Choose video and audio inputs

Prerequisites

• A video file in one of the supported containers, stored somewhere it can stay put until you have exported and imported the result.
• Optionally, a separate microphone recording of the same take.

Supported file types

These are the same lists used everywhere a file reaches RoughCut: the drop zone, the browse panels, Finder's Open With, a drop on the Dock icon, and a Final Cut Pro share destination.

Steps

1. Choose New Rough Cut in the sidebar, under Studio.
2. Drag a video file onto the drop zone in the Choose your media box. It reads Drop a video here until a file is chosen.
3. Or click Browse Video… and pick the file from the open panel.
4. To swap the video, drop another file on the same zone — it now reads Drop to replace the video — or click Browse Video… again. The new file replaces the old one; there is no second video slot.
5. Only if you recorded a separate microphone track of the same take, click Browse Audio (optional)… and choose it. Skip this step otherwise.
6. Check the file chips under the drop zone. They show the filenames you selected, so you can confirm you picked the right take before spending a run.
7. To clear both files and start over, click Reset. It also restores the cut controls to your saved configuration defaults.

Expected result

The drop zone shows a chip for your video, and a second chip for the audio file if you added one. Process becomes available once a video is present, the speech model is ready (or Pro Cloud transcription is selected), and no validation message is showing.

When a separate audio file helps

RoughCut extracts audio from the video automatically, so most jobs need nothing else. The screen says so directly:

Audio is extracted automatically. Files are never copied — the FCPXML references your original file in place.

Adding a file with Browse Audio (optional)… changes what RoughCut listens to, not what it exports:

That is the whole reason to use it. A lavalier or shotgun mic recorded to a separate device is usually far cleaner than the camera's onboard microphone, and a cleaner signal produces a better transcript and better silence boundaries. The timeline you import into Final Cut Pro still points at the original video file.

The separate track must be synchronised with the video. Every cut time is measured against the audio RoughCut analysed. If the mic recording starts a second early, every cut in the exported timeline lands a second early too. If you are not certain the two are in sync, leave the audio slot empty and let RoughCut extract from the video.

Unsupported files

Dropping a file RoughCut cannot take shows this message, with the offending extension filled in:

Unsupported file type .<ext>. Video: mp4, mov, mkv, avi, m4v. Audio: wav, mp3, m4a.

Sending an unsupported file from Finder or Final Cut Pro produces the same refusal, named after the file:

RoughCut can't open "<name>". Video: mp4, mov, mkv, avi, m4v. Audio: wav, mp3, m4a.

The fix is the same in both cases: convert the file to one of the listed containers first, or export a supported version from the application that produced it.

An accepted extension is not a guarantee

The extension check looks at the container, not at the codec inside it. .mkv and .avi in particular are containers that can hold a very wide range of video and audio codecs, and some of what they can hold will not decode on macOS.

So a file can be accepted at the drop zone and still fail later, during the audio-extraction or probe stage. If you are working with anything unusual — an older camera, a screen recorder you have not used before, a download of unknown provenance — do this first:

1. Trim a short section, a minute or so, into its own file.
2. Run that short file through RoughCut.
3. Only commit the full recording once the short test completes.

A failed job costs you nothing: it does not consume one of your included cuts. What it costs is time, and a short test spends far less of it than a two-hour recording that fails at the end. See Understand job progress and cancellation.

Common mistakes

• Adding an unsynchronised audio file. The most damaging mistake on this screen, because the cut looks plausible and every timing is wrong.
• Adding the camera audio as a "separate" track. It is the same signal RoughCut already extracted. It gains you nothing.
• Adding an audio file expecting a better picture. The audio track only affects analysis. The exported timeline always references the video you chose.
• Moving or renaming the source file after processing. The exported FCPXML points at the original path, so Final Cut Pro reports the media as offline.
• Assuming an exotic container will work because it was accepted. Test it short first.

Troubleshooting

For format questions beyond the input stage, see Supported file formats. If a job fails outright, Troubleshooting by symptom covers what each message means.