Changing frame rate in FCP messes up clip boundaries, but that’s solvable pre-encoding in ProRes. By the way, FCP doesn’t support changing frame rate, but we can create a new project with the desired frame rate and paste the old project timeline there.

Otherwise, you have two options:

1. Load the project again. The first load creates the fcpscene event.
2. Or, Select All compound clips in the timeline, and Clip → Reference New Parent Clip. But that appends the word "copy" to their names.

fcpscene ~/Movies/my-video.mp4

That example generates an ~/Movies/my-video.fcpxml project.

Tip: If you don’t want to type the video file path, just drag the file into the Terminal — it will paste the path for you.

For the full list of options, type: fcpscene --help

Default: <video-dir>/<video-name>.fcpxml (i.e., in the same directory the video is in)

fcpscene my-video.mp4 --output my-project.fcpxml

Range: 0-100, Default: 88

This value sets the frame difference percentage used to detect scene changes.

fcpscene --sensitivity 70 my-video.mp4

Default: 0.6

Ignores scene changes that are shorter than the value. This is handy for having a high-sensitivity while avoiding false-positives.

fcpscene --min-scene-seconds 2 my-video.mp4

Default: 320

Lower values speed up analysis. This sets the temporary width used to scale down the video during processing (without modifying the original file).

fcpscene --proxy-width 240 my-video.mp4

Choices:

• clips: Normal clips (default)
• compound-clips: Wraps each clip in its own compound clip
• markers: Only add markers
• files: Export scenes as individual video files
• count: Print scene changes count (no file is saved)
• list: Print scene changes times (no file is saved)

fcpscene --mode markers my-video.mp4

Do not print video summary and progress.

fcpscene --quiet my-video.mp4

Creates a folder named after the video (without the extension) in the same directory and saves the clips there.

fcpscene --mode files my-video.mp4

In the Terminal, you can type a snippet like this to run fcpscene on all the .mp4 videos in your 📂~/Movies directory excluding subdirectories.

cd ~/Movies
for vid in *.mp4; do
  caffeinate fcpscene "$vid"
done

Typing caffeinate is optional. It’s a macOS built-in program that prevents the computer from sleeping while it’s running a task.

Also, keep your computer in a well-ventilated area. fcpscene uses ffmpeg under the hood, which will max out your CPU cores 🔥.

I use this command to check if there are stray frames in single-scene files. For example, when retiming with Machine Learning in Compressor, some end up with a random frame. So with this script I can print videos with cuts and their count.

cd ~/Movies/video_foo
for f in *.mov; do
  n_cuts=$(fcpscene --quiet --min-scene-seconds 0 --mode count "$f")
  if [[ $n_cuts != 0 ]]; then
    echo "$f" "$n_cuts"
  fi
done

Example output:

video_foo_018.mov 1
video_foo_064.mov 2
video_foo_073.mov 2

Same as above but printing cut times

cd ~/Movies/video_foo
for f in *.mov; do
  cuts=$(fcpscene -q -mss 0 --mode list "$f")
  if [[ $cuts ]]; then
    echo "$f" "$cuts"
  fi
done

video_foo_018.mov 0.0166667
video_foo_064.mov 0.866667 2.066667
video_foo_073.mov 0.866667 2.066667

1. Select the all the Compound Clips you want to export.

2. File → Share N Clips

1. Pick the Trim Tool (T)
2. Select both edges by clicking between two clips
3. Hit Delete

Alternatively, you can drag each clip edge until it touches the adjacent one to remove the cut.

1. Select the clips you want to rename
2. Window → Show in Workspace → Inspector (Cmd+4)
3. Go to the ⓘ Info Inspector Tab (Ctrl+Tab)
4. Type a name

Caveats: There are many 1-frame-off cuts due to rounding errors. Especially with non-integer frame rates such as 29.97

• Drop the video into the Project Bin → Right-click → Clip Jobs → Automatic Scene Split
• Expand the video on the Project Bin → Select all sequences → Drop them to the timeline
• File → OpenTimelineIO Export
• Convert the .otio to .fcpxml with this Python adapter