That’s what I figure too, but I wondered why the question would be asked if that were the case, since FCP allows for it to be generated on output.
Anyway, re: SMPTE countdown. I don’t think that SMPTE copyrighted a countdown, so much as standardized the countdown schema (10 seconds, starting with 10, a blip on each, something different every frame that shows the progress, 2 quick blips at exactly 2 then black for the rest)
[I may be wrong about this though]
