Does Final Cut Camera app record in constant frame rate or variable?

One of my biggest frustrations with using my iPhone 16 pro to record video is that it’s very difficult to sync to footage recorded with my Sony cameras in FCP on my iPad. I initially thought it was because the Sony was recording at 29.97fps, and the iPhone was recording at 30fps. Then I learned that the iPhone camera app IS actually recording 29.97fps, but uses variable frame rate recording instead of constant.

Normally I just use Handbrake to transcode the iPhone footage to constant frame rate, but if the Final Cut Camera records in constant it would save me loads of time. I can’t find any info about this in Apple’s documentation however.

iPhone 16 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on Jan 8, 2025 8:26 PM

Top-ranking reply

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,815 points

Posted on Jan 9, 2025 4:18 AM

Yes, Final Cut Camera shoots variable frame rate. Media Info indicates the camera shoots full frame rate, not partial frame, 30 and 60. The QT Player lists it as 30, but the 60 is listed as encoded at 59.99. I'd trust Media Info that the encoding rate is full frame rate, though of course it's variable so it can be anything, on the shot I looked it at was 29.703 to 30.303 FPS.

One interesting thing is FCC shoots 48k audio, while the internal camera still shoots the archaic CD sample rate.

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Does Final Cut Camera app record in constant frame rate or variable?

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