Captions not showing! Greyed out in Timeline Index

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Level 1

5 points

Captions not showing! Greyed out in Timeline Index

Help! I have never used FCP X before and using a trial now.

Please could you help with my captions? I have a format that I can copy from however, the captions just wont show up at all. I have tried both copying the format and also creating new captions.

View > Timeline viewer shows captions as GREYED OUT.

Sorry, all this is incredibly confusing and counter-intuitive to what I am used to. Please can anyone advise on what to do? I am supposed to get this work done over the weekend but I can't even get started.

For further information

2. This is what the Roles section look like

3.This is what the Captions section look like

Am I missing something here? Does the FCP X trial support all features? Thank you for any thoughts.

Posted on Mar 30, 2019 12:11 PM

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Answer 1

space1014 Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 31, 2019 6:32 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Hi Tom

Thank you - it works now. One more question... could you (or anyone) advise on how to format the subtitles according to the sample that was given me?

The sample provided was a title, so I'm not able to copy it over to captions. I'm also not able to change the font type or style directly in my own captions. Please see below:

1) Sample given (Helvetica font, 50pt and it's white with black borders)

2) My captions (the menu looks different and there is no option to change font style etc)

Sorry for these basic questions, but is there an easy way to do this?

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Answer 2

space1014 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 1, 2019 3:52 AM in response to space1014

Sorry but how do I apply a subtitles template?

This is what I've been told:

Would it be possible to stick to the subtitles template that we added to the project. There is a project called ‘Subtitle template’ which contains a text layer that you can apply to the entire interview section. We prefer this as it’s easier for us to edit and we can make it look nicer for the final output.

I include the screenshot of the subtitles template.

I'm not exactly sure how to apply the text layer to the entire section. Dragging and dropping to the captions timeline or the captions sidebar doesn't seem to do anything. Any ideas? Thanks

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Answer 3

Mar 31, 2019 9:42 AM in response to space1014

Your audience should be able to change the size of the font to suit their needs:

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Answer 4

spherico

Level 2

474 points

Apr 1, 2019 5:41 AM in response to space1014

There are 2 basic types of captions: Closed Captions & Open Captions

Closed captions are thought to be embedded into the AV stream as auxiliary data or delivered as a sidecar file along with the AV stream. This type of captions are "formatted" on the fly by the (hardware or software) device used for playback. Customised appearance depends on the device as well - see above example for Mac and QT Player.

Closed captions can be turned on and off by the user and there may be multiple languages.

FCP closed caption support covers 3 format types: SCC, ITT, SRT.

Open captions are always visible, they are a visual part of the AV Stream like an inserted logo. They can't be switched on/off by the viewer.

But their appearance can be set by the creator. In FCP you can use "Motion Titles" to create those open caption types.

In your example the "Basic Title" is used - but it is disabled.

In the Timeline Index go to the Roles tab and enable "Titles" - the text will be visible. Click the "Basic Title" either in the timeline or the Timeline Index. In Inspector click the "Text" tab (the one with the multiple lines) and edit the appearance and the text. In the timeline edit the timing. Up from there you can use that title clip to create new "captions" - just copy the clip and paste at another time and change the text fields content.

A good idea will be to assign a role to these open captions. By default they have a simple "Titles" role, so there is no difference between "real" titles and your "subtitles". This may become a problem if you want to export a version of the movie without the "subtitles" - if you disable the "Titles" role all real titles will be disabled as well. Additionally the Timeline Index will allow to view either "real titles" or "subtitles".

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