Can Final Cut Pro x edit 4k video

When you say "smoothness" of the shot, are you referring to camera movement and vibration? If so you will find that the vision needs to be stabilised, this is pretty much normal for all vision coming from a drone.

aside what Tony said (vibrations), most cases of 'un-smoothness' are simply based upon wrong selection of shutter-speed/missing motion blur.

A (Moving) Picture tells more than a thousand words from me, have a look and try diff. settings

https://frames-per-second.appspot.com/

Even 60fps can not 'guarantee' a smooth viewing experience...

It might be helpful if you could upload a short example of what you're describing and linking to it so we can see firsthand what the smoothness issue is.

Thanks.

Russ

Gary Kissler wrote:

..... If you have further suggestions, I would welcome them as this has proven to be incredibly frustrating!

First, follow advice/plea of Russ - share a few seconds of your footage, so we can discuss what 'smoothness' your missing.

Second, I'm stubborn: lower your shutter speeds (probably you have to use an NDfilter, to come close to 1/50th - 1/100th

All 'hints' you're mentioning are ... should I really write nonsense ?

mp4 is just a container - has no effect on pic quaity

Mac can't handle 4k? omg, my tiny 2012 MacMini can handle 4 streams of 4k in a Mutlicam ...

any other hardware suggestions: quality is judged only with 'finalized' project, an exported file ... so, 'bang' of your GPU, size of your RAM, speed of hard-drives - don't matter for final, consolidated export.

Is the lack of smoothness visible in exported movies viewed on a TV or is it just appearing on your FCP X viewer?

As Karsten suggested, you can't always judge jitter correctly on the computer, especially if the footage hasn't been rendered.

Gary,

I have a Phantom 3 Pro and I have shot and edited in FCP X a good bit of footage in 4K using the Phantom 3 Pro's camera. I feel it is quite steady, and in fact, I was amazed that I did not need to apply any stabilization whatsoever to the h.264 footage shot by the Phantom 3 Pro. Here is a link to the first two flights of my Phantom 3 Pro in 4K and edited in FCP X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdBhNecwfdE. It should be clear what footage was shot by the Phantom 3 Pro's 4K camera and the remainder of the footage of the Phantom 3 Pro itself was shot in 4K with a Samsung NX-1. None of the footage shot with the Phantom 3 Pro's 4K camera was stabilized in this clip whereas all of the handheld 4K footage shot with the Samsung NX-1 was stabilized in FCP X..

The Phantom 3 Pro is shooting 4K footage in h.264 which my Late 2013 model Mac Pro is able to handle without converting it to a more edit friendly format, e.g. Apple's Pro Res 422. I suggest that you try converting your footage to Pro Res 422 or 42HQ and then ingesting that optimized footage into FCP X. I believe that your computer will have a much easier time playing back that footage than the native h.264 captured by the Phantom 3 Pro's 4K camera.

Tom

Very pretty. Smooth motion looks like a crane. Cool titles too.

Tom,

Thank you for the kind comments. I have already used the feedback form to request that Apple include support for the h.265 codec. It is a very efficient codec hat produces very very high quality from very small file sizes.

Tom

Very impressive!

Did you ever imagine, as a kid, that you would ever own such gear . . . the cameras and the copter?

Only 20 years ago, such things were mere daydreams.

Ian,

Thank you for your comments.

At 72, I have seen a lot in technology that I could never have imagined would occur in my lifetime. We are truly blessed to have the quality of digital cameras and electronics that we have today. If someone had told me how stable and how high the quality of the 4K footage from the tiny camera on the Phantom 3 Pro could be, I doubt that I would have believed them. It truly is like taking video on a very very tall tripod. I just wish that people who fly these drones will use good judgement and not fly over people or buildings. I am very careful to fly my Phantom 3 Pro only in places where I will not overfly people or homes. No technology is infallible, and I never forget that when flying.

It is the dreams that keep us young...

Tom

I know nothing about your video card but I suspect you may be throwing money at a problem that does not require it . . . maybe someone with more knowledge of video cards can comment.

I'm worried that after buying a new card you may well find the problem persists.

It's quite possible the trouble lies in your workflow, but as you have not detailed exactly what you are doing it's impossible to tell.

Jerky playback whilst editing is not necessarily a problem, apart from being irritating.

Frequently you find that once rendered and exported, the final video is perfect.

Hopefully the card's returnable and fully refundable. But bear in mind that if it turns out not to cure the problem, most stores will charge a restocking fee (and you'll be responsible for postage) if you return it.

Russ