Final Cut 10.7 Prores raw files gives black preview

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I just tested 4k/23.98 ProRes RAW files from a Sony A7SIII and Sony FX6, recorded on an Atomos Ninja V, and on my 2019 i9 MacBook Pro 16 running Sonoma 14.1.2 and FCP 10.7.

The files work OK, including RAW color temp adjustment. The file metadata shown by MediaInfo indicates those clips were recorded with Ninja V firmware version 10.67.1. The FX6 was running firmware 2.00 and the A7SIII was running firmware 2.10.

I have the same issue. These black Prores Raw files do not render or export as well. I was working on a documentary and this made me stop until I get any fix for that. It works if you take all Prores Raw files and render it through compressor to Prores 4444, but I have 50% of footage corrupted in this way after the update, so i see no point in doing that. I just cry and beg for fix. I wrote to the support and filed an issue report. Fingers crossed it will be fixed. It is a very hard deal and ruined all the deadlines for me.

I also tried restarting my Mac and then reset my FCPX settings by holding cmd+option at launch, but it did not help. I tried to delete renders – did not help. I tried to import these files to a new clean library – still black and unexportable. I also found that some files that were not corrupted in a first place do corrupt (turn black) once in a while and after it happens there is no way back, they will be black no matter what. I use M1 mac and footage was also recorded with Atomos. I will also check my other libraries, but I will not be surprised to find blackend footage there as well.

It only happens with Prores Raw, other footage is fine.

@AlexanderTramp, can you tell us what camera, what Atomos recorder, what year and model of Mac.

Please use the third-party utilities MediaInfo or Invisor and post the complete metadata of the ProRes RAW files here.

What type of disk are the ProRes RAW files on? Internal, external, NAS or what? If an external disk, is that ExFAT, APFS, or HFS+? Do Finder "Get Info" to see that.

Unlike other RAW formats (which often require a special player), ProRes RAW is handled just like regular ProRes. You can play it in Quicktime or Quick Look (press spacebar in Finder). See if those "problem" files can be played in Finder or Quicktime, outside of FCP. That will help determine if the problem is MacOS, disk subsystem, or FCP.

Please verify what version of Apple Pro Video Formats you are running. To check: hold down OPT key, press Apple menu in the menu bar>System Information>Software>Installations>Pro Video Formats. Scroll down the middle pane. If several past installations of Pro Video Formats, tell us the highest number (should be 2.3).

As always, check how much free disk space is on your Mac.

Yep

Camera Lumix S1H, Atomos Ninja V. I filmed it 2 years ago.

I just checked properties (I havent used these funny tools) and found that only 6k footage has this bug with turning black. @magtes may be you will confirm. Any 4k Prores raw works fine though.

Every Prores Raw that turns black in fcpx is played correctly in QT and Quick Look. No issues at all. It happensnly when I use FCPX 10.7. Older versions of FCPX worked totally fine

Prores Raw originals are on external APFS 16Tb HDD . Library file is on external 4tb APFS SSD.

Apple Pro Video is the latest 2.3

Definitely enough free space. Each drive has at least around 200 gb free space.

My Mac is 13' 2020 M1 with 16gb ram. I use Sonoma 14.2.1

Alexander, thanks for collecting that info. Unfortunately, I don't have any 6k ProRes RAW material recorded on Atomos. I have 6k/23.98 ProRes RAW HQ from a DJI Ronin 4D, and that works OK on FCP 10.7.0 on Sonoma 14.2 and 14.2.1 on Apple Silicon.

When you report this to Apple, it would be beneficial to include the Atomos firmware version used to shoot that. You may as well include all the available metadata from one of those 6k clips, which includes the Atomos firmware version. That can be obtained using the 3rd-party utilities MediaInfo or Invisor.

This is not just a problem with ProRes Raw recorded through a Ninja. It is also affecting ProRes Raw clips recorded internally on Nikon Z8 and Nikon Z9 on some Intel Macs. AlexanderTramp is the first one reporting it happening on silicon Macs that I've seen. It is not just a Sonoma problem. It also happens on Ventura and it is a very widespread problem it seems.

I read something yesterday on very recent Assimilate Scratch 9.7 release notes about a ProRes Raw decoder update and a new ProRes Raw SDK. I suspect that is where the problem lies - some sort of mix up in FCP decoding ProRes Raw from different cameras. Hopefully it will get fixed soon.

I reported days ago. 10.7.1 release today and no fix. Is there any way to get through? I am kinda scared that all of my 6k footage is not usable anymore :(

AlexanderTramp wrote:

I reported days ago. 10.7.1 release today and no fix. Is there any way to get through? I am kinda scared that all of my 6k footage is not usable anymore :(

It's not lost as it only affects some machines (mostly Intel, your M1 is the first report I've seen of it happening on silicon Macs). There are workarounds.

If you know someone with a Mac that works, then transcode to ProRes 4444.

Somebody posted that Compressor is not affected so you could try transcoding with that if you have it. It's not expensive in any case and very useful at times.

Assimilate Play Pro also works for transcoding if by any chance you got a free copy with your Ninja.

Go back to an earlier version of FCP if you can.

I know, I wrote about transcoding compressor to 4444. And I am not scared about the footage. It's just Full length documentary with like 1-2 hour interviews as well and very heavy footage. And these are 6k files. I wont have enough free space to transcode it. I refer to 5 to 10 Tb of it. I will also loose flexibility of Prores Raw. I was just testing colour correction with Dehancer plugin of Raw (Like I still have my 4k files that work fine). And colours from just Raw on timeline original Log against Prores 4444 in rec 2020 are veeery different. It is just bad and happened right during pre-release. It made me super mad and I keep this thread live, because I need that fix really hard.

I've tested all the versions of ProRes RAW I have (inc'l 4.3k recorded on Atomos Ninja V from Sony A7SIII and FX6), and I only found one which shows the problem on Intel FCP 10.7.0 and 10.7.1 -- a 4140 x 2330 59.94 fps ProRes RAW HQ clip from a Nikon Z8, apparently recorded in camera, not externally. The file has no info about the Z8 firmware version.

Other users in this thread have reported it on the Panasonic Lumix S1H, recorded on Ninja V, and maybe Sony A1. It may be mostly or partially isolated to Intel, but there's one report on Apple Silicon M1.

The FCP behavior is a black viewer when the timeline or skimmer playhead is halted -- if the viewer is set to Better Performance. If set to Better Quality, it stays black even when playing or skimming.

Attempting to create 50% ProRes Proxies on those clips will hang -- progress wheel does nothing.

Studying the FCP debug log with the terminal "log stream" command shows repeated messages similar to the below. These might imply problems with the management of structures related to color space. The functions containing "FF" refer to the private FCP framework "Flexo", and those containing "HG" refers to a "Helium Graph" data structure, used in the Helium private framework.

Final Cut Pro: (ProCore) assertion failed: displayLinear2020 should only be used for displaying PQ or Linear content. (false) :: HGRef<HGNode> makePQIntoDisplayLinear2020(HGRef<HGNode>, CGColorSpaceRef *, FFPixelFormat **, NSString **, BOOL, BOOL) (file: /Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/Flexo/Flexo-41000.67.16/framework/image/FFHGAsyncFanout.mm, line: 2393)

The most expedient solution is stay on 10.6.10 or revert back to 10.6.10. Before upgrading FCP versions, the Final Cut Pro.app package of the previous version should be saved, and also any key FCP libraries currently being used. That provides an easy fallback to the prior version in case of problems.

If this wasn't done, you can often recover the prior FCP .app file and library before the upgrade from a Time Machine or other backup. If you don't have a backup of your library, there might be one in /Movies/Final Cut Backups.

The FCP version of each library can be inspected in Finder by doing right-click>Show Package Contents, selecting the file CurrentVersion.plist, and pressing the space bar (Quick Look). There is a string inside the file showing the library version.

I don't work for Apple, but I've spent a lot of time trying to reproduce this on various machines, and I only have the one Nikon Z8 clip that shows it. We need more information on the specific problem cases, also short ProRes RAW camera files which show the problem. That is unaltered out-of-camera files, not a rendered FCP output or frame grabs. It would help to have detailed MediaInfo output to show the metadata.

I don't know the best way to upload that for examination; maybe Tom could advise.

I think the most practical way at the moment is to use Dropbox or WeTransfer or other accessible site. Post the link here. The link will be removed, but it will appear in all notification emails for the thread or the forum.

Thanks, Tom. Below is a write-only secure Dropbox folder for uploading files for troubleshooting the 10.7 ProRes RAW "black frame" problem. What we need is relatively short out-of-camera files which demonstrate this problem, also matching information about camera, recorder, and year/make/model of Mac.

If you don't have a short file or there are proprietary elements, you can usually do "no encode" trimming of the file using Quicktime Player which preserves all metadata -- even for ProRes RAW. To do that, open the ProRes RAW file in Quicktime Player, then do CMD+T to enter trim mode. Move the left and right range markers to produce a short acceptable clip. Then press the blue "Trim" button. This does not trim the original file but only a temporary copy. After that do File>Save, and provide a filename. Then play that trimmed file in Quicktime to make sure it is OK. After that upload the file.

If possible also include a MacOS System Report. To obtain that, hold down the OPT key, press the Apple Menu, then select System Information. Then while the System Information app is up, do File>Save. That will produce an SPX file. Please upload that also. Please put your name or screen name on the file so I can keep track of them.

I do not work for Apple, but I have experience in this area and am doing this to try and help the user community. You can query on my name to see my past postings on this forum.

[Edited by Moderator]

joema wrote:

I've tested all the versions of ProRes RAW I have (inc'l 4.3k recorded on Atomos Ninja V from Sony A7SIII and FX6), and I only found one which shows the problem on Intel FCP 10.7.0 and 10.7.1 -- a 4140 x 2330 59.94 fps ProRes RAW HQ clip from a Nikon Z8, apparently recorded in camera, not externally. The file has no info about the Z8 firmware version.

Assuming the Nikon Z8 file was mine from the link in the other thread, it is definitely recorded in-camera (it is not possible to record ProRes Raw to the Ninja V on the Z8 or Z9), it was untrimmed, straight out of camera, purposely recorded as a short clip and the firmware is 1.01 (only one minor firmware update since the camera was released earlier this year. ProRes Raw from the Nikon Z9 shows exactly the same behaviour. I'm happy to upload a sample Z9 file to the Dropbox link if you like. I also have ProRes Raw files shot on Z6 and Z6II that don't show this behaviour if you would like to have a look at them.

I only see the bug on a 2019 Intel iMac with 4GB GPU, not on Intel MacPro 2019 with 32GB GPU with Afterburner or on M1Max MacBookPro.