Stupid trouble with simple transition- please help!

[Christopher Glavan]

Okay, this is supposed to be easy and I feel as though I've missed something. I'm trying to add a cross-fade transition between two clips. It's my default transition, so I hit command+t. Even though the browser and viewer both show the effect to be 1:00 in length, what I get is a single-frame transition. I try to drag it in the timeline but it won't expand. I try to edit it in the viewer before I apply it. Nothing works. Clipping is off. I'm about ready to start throwing things.

Can anyone help me? I know I've missed something simple, I've used this a hundred times before without issue.

Thanks!

[Greg Boston]

What you have missed is having enough media overlapping to perform a transition of that length. IOW, you need extra frames beyond the mark out of the outgoing clip, and enough frames in front of the mark in point of the incoming clip. It's in that region where the transition gets applied.

-gb-

[Christopher Glavan]

Okay, I wonder why I haven't run into this before but am now...?

When I edit clips together I set my in and my out, then drag into the overwrite box in the canvas. So all my video is on one track-- how am I supposed to have overlapping frames?

Thanks!

Chris

[Bob Kerner]

I've had this issue too. If your clip isn't long enough then the transition won't get applied the way you want. I don't think it has anything to do with the mechanix of setting in and out points beyond just allowing for a longer clip.

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Christopher Glavan

Okay, I wonder why I haven't run into this before but am now...?

When I edit clips together I set my in and my out, then drag into the overwrite box in the canvas. So all my video is on one track-- how am I supposed to have overlapping frames

They are there, you just don't see them. But they have to be there in order to apply the transition.

Check out what the manual says...

From Volume II, Part III, page 378 of the FCP User Manual

Having Handles at Edit Points

Clips must have handles if you want to transition between them. Handles are
additional media frames before the In point and after the Out point of your clips. The
first shot in a transition (the outgoing clip) needs a handle after its Out point, while the
second shot in a transition (the incoming clip) needs a handle before its In point.
If the In point of your incoming clip begins on the first frame of the clip’s media file,
you have no handle at the beginning (or head) of your clip. Likewise, if the Out point of
your outgoing clip ends on the last frame of the clip’s media file, you have no handle at
the end (or tail) of your clip. If the clips don’t have enough media for the transition,
Final Cut Pro attempts to make the longest transition possible with the available clip
handles. In some cases, you may end up with transitions as short as one frame, which
may be difficult to see in the Timeline and are generally not intended or useful.

With all due respect to Bob, this is one of the things that get you when stepping into a higher end NLE. The more consumer oriented ones will adjust your out/in points for you when you apply a transition. FCP won't do that for you and there has to be ample media to complete the transition.

Imagine for a moment that you have two strips of physical film. You have marked the outgoing film clip at 12 frames from the end. Assuming 24P, you have 1/2 second worth of frames creating a 'handle'. You mark the incoming clip 12 frames in, such that you have 1/2 second of frames creating another handle.

If you lay the two clips next to each other on the timeline with a straight cut, FCP in essence folds those extra 12 frames 'under' on both clips so that the mark out and mark in are butted up next to each other. If you then decide to apply some sort of transition, FCP relies on those folded under hidden frames to create the transition with. In essence, it unfolds just enough frames to create the transition. If you don't have enough frames for the time length you want, it won't allow it because it treats the mark out/mark in as absolute boundaries that it can't steal from for transitions.

Hope this helps,

-gb-

[Bob Kerner]

You explained that wonderfully, Greg!

I was shooting for something like that, but missed!

Bob

[Christopher Glavan]

So, now that we know what the issue is (I can't use full clips- they need handles on either end), is there any way to correct this in the timeline short of completely starting from scratch?

EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out. Phew!

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Christopher Glavan

So, now that we know what the issue is (I can't use full clips- they need handles on either end), is there any way to correct this in the timeline short of completely starting from scratch?

EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out. Phew!

I believe there's a setting in the preferences where you can tell FCP to add handles during the capture process from your source media. IOW, whatever you mark in/out for the clip during capture will have some padding added to it. That should give you some extra frames to work with for transitions at the expense of using a bit more space on your drive.

-gb-