Issues with timeline, exporting, and possible FPS - help!

Hi all,

I'm hoping you can help me.

I recently received some .mov files (h.264) on a tight deadline and have been trying to put them together in FCP.

I know FCP doesn't like h.264 too much, but they did import. FCP 6.0.6, which I have on my old computer, became too buggy with these files, and I had to give it up.

The problem is, I also tried editing them in FCP 7 and the most recent version of Premiere, and I had the same issues there.

The audio drifts, transitions make the footage stutter (as does text), and when I try to export the timeline I get misplaced video and grey ghost faces.

These files play just fine in Quicktime, so I don't think they're corrupted.

I did change my timeline settings to match the clips in FCP 7, which saved rendering time. However, I'm at my wits end on making this footage editable or exportable.

I did try deleting all my old render files and re-rendering. I do have all the colors checked in the render drop down menu. I've also tried going in and deleting my old FCP preferences. Nothing seems to work or fix these bugs.

PS - when I inspect the clips individually, I see that some are listed as 28 fps, some at 30, and some at 29.97. The timeline is currently running at the 29.97. Would this have anything to do with the error? If so, how would I fix it?

I'm probably missing something important here, but I've already put so much work into this, and starting over at this juncture isn't really an option. Can anyone help me?


Thank you in advance!

Your hardware is having trouble processing the Long-GOP codec inside of an NLE. Transcode it all to ProRes 422 and you'll be fine.

You probably know this trick but I will pass it on just in case. When dragging content to the timeline, you'll be asked to change your settings to match your content. If you say no, whatever your sequence settings are, then FCP will force it in to those settings. If you say yes, in the case of H.264, problems like yours will arise. Try setting your sequences to either 10bit uncompressed or ProRes HQ to avoid dealing with issues like that.