Display Issues

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There are several possible display issues you may face when working in Final Cut Pro. Here we'll address a couple common issues that can be easily resolved.

1. Playback of a sequence is "choppy" or is displaying in low resolution.

2. The display in the Canvas seems "soft" or out of focus or is showing aliasing (jagged edges).

Playback Resolution

When playing back a sequence, if the playback is "choppy" or is displaying in low resolution, chances are its a simple setting (or two). This display issue will affect the playback to the Canvas, Digital Cinema Desktop (full screen display) and any external monitor connected to your system.

In the upper left corner of the Timeline is the RT pop-up menu. This is used to change video playback quality and playback frame rate. Click into this menu and change the settings for Playback Video Quality to High and Playback Frame Rate to Full.

These settings are often lowered to less than full quality when playing back real time effects to playback more effects or more tracks. These settings may also be lowered to achieve more playback when working with Multicam. But to go back to viewing the best quality, don't forget to change these settings back to High and Full.

Soft Or Aliased Canvas

Sometimes the Canvas may look out of focus or you may see a lot of aliasing around diagonal lines in the video image. Chances are, this is not a problem with your footage, but its the way the Canvas is displaying the image.

For best playback performance, it is recommended that you set the Canvas to Fit to Window as shown next.

Although this is recommended for smooth playback, the image is being scaled by FCP to fit in the boundaries of the Canvas window. This can cause the image to look less than pristine.

To see whether or not the problem exists in the video or whether it is simply a display issue, try one of the following solutions:

• Set the Canvas window to exactly 100% from the zoom pop-up menu as shown next. The image will probably instantly snap into focus. By the way, this option also shows both fields of any interlaced video. So if after changing this setting to 100%, you see a tearing type of artifact, this is natural. This is only because you are viewing both fields, but to an external monitor, during playback, the fields are only displayed one at a time (which is proper for interlaced video).

• Check an external monitor connected to your Final Cut Pro system. This will always show the "true" image.