Stabilisation Option Missing

i'm trying hard to get a new edit out of the door. I have one clip in a project that's not part of a multicam, it's just a standalone clip, yet stabilisation and rolling shutter are not present in the inspector for this clip.

Any ideas why this could be, and more importantly, what I can do about it, other than export / import and try again ?

Is it a sound synched clip? That always gets me.

It's a totally standalone clip. Not sync'd. Not in a compound clip. Nothing special about it at all.

What codec is it? Can you try re-importing the clip?

It's Canon MXF (from an XF300). It's really annoying that FCPX won't create optimised media from these codecs!

I exported it as ProRes 422, re-imported and everything is fine, but I'm puzzled what cause 'this' clip to do this whereas the clips either side of it (same codec) were fine.

Personally I love the fact that I don't have to transcode MXF or Cam.

Only thing I can think of is that maybe the clip was part of a spanned group?

These are smallish clips, but it's 'possible' they are in a spanned group. I'd have to check.

Yes, I love the fact I don't 'have' to create prores files, otoh there are some gotchas, like you can't do slo-mo on the MXF files because even if you select Optical Flow, all you get is repeated frames,so again, I end up exporting the sections I need to ProRes 422 and then re-importing them and replacing clips. It's a major PITA! If they just allowed me to create optimised media for the clips I wanted then it would be fine! I can create proxy files so please let me create optimised media as well. I should be the one making those decisions!

Can't say I've notice that with optical flow. Don't have any MXF footage to play with but it does a fine job on raw H.264 files from my 5D Mk II and iPhone.

I'll have a play when I get back to work and try it on some Cam and MXF.

I'm sure I can send you some Canon MXF if you 'really' want to try it

Canon 5D2 & 5D3 footage works fine, so does AVCHD. But then, all of these allow you to create optimised media too.

I've seen this happen to my clips before. I've imported all the clips off one card, and for some reason a few of the clips don't have those options. Seems like a bug to me, what version of FCPX do you have?

Julian wrote: I've seen this happen to my clips before. I've imported all the clips off one card, and for some reason a few of the clips don't have those options. Seems like a bug to me, what version of FCPX do you have?

10.0.7.

Hmm, I have the Canon XF100, which is the smaller single chip version of the XF300 and uses the exact same codec. I can choose to import native or to optimize. There is a plugin from Canon that you have to install...

And I have no trouble whatsoever with Optical Flow, whether the footage is native or optimized.

ddixon wrote: Hmm, I have the Canon XF100, which is the smaller single chip version of the XF300 and uses the exact same codec. I can choose to import native or to optimize. There is a plugin from Canon that you have to install...

And I have no trouble whatsoever with Optical Flow, whether the footage is native or optimized.

We have both XF100 and XF300 and I can't create optimized media from EITHER camera on any of 3 computers. I'm not the only one - other people are having this problem too (see the apple forums).

I have the latest Canon plugin installed already - I couldn't read the files without it, so it must be using it.

What could we possibly be doing different? Are you sure you can create optimised media? The optimised media checkbox is greyed on all three of my computers for this footage (it's enabled for other cameras).

This is with the very latest plugin installed.... note the create optimized media is disabled. This is the same if I tried to create optimized media 'after' ingest. Creating proxy media is no problem.



This is what the tool tip says...



Sorry Apple.... FAIL! You can't do optical flow on this footage!

Sorry Apple.... FAIL! You can't do optical flow on this footage!

Weird. It works for me (XF100).

I'm not too bothered about ProRes either.

So that box isn't grayed ?

What is your machine spec?

What other software do you have installed?

It's a 2010 MBP.

The Optimizing Box is greyed out. I meant that optical flow works perfectly for me.

Other software? Motion, Compressor, CS6 Master, Smoke and some other graphics stuff.

Right. So you can't create optimized media.

So, if you take some footage (that's moving, so there are differences frame to frame), slow it to 50% (25% is even more obvious) and add optical flow, let it process and render.

Now step through the footage one frame at a time (this is important), is every frame different, or is it repeating any frames?

I've done this test over and over on three computers with footage from 2 XF300 and 3 XF100 cameras and it's all the same.

Optical flow is merely repeating the frames and not creating new ones.

Try it, but it must be on footage with something moving or you won't notice the problem. I have yet to find anyone that this works for from the XF cameras, so you would be unique

OK, an update. The short version:
Optical Flow works for me.
Transcoding worked until last fall, now it doesn't.

I just applied a 25% slow motion to a clip, then set it to optical flow. After rendering, when I step through it one frame at a time it definitely has movement on every single frame. One caveat - this is a 720p60 clip. I assume it's showing every single frame, not just moving 1/30 of a second with each left/right arrow press. If someone thinks this matters, I can find (or shoot) some 30fps footage and try it again.

I'm a longtime fan of ProRes and did extensive testing several months back. I tried footage both native and transcoded, and concluded that I could tell no quality difference, but the Prores just seemed easier and faster to work with. So I would always transcode. I had noticed the option grayed out, but mine is grayed out checked, so I was just assuming that meant I couldn't *change* that here. I had never hovered over it to get the tool tip shown in an earlier posting here.

Sure enough, in checking, I have a project as recent as August 2012 that has both Original Media and Transcoded Media folders in the Event folder, but everything after that just has an Original Media folder.

So, sometime around August-October this changed. I assume it was done in some FCPX update. I added an SSD boot drive to my 2008 Mac Pro around that time, so that may have kept me from noticing any performance hit. So is this just Canon and Apple deciding we don't need to transcode, or is it that Canon needs to once again update the plugin???

Thanks for the reply.

I would really appreciate it if you could try a 24p, 25p or 30p clip to see if it's the same. We shoot everything in 25p here, but I doubt that's the primary cause.