Viewer zoom in more than 300?

Aha!!!! You nailed it!

I just moved the main FCP window from my internal "retina" display to my external 1080p display.

On the internal it goes to 600%, on the external it goes to 300%.

Tom Wolsky wrote:

You should be able to run 10.4.10 Luis if you have it. It’s still running in Monterey on M1.

Thanks, Tom. I do have it on an external drive.

I just launched it (took a while, as it is on a slow drive), and confirm that viewer zoom goes up to 600% in this version.

It must have changed somewhere between 10.4.2 and 10.4.10, I suppose.

jacksonsg wrote:

A bit confusing. And I don't see such a setting for the Benq. So back to what I was originally doing... if I were to get a 4k monitor and zoom to 600% would that offer more detail/control for drawing a mask? Or would a 4k monitor not even necessarily allow FCP viewer to zoom 600%? The video timeline is 1080p.

Suppose you have both a 4K display, and a 1080p display, and let's further assume that they are both the same physical size - say, 24". The pixels on the 4K are twice as small, and twice as many, right?

Now suppose you display the same 1080p video on both, fullscreen.

Again, the same size, but on the 1080p it's at 100%; on the 4K, it is actually at 200%.

Similarly, if you scale to 300% on the 1080p screen, it will correspond to 600% on the 4K screen, though both are being displayed in the same physical size.

All this comes down to a simple question: how big is a video shown at 100%?

The answer to it depends on how big the pixels are. On a 4K screen, the pixels are smaller, so a 100% 1080p takes only a quarter of the screen; on a 1080p, it takes the whole screen.

I also get up to 600%.

Try deleting the preferences.

Hold down the ⌥ and ⌘ keys as you launch FCP X and in the window that appears select Delete Preferences.

I'm still running 10.4.10 and 300% is the highest zoom setting. If you have a scroll wheel on your mouse, holding down the Control key while scrolling up will zoom the whole screen. If you're using a Magic Mouse or a trackpad, this info may be of help:

Use your trackpad or mouse to zoom on Mac - Apple Support

What version of FCP? In the current version I can go to 600%, as Meg anc Ian. Maybe you have an older version like Fox? I

no longer have that version to test.

As mentioned earlier my FCP X 10.6.4 on my 5K iMac goes to 600%.

My FCP X 10.5.4 on my Mac mini with a 1080p BenQ monitor goes to 300%.

As I understand it, this a “retina” vs “non-retina” or HiDPI vs non-HiDPI thing.

The number, being 300% or 600%, is compared to pixel count, not image size.

HiDPI screens at 600% will show your image at about the same size (or smaller) than the larger but lower resolution screens.

For example, if your BenQ display can be set to a HiDPI resolution, FCP would do 600% but the pixels would be smaller, thus ending up with the same thing.

It is something that most people do not realize, how “retina” display resolution ard handled. Take a 2880x1800 15” display. It will be “as 1440x900”, but still FCP can display a 1080p video in the Viewer at 100%, pixel per pixel; obviously you can’t do it in a real 1440x900 display, and the same actual size would correspond to - you guessed it - 50% scale.

What OS are you using Fox? My 10.4.10 will go to 600 in Monterey.

If you look at this video from June 8th. 2018 you will see that you can only zoom in 300%.

At that date the latest version of FCP X was 10.4.2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcwsdP3BmQI

I see viewer scaling available up to 600% on my system, do you not see that on yours?

MtD

The oldest version that I can run on my mac is 10.5.4, and it too goes to 600%.