iOS 16 seems to break support for Cinematic videos in iMovie and Final Cut Pro

iOS 16 has been available for two weeks, and while the update introduced several new features, it also caused many bugs for iPhone users – some of which have already been fixed. One of these bugs seems to affect videos recorded in Cinematic Mode, which are no longer recognized by iMovie and Final Cut Pro.

Cinematic videos in iOS 16

As reported by users on the Apple Support forums and also on Reddit, Apple’s video editors iMovie and Final Cut Pro can no longer open Cinematic videos recorded with an iPhone running iOS 16. The reason behind the bug is unclear, but reports are consistent in pointing out that these apps show an error when users try to edit a Cinematic video.

“It seems that iOS 16 broke this feature in FCP, which will show a ‘The cinematic effect cannot be activated’ error,” said a Final Cut Pro user. According to another user, the errors are also experienced when using iMovie – Apple’s free video editor.

Unfortunately, Apple is yet to acknowledge this bug, and there’s no software update available to fix it. A workaround suggested by some users is to edit Cinematic videos on the iPhone and only then share these videos to the Mac over AirDrop. Since macOS Ventura will be released to the public in October, Apple will probably wait until then to update its Mac apps.

iPhone’s Cinematic Mode

Cinematic Mode is a feature introduced with iPhone 13 that lets users record videos with a Portrait effect. This mode combines artificial intelligence and depth data obtained by the iPhone cameras to blur the background of the video while keeping the person or object in focus.

After the video has been recorded, users can change the intensity of the background blur and even the focus point.

While iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro can only record Cinematic videos in 1080p resolution, the new iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro record Cinematic videos in 4K resolution with 24 frames per second.

Last year Apple released updates to iMovie, Clips, and Final Cut Pro so that users can edit Cinematic videos using these apps.

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