Final Cut Pro Captions and Compounding Clips

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Level 1

16 points

Final Cut Pro Captions and Compounding Clips

2tb ssd Mac Book Pro 2016 with 2tb FD ssd external thudnerbolt 3 drive. 37 minute 1080p movie with video clips, stills, detached audio and imported audio. I edited my movie and added captions. Then, I compounded clips and applied compressor effects. Problem: Captions disappeared. I played the movie, and no captions. I shared to file, selecting to have the captions burned in. When I played the resulting file there were no captions. I went back to the movie and broke apart a clip. The captions were there, but the compressor effects were gone. When I re-compounded the clips, low and behold the compressor effects were back, but the captions were gone. I have seven pages of caption transcript and don't really want to re-caption the whole thing. Since the captions are actually there, there must be a solution, but it evades me. Your help will be appreciated.

iMac 21.5″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Mar 12, 2023 8:32 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Tim Lashlee Author

Level 1

16 points

Mar 14, 2023 12:21 PM in response to barberlives123

Thank you for your detailed response. However, as a work around, I already uncompounded all of the clips. The captions reappeared, but as before, the audio compression effects were gone. I shared to a file with the captions burned in. Then I re-imported as a new project. The captions were there. I then applied the compressor to the now single clip, made a few adjustments here and there, and voila! Success. But, this does not explain why this sophisticated program took away my captions when I compounded clips or why the compression effects went away when I uncompounded the clips. Neither compounding or uncompounding should have had such an effect. In the future, I won't add captions until the very, very end. Thanks again.

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Answer 2

Mar 14, 2023 11:04 AM in response to Tim Lashlee

Hey there Tim Lashlee,

You mention compressing the file. Try exporting the captions as a separate file as seen below and see if this has any impact on the issue:

1. Open the project in the Final Cut Pro timeline, then choose File > Export Captions.

2. In the Save As field, type a name for the exported caption file.

3. Navigate to a folder for the caption file.

4. In the Roles section, select the checkboxes for the language subroles you want to export as caption files.

5. A separate caption file is created for each language subrole you select.

6. In the Start Time section, select one of the following:

* Relative to Timeline: Calculate each caption’s start time by subtracting the project’s start time.

* Absolute: Use each caption’s actual start time, regardless of the project’s start time.

9. If you’re exporting SRT captions, select or deselect the Include Formatting checkbox in the SRT section to retain or remove any text formatting applied to the captions in Final Cut Pro.

10. In most cases, it’s recommended that you deselect this option to remove text formatting. Because of the absence of text formatting specifications in the SRT standard, any formatting style (such as bold, italic, or underline) that you apply to SRT captions in Final Cut Pro may not appear correctly in your intended player or playback device.

11. Click Export.

You can read more here:

Export captions with Final Cut Pro

Take care.

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Answer 3

Jeff_W.

Community Specialist

Mar 14, 2023 12:41 PM in response to Tim Lashlee

Hello Tim Lashlee,

If you’d like, you can reach out to Apple Support. You can use the "Tell us what’s happening” field to explain what you’re trying to do. Remember to add “Final Cut Pro” as well. Here’s the link: Get Support

All the best.

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Final Cut Pro Captions and Compounding Clips

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