Issue with importing AVCHD footage.

[Tim Nitsch]

So I'm slowly trying to convert myself over to X from 7 and I have run into an issue.

I shoot on the C100, and for those that may not know, it shoots in AVCHD.

Now I know FCPX can edit the .MTS files natively but my issue is importing the files.

Normally when I import the footage off the card, I simply copy the entire folder structure into a folder on an external drive. I must have the entire folder structure intact because if I record for longer than 10 minutes or so, it will break the file up into multiple files.

When I bring the footage into an NLE I first need to stitch the files back together into one long file. Usually I do this in ClipWrap but I noticed that FCPX will do this too.

Here's where the issue comes into play. Any time I try to import the folder structure into FCPX it keeps asking me to import it into another folder, but I don't want to do that, I just want it to leave the files where they are. Conveniently there is a option to do just that but unfortunately its grayed out and I can't select it. FCP is forcing me to import the files into another folder.

Is there a work around for this?

One option I have found to work is to do what I would normally do in FCP7 which is to convert the .MTS files to ProRes in ClipWrap (which also stitches the spanned clips back together) and then as long as the AVCHD folder structure is not in the same folder as the ProRes footage I can import the ProRes footage into FCPX without having to move the footage into another folder.

But I'm trying to avoid having to convert the small AVCHD files into these monster ProRes files and save some disk space and speed up my workflow by dropping that time-consuming step.

Any other ideas?

 

[Ram S.O.S]

Hello there I'm a long time Final cut pro user since v.1.2.5 and now I have embraced FCPX and I'm currently using 10.1, most of the cameras I shoot on are AVCHD (Panasonic AC160 and GH2) so I am very familiar with how it works. FCPX does handle AVCHD natively and does so pretty well, however the process you are referring to is the program taking your .mts footage and putting it into a quicktime wrapper for use in fcpx. The good thing is there is no transcoding in this process it's simply copying the files and wrapping them in a quicktime wrapper. The result is very efficient file sizes and full function in the program. Before deciding on FCPX I tried premiere CS6 and it will do that you are trying to do and allow you to edit from the files in your archived folder. I personally like to have backups of everything I shoot so I have no issue with the import and rewrap process, especially since you don't have to wait for it to happen like you would in FCP7 log and transfer window or using clip wrap then importing prores. You can start editing right away and it will copy the media in the background. Good luck.