Final Cut Effect Frame Rate Retiming

Sorry - I thought somebody else would answer this one — it's more of a Final Cut question than Motion. Motion is not necessary.

FCPX has a feature to set the speed of video so that every frame "counts". That is: if you put a 24fps clip into a 30fps project, select Automatic Speed from the Retime menu, then the video will speed up by 125%. If you put a 60fps clip into a 24fps project, the video will slow down to play at 40% speed (50% if a 30fps project).

Sorry for the delay - yesterday was upgrade day for me: kicking tires, slamming doors, etc.

There is no Automatic Speed option in Motion, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Select your video in the Media tab (over the Layers List). Then select the Media *Inspector* on the left-side column. Look down the list for Frame Rate. Select the new frame rate to use. If you match the frame rate of your project, then you will get 1 frame of the original fit into one frame of your project*. However, the selection is incredibly flexible — you can even type in custom frame rates from 1 to whatever (be reasonable - but I've played with 240 and 1! 😀 ). If you select any other frame rate than your project settings, you will introduce repeated frames or skipped frames during playback.

*fitting a 24fps into 30fps increases the (apparent) speed of the clip by 25%. It will also reduce the length of your timeline by ~20% (give or take a few frames). Remember to reset the Out Point of your project as you will change the length of the media.

So then to tie this up, am I able to automate that value to change based upon the clip that the effect is dropped on in FCP? Or will I need to create a version of the effect for 24fps, 25fps, 29.97fps etc etc?

This technique only works in Motion and cannot be used to create an effect for FCPX which leave Retiming behaviors except Motion will not allow using the Retiming behaviors on anything other than an actual video clip (since the 5.4.2. update!) either!! My Fake Frame Rate effect [I did about 5 years ago has broken] used to use the Strobe behavior on the Effect Source... I no longer can place **any** of the Retiming behaviors on anything except an actual clip which really burns me because I had an effect that I used a Retiming behavior on (that still works in FCPX) that I was going to release, but probably cannot now.

There is a way to create speed changes with a Replicator, a Clone and build your own behaviors, but you will be stuck with looping when speeding up a clip (and other issues that will probably make it not worthwhile.)

It would be easier to simply import your video, make your frame rate change, save as a generator and add the generator to the storyline. When you're done with the project, you can simply trash the generator. You might get away with leaving media in its original location and not saving a copy into the Media folder... but I'm not sure about that.