How to find a spoken phrase in Final Cut Pro

With Final Cut Pro alone

Transcript Search arrived in Final Cut Pro 12.0. Transcribing English speech is on by default and runs on import; clips imported earlier need to be analysed by hand.

1. Check the setting: Final Cut Pro › Settings (Command-Comma) › Import, the Transcribe in English checkbox.
2. For clips already in the library, select them in the browser, choose Modify › Analyze and Fix, then click OK.
3. In the sidebar, select a library, event or folder, click the Search button (magnifying glass) at the top right of the browser, and type the words.
4. In the search field's pop-up menu, choose Transcript and a mode: Includes finds the exact words, Is Related To finds related words and phrases.
5. Matches show up in the browser with a few seconds of context before and after each one.

Limits of the built-in search

Transcription only handles English speech and only runs on Apple silicon Macs, and only the first channel of multichannel audio is analysed. Compound clips aren't analysed at all; multicam and synchronized clips aren't either, though their source clips do show up if they were analysed. And you can only search what's already imported into the library.

The same in Rescanzo

Rescanzo searches speech in Pro mode, understands Russian and English, and works on the footage folder before import, so only the fragments you found go into the library.

1. Add your footage folder to Rescanzo and let it finish indexing.
2. Pick Pro mode: speech search is only available there.
3. Type the phrase the way you remember it, in Russian or English. The app shows the cost before you run it: 2 tokens plus 1 for every started minute the cloud checks.
4. Mark the results you want and add them to a collection.
5. In the collection, choose export to Final Cut Pro: Rescanzo saves the timeline as FCPXML 1.9 and opens it straight in Final Cut Pro.

Which to use

If the footage is in English and already in the library, start with Transcript Search: it's free and always there. If people speak Russian, the footage isn't imported yet, or the line is buried in a multicam clip, Rescanzo gets you there sooner.

Questions and answers