used to creating crisp, clean pixel perfect graphics in Illustrator or Flash on your expensive LCD display, you’re in for a big surprise. Keep your fonts and graphics big and bold, and put a drop shadow or slight glow on your titles. Keep checking on an external NTSC or PAL monitor if your project is slated for SD delivery. Watch TV and see what graphic styles look good on your TV set- and model those.

Here’s a list of nevers:

1. Never trust the Canvas Window to show quality
2. When using Motion or Livetype, never render to a lossless codec like DV before importing into FCP – import the project or render to a lossless codec
3. Never export from FCP using H.264 or any other lossy codec – always use a lossless codec (PJPEG at 90% – 100% is an exception)

For more info, check out:

Final Cut Pro Foundations

Final Cut Express Foundations

Click on the movie to launch.

For more info, check out:

Final Cut Pro Foundations

Final Cut Express Foundations

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If you notice a loss of connectivity between Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express and your camcorder or deck after upgrading your versions of Mac OS X and QuickTime, here’s what you can do to resolve the issue.

1. Remove QuickTime receipts:
   1. Go to /Library/Receipts/
   2. Locate the QuickTime receipts files.
   3. Select all QuickTime receipts that have version numbers as part of their names (but don’t select the other QuickTime receipts). Here’s an example of what they look like (you may have different receipts on your computer):
      
   4. Drag the selected receipts to the Trash.
2. Download and install the latest version of QuickTime for Mac OS X.

After following these steps and restarting your computer, your device should interact with Final Cut as expected.

If not, try one or more of the following:

• disconnecting, then connecting the Firewire cable while the capture window is open
• start the tape playing before opening the capture window
• power the camera on first, then launch FCP
• power the camera off, then on again
• another Firewire cable
• another camcorder
• another computer

One of the most frequent questions we get about our tutorial dvds is:

Why can’t I see the navigation buttons on the bottom of the screen?

Check out this movie for the answer!

Watch the movie below for the probable solution.

When you trim a clip, there is (usually) “extra” media before and after the part of the clip you want in your timeline. (That’s what trimming does, allows you to select a portion of a clip that will show in your movie)

COOL TIP: If you select the Slip tool by pressing “S”, and click on a clip in the timeline, you’ll see a brown outline showing you the extra media on either side of your “trimmed” clip.

Another way to see what handles are on your clip is by double clicking it, then noticing how much footage lies on either side of your in and out marks.

When you add a transition between clip #1 and clip #2, FCP uses the media AFTER clip #1 to dissolve (or whatever) into the media BEFORE clip #2.

If there is no extra media after clip #1 or no extra media before clip #2, then your transition will be only 1 frame long! (Or give you the error message “Insufficient content for edit”)

Solution: always capture more of a clip than you’re going to use- “trim” the clip in the Viewer by setting in and out points.

Another cool tip: If you haven’t got it yet, our Final Cut Pro Foundations course has a lot of info on this topic- and all others!

WATCH MOVIE: Why are my transitions too short?

Video editing systems will have problems. The process of pinpointing the problem is called “troubleshooting”.

Troubleshooting is the art of changing one thing at a time until the problem is pinpointed.

For example, you’re having a problem with a project. Try creating a brand new project. Does the problem persist? If the brand new project works fine, that pinpoints your existing project. Perhaps you should delete the render files, restore from the AutoSave Vault, or paste your clips into a new project.  If the new project has the same symptoms, that points to a system problem.

If you are getting a General Error when opening a project, try renaming your Capture Scratch folder, and deleting your Rendered items folder. If it opens fine then, try relinking little by little.

If you’re having trouble capturing to an external drive, try capturing to the internal drive- if this works fine, this points to your external drive as the culprit. Having trouble capturing? Borrow another camera. Capture work fine now? It’s your camera. If not, it’s your system. Try your camera with a friend’s system. Still no work? It’s the camera. Try capturing with iMovie. If that works, you have proved your firewire cable is good. Either your camera is not compatible with FCP or there is some config problem with FCP.

See how that works? Change a variable, then test. When the problem goes away, you’ve pinpointed the problem.

1. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Preferences—the tilde (~) represents your Home folder.
2. Remove the “com.apple.finalcutpro.plist” file from the Preferences folder.
3. Remove the “Final Cut Pro User Data” folder from the Preferences folder.

Another approach you might consider is reinstalling Final Cut Pro. To do this effectively, you need to remove the application and its receipts, then install Final Cut Pro and use Software Update to install additional updates. You don’t have to remove everything that was installed with Final Cut Pro. Follow the steps below to completely reinstall a fresh copy of Final Cut Pro. Note: Make sure that you have your installation discs and serial number handy before starting this.

1. Open the Applications folder.
2. Drag the Final Cut Pro application to the Trash.
3. Go to /Library/Receipts.
4. In the Receipts folder, select the “FinalCutPro.pkg” file.
5. Choose View > as List to view the contents in a list.
6. Click the Date Modified column header so you can easily see all of the receipts that were installed at the same time as Final Cut Pro.
7. Drag the FinalCutPro.pkg receipt to the Trash, as well as any other items that have the same modification date within 3 minutes of the FinalCutPro.pkg’s modification date.
8. Click the Name column header to sort the list alphabetically.
9. Drag any other receipts whose names begin with “Final Cut Pro” to the Trash.
10. Insert your Final Cut Pro installation disc and install Final Cut Pro.
11. When finished, use Software Update (under the Apple menu) to update your software to the latest version.

Confirm requirements and versions

1. Check system requirements
   Make sure that you haven’t overlooked any hardware aspect that’s required to use Final Cut Pro. You can view the system requirements on the Final Cut Pro Technical Specifications page.
2. Update to the latest software versions
   Choose Apple > Software Update and make sure that you have the most recent updates for your versions of Final Cut Pro, QuickTime, and other important system files. Installing the latest updates ensures that your software has the latest improvements and enhancements.
3. Check compatibility and driver versions for third-party devices
   If you’re using a third-party capture card, storage system, input device, or something else, check the support area on the manufacturer’s website to be sure that you’re using the latest version of the relevant driver or other software for your device. To see if your video device has been qualified for use with Final Cut Pro, check out the Final Cut Studio Device Qualification web page.

1. Find a combo of OS version, FCP version, and QT version that works and stick with it. Once you find the magic combo that works, stick with it!!! Do not upgrade anything. This gives you a stable system that you can edit on for years and years.

2. Be a “bleeding edger”. Always upgrade to the latest everything (unless Apple specifically says not to) You will have more problems, but you can always lock your system and go to option #1 if you get tired of them. From time to time, you may enjoy new features, but things that used to work will break.

Here are some potential problems that you may encounter while capturing, and some possible solutions.

If you have a problem not mentioned here, the best way to solve it is to “troubleshoot” the problem. Troubleshooting is a process where you change variables, usually one at a time, to pinpoint the problem. Here’s a helpful article on troubleshooting.

Tape Capture Problems and Possible Solutions

• Problems with your capturing device:

If you are having trouble capturing footage, whether it a “dropped frames” or “broken timecode” warning, try using the same device that you shot the footage with, instead of your deck or a different camcorder. In many cases, this will solve the problem.

• Problems capturing to an external FireWire drive:

If you’re using external Firewire drives with your Final Cut Pro system, you may find them problematic- they may drop frames, or lock up your system.

In this case, try capturing to your internal drive, then move those clips to your firewire drive if you need to to make room.

• If your capture device is not recognized:

If your camera or deck is turned on and connected to your computer, but isn’t recognized by FCP, try this fix:

Go to the View Menu, and choose External Video, All Frames.

If that doesn’t work, try changing the order in which you turn on your camera and computer – if turning on the camera after the computer isn’t working, try turning the camera and connecting it first.

• QuickTime compatibility issues:

Sometimes a QuickTime reinstall of the latest version will help resolve capture issues.

Navigate to your Library folder, then Receipts on your main drive (not from your personal folder).

Remove all files of the form QuickTime*.pkg, where “*” is a version number. E.g. QuickTime701.pkg, QuickTime712.pkg, or Quicktime714.pkg. This simply tells your system that those packages are not installed.

Go to http://www.apple.com/quicktime/downloads and click on the “download Quicktime” link. DO NOT USE THE AUTOMATIC UPDATE UTILITY. Download QuickTimeInstallerX.dmg. Double click this file (probably on your desktop) and then invoke the installer by double clicking QuickTime701.pkg.

After your computer reboots, you should be able to restart Final Cut and see your camera.

• Mac OS X compatibility issues:

Sometimes after you upgrade your operating system, you may find that something that used to work in the past has suddenly stopped working.

Our advice: If everything is working great, and you’re in the middle of a project, never update the OS (you can always update later)!

If you have some capture advice that we should add to this list, please email us!

The red line at the top of the timeline indicates that the clip must be rendered before it will play back.

This could result from many things, such as having many intensive filters applied to the clip and being in “Safe” RT Mode.

But for novices, nine times out of ten, the reason the clip “redlines” is because the sequence settings do not match the footage type you are dropping into it.

Check the clip format by highlighting it and pressing Cmd 9.

Check the sequence format by clicking in an empty area of the timeline, then pressing Cmd 0 (zero).

The two should match, meaning frame size, frame rate, video and audio format should be identical.

If they don’t match you have two choices:

1. Transcode your incoming media to the format of your timeline, e.g., if your timeline is HDV 1080i 29.97 fps, with audio at 48 KHz, 16-bit uncompressed, then transcode all the video you want to edit on that timeline to that format. We always use DV Kitchen for batch transcoding, it’s fast and high quality. This is the best option.

2. If the video clip you want to use in your movie is already in an editing codec, like Pro Res, HDV, DV, DVCPRO, JPEG etc. then you can just import it in its native format and hope it plays in real time or close to it.