Flickering in Time Lapse Exported from Multicam Compound Clip

Question

Flickering in Time Lapse Exported from Multicam Compound Clip

In short, when I export a time lapse I get flickering/flashing every few seconds because it has rendered certain frames out of order or in the wrong place.

Using a 2021 Macbook Pro (M1 Max) I'm taking a long and heavily edited Multicam clip (1080p 30fps), making it a compound clip, then retiming it to around 20x and exporting it to MPEG-4 in H264 or ProRes (happens with both).

I can get around the problem by first exporting the full Multicam clip, then importing it back into FCPX and then applying the retiming. But we're talking about 2-3 hour videos that can be huge and time consuming to export. It really complicates my workflow.

Has anyone else experienced this? Any fixes? Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.6

Posted on Mar 5, 2023 6:51 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

terryb

Level 4

2,620 points

Mar 6, 2023 6:03 PM in response to marcusfromlakewood ranch

Does it make any difference if you work at the multicam level and not create a compound? Select all your video in the timeline, then hit control+option+r for custom retiming, input 1700% and hit enter. All clips/multicam edits should be at 1700%. If you export a short section of this do you still see the problem?

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Answer 2

terryb

Level 4

2,620 points

Mar 7, 2023 9:47 AM in response to marcusfromlakewood ranch

Great! Glad that worked. When you have a moment you should report this behavior to Apple using the menu Final Cut Pro->Provide Final Cut Pro Feedback... or using this link https://www.apple.com/feedback/finalcutpro.htm

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Answer 3

Mar 6, 2023 10:17 AM in response to terryb

Thanks, Terry. Forgot to provide that info. I'm running MacOS 13.2.1 and FCPX 10.6.5, which I believe are the latest versions.

Yes, I did find a thread about a frame ordering issue over at FCP.co, but seemed to be a more general problem (affecting playback and normal exports) which I haven't experienced, and was supposedly fixed with the release of 10.6.4.

After a lot of searching I haven't found anyone else where it occurs just with retimed multicam compound clips. All of my other exports are fine.

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Answer 4

terryb

Level 4

2,620 points

Mar 6, 2023 2:26 PM in response to marcusfromlakewood ranch

Are there any effects applied to the multicam? Try a short test project without any effects, filters, LUTs, etc., and see if there's any change. If it exports without problems, add the effects back in one at a time to see which one causes the issue.

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Answer 5

Mar 6, 2023 5:20 PM in response to terryb

Thanks, Terry. It didn't occur to me to remove all effects. Unfortunately it didn't make a difference.

After doing more troubleshooting I discovered that my Multicam clip might be too complicated (with perhaps 1000 cuts) for retiming to work seamlessly. I brought my unedited Multicam clip into a new project, applied the same amount of retiming (in this case, 17x), and the exported file didn't have any problems. If this is indeed the source of the problem, it doesn't help me at all, but hopefully Apple can fix the issue.

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Answer 6

Mar 6, 2023 6:47 PM in response to terryb

Terry, that's done it!

I didn't know that I could apply retiming to so many clips at once without have to compound them!

So it looks like FCPX struggles to retime at large number of clips at once that have been batched together into a compound clip, but can do it if they're retimed individually.

Thanks again! This should save me a lot of time!

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Answer 7

Mar 7, 2023 12:41 PM in response to terryb

I'll definitely provide feedback to Apple.

By the way, I saw that you're also a member over at fcp.co. After you found the solution, I attempted to post on the thread I started over there (don't want to waste anyone's time), but 18 hours later my post still hasn't been approved by the moderators. I was able to edit the original post, though.

Thanks again for your help.

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Answer 8

terryb

Level 4

2,620 points

Mar 7, 2023 1:14 PM in response to marcusfromlakewood ranch

You're very welcome. I've seen it take a little while for new user posts on fcp.co to be approved, but you were able to edit your post, which is something you can't do here if some period of time has elapsed after posting.

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Answer 9

terryb

Level 4

2,620 points

Mar 6, 2023 8:27 AM in response to marcusfromlakewood ranch

Which macOS? Which version of FCP? I recall there was an out-of-order frame rendering problem in a previous version of FCP.

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