Editing issues in FCP re ProRes

I face editing issues in FCP because I'm working with video files created 2004-2010, and 8mm movies converted to .mov. Apple support has told me my editing issues are because my videos are not ProRes compatible. I'm also including many old .jpegs, .PNG screenshots and some AI-enhanced .jpegs, so I'm not sure that only the old videos are the only cause of editing issues. When I started this project 1+ years ago, I had no problem editing, and perhaps the problem is upgrading to Sequoia and the most recent FCP. With many work arounds, I will get through this project.

My question is my next video project. I will convert all the old video to ProRes, but what about my image files? I have an iPhone14 which doesn't have ProRes like the Pro, so do I have to convert these files to ProRes? Apple told me that just because I edit images in Photos, I'm not guaranteed ProRes compatibility. And most irritating, Apple has no ProRes converter app and refuses to recommend a third party.

I would love to hear how anyone is dealing with this "ProRes" challenge.

iMac 24″, macOS 14.7

Posted on Oct 14, 2024 2:01 PM

21 replies

gregmacosko Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 29, 2024 6:40 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

My library is ~238 GB. I would open it and I could edit fine. After 10-15 minutes, I could not get a self-designed Ken Burns affect to work on a video clip or picture. I put in markers at 3 points in an image, and zoom in from second to third. When I go back to play the image, it's frozen at the start or ending zoom. All clips/images were consolidated on my resident hard drive (iMac M3 Sequoia 15.0). I've replaced one .mov DV 10 GB file with an .mp4 H.264 that had a red line through it, and so far, the editing is OK. But I have yet to do more aggressively editing over an hour or two. When I would close and reopen the library, editing worked again, but sometimes only briefly.

Note that all those DV files play in QT. I have been converting some pretty old .aif files that don't play in QT. No .aifs in this library.

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,971 points

Oct 29, 2024 7:14 AM in response to gregmacosko

This is a different issue. Could you start a new thread describing what the editing issue.

Please post an EtreCheck report https://etrecheck.com giving the application Full Disk Access in Privacy & Security Sysyytem Settings. Copy the report and use the Add Text button to paste the result into reply box.

Oct 29, 2024 7:18 AM in response to gregmacosko

gregmacosko wrote:

My library is ~238 GB. I would open it and I could edit fine. After 10-15 minutes, I could not get a self-designed Ken Burns affect to work on a video clip or picture. I put in markers at 3 points in an image, and zoom in from second to third. When I go back to play the image, it's frozen at the start or ending zoom. All clips/images were consolidated on my resident hard drive (iMac M3 Sequoia 15.0). I've replaced one .mov DV 10 GB file with an .mp4 H.264 that had a red line through it, and so far, the editing is OK. But I have yet to do more aggressively editing over an hour or two. When I would close and reopen the library, editing worked again, but sometimes only briefly.

Note that all those DV files play in QT. I have been converting some pretty old .aif files that don't play in QT. No .aifs in this library.

By your description of the symptoms, I'm suspecting that they have nothing to do with the DV files, and very likely may result from something else. If you run Etrecheck and post its full report here, we may find some software issues (I can almost guess). If you decide to post the report, use the "additional text" button below the message and paste the full report into the text box