FCP X: Looking at the View Menu

Posted on by Larry

Ever wonder what all the options mean in the View Menu in the top right corner of the Viewer in Apple Final Cut Pro X?

Me too. And, as I was writing this I realized that Apple added a new feature with the 10.4.7 update to Final Cut.

Let’s take a look.

The menu is divided into five sections:

  1. Show
  2. Quality
  3. Channels
  4. Range Check
  5. Captions

Some of these options are also in View > Show in Viewer; but most are only available here.

SHOW

This section determines which additional elements to display along with the image in the Viewer.

QUALITY

This section determines the image quality displayed in the Viewer, as well as the type of media being edited.

Neither of these options decrease requirements for storage performance, this just lightens the load on the CPU. Also, export is always at the highest quality, regardless of which of these options is selected.

This provides a fast way to toggle proxies on or off. (To create proxies, select the clips to convert in the Browser, not the timeline, and choose File > Transcode Media.)

NOTE: This setting does affect export. If proxies are selected, that’s the format that will be exported.

CHANNELS

This section allows you to see individual color channels for clips in the timeline.

Overlays

Display

RANGE CHECK

This places a “herringbone” overlay on video levels that exceed “safe” amounts, as determined by the Rec. 709 spec.

CAPTIONS

This section toggles captions on or off and, if multiple languages are selected, allows you to pick the language to be displayed.

SUMMARY

Apple keeps evolving this menu to give us more control over what we see during editing. And, now you know what the options mean.


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2 Responses to FCP X: Looking at the View Menu

  1. Jason says:

    Hi, my View menu has suddenly disappeared (along with the % size of the window). I now have Position info (X, Y) above my browser image. Not sure what I may have inadvertently clicked, but having trouble getting this View dropdown menu back. Any advice is appreciated!

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