FCPX and hacked GH1 footage

I have the same question. I've been looking forward to FCPX for some time. This is one case where trials at the Mac App Store would be very nice, as I'm a little worried about spending $300 without even knowing if my high-bitrate footage will work or not. Hopefully someone will answer this question soon.
 
FCPX straight-up does not even recognize MTS files, as best as I can tell (having tried with my own GH13 and GH2 footage). I read somewhere it might work if you still have files in the BDMV folder structure, but that is absolute nonsense to me if it's true.

Edit: Okay, tried it myself. Shot a couple quick clips on my GH2, plugged the SD card into my machine, and was able to successfully import both clips into FCPX without transcoding. They play back in real time as expected on the timeline. Which is... great, in the sense that we have native AVCHD support, and terrible, in the sense that we're expected to preserve the completely unnecessary and pointless Private/AVCHD/BDMV/etc structure. Absurd.

2nd Edit: Also, it rewraps the MTS files as Quicktime MOVs when it copies the media to your Events folder, so they play back in Quicktime Player/Preview as well, kind of a nice side benefit.
 
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Did you try any high-bitrate GH13 footage yet? Just want to make sure the non-standard bitrate from a hacked GH1 doesn't cause problems.
 
Is it really that odd to have to keep the file structure so the editing program knows how to read the files? I thought it was common practice to keep the structure for instances just like this.
 
That's great news! Thanks! Out of curiosity, does Final Cut Pro X do reverse telecine (to take the 24p video out of the 60i container since I'm not using the native 24p patch), or will I need another tool (perhaps the newly cheap Compressor) to do that?
 
PhilJackson said:
Is it really that odd to have to keep the file structure so the editing program knows how to read the files? I thought it was common practice to keep the structure for instances just like this.
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Yeah, it's really odd indeed. MTS files can be read by Premier without the file structure just fine. This is just goofy. I stopped saving my file structure. Annoyed now.
 
ok guys when I plug in my SD card into my MBP the card comes up on the desktop, but FCPX doesnt recognize it when I click camera import. any help would be appreciated.
 
Brian@202020 said:
I agree as well. Coming from a P2 background It's always been standard practice for me.
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Hmm. I guess because I was either always A) Transcoding with NeoScene to ProRes and editing in FCP or B) Dragging and dropping into Premiere/AE that I haven't realized how common this is. To me, the benefits of labeling and organizing individual clips at the directory/filename level are non-trivial so I'd still prefer Apple correct this, or some third-party come up with a utility. It seems like such a weird thing to require.
 
can anyone confirm if you can point FCPX to a private folder(copied from the card) from an unhacked gh1 and then edit without transcoding? if so, how many streams at once(untranscoded)
 
Yes you can work native AVCHD, but FinalCut is a Quicktime ProRes native application so is better to transcode, when you import your AVCHD files do you have the option to do so in the background.
In FCPX you can import your files from PRIVATE folder through the "Import media from a connected device" button, "Open Archive" select your PRIVATE folder.
 
In my opinion, editing in AVCHD generally is a horrible mess. In Premiere I've found it much better to transcode, although it will lead inevitably to larger files, but not slower editing, in my experience. P frames do not edit nicely at all if working at less than full resolution for me (on a Macbook Pro for example). I will transcode all my footage to ProRes (and get a new hard drive) if I get the new Final Cut X.
 
Lucas Adamson said:
In my opinion, editing in AVCHD generally is a horrible mess. In Premiere I've found it much better to transcode, although it will lead inevitably to larger files, but not slower editing, in my experience. P frames do not edit nicely at all if working at less than full resolution for me (on a Macbook Pro for example). I will transcode all my footage to ProRes (and get a new hard drive) if I get the new Final Cut X.
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I'm new to the NLE. I started off with the Sony Vegas 10 after hearing that it's a pain to import GH13 files. I never had to worry about transcoding and I didn't find editing AVCHD a mess.
However, it seems many folks here prefer FCP and Adobe over Vegas. Are they superior over FCP? Is it a good time to jump off the wagon now that FCPX is here?
 
Jonathan12uiz said:
ok guys when I plug in my SD card into my MBP the card comes up on the desktop, but FCPX doesnt recognize it when I click camera import. any help would be appreciated.
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That probably happens since XFCP can only read HFS+ volumes. The SD card is MS-DOS fat. The likely remedy is that you copy the entire 'PRIVATE' folder from the card to your harddrive and proceed from there.
 
Martti Ekstrand said:
That probably happens since XFCP can only read HFS+ volumes. The SD card is MS-DOS fat. The likely remedy is that you copy the entire 'PRIVATE' folder from the card to your harddrive and proceed from there.
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That solution might work. Just to note, though, that FCPX will read a FAT-formatted SD card OK - I'be just used the same method to get content into FCPX.
 
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