Comments on: Importing AVCHD Video into FCPX

By: Ron Dawson

Ron Dawson — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 13:00:35 +0000

In reply to Jeff. I don't know either Jeff. I wonder if 10.1 still works like that. Worth checking.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 08:40:02 +0000

I don’t understand why FCPX doesn’t automatically transcode to ProRes upon import. If you pop in a card from a DSLR with h.264 footage on it, import into FCPX and tell it to “create optimized media”, it will convert it to ProRes. But the same doesn’t happen with an AVCHD card; instead you get H.264. ??? I must be missing something. Please guys, tell me what it is! 🙂

By: Ron Dawson

Ron Dawson — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 23:58:29 +0000

In reply to Danny.

It is a pain Danny. But as it’s really not all the complicated as long as you keep the file structure from the card in tact. I just imported AVCHD footage this week. Point FCPX to the folder when importing and import like any other format.

FCPX is still a young program. The way it deals with AVCHD is a minor pain compared to the many great benefits, IMHO.

It is frustrating sometimes the way Apple handles other formats it refuses to recognize. But their platforms are now powerful and prolific enough they CAN turn an industry. When Steve Jobs refused to support Flash I thought he was crazy. No way even Apple could ignore Flash. Now look. Flash is quickly dying in favor or HTML5. A credit a large part of that to Apple. I wouldn’t discount their ability to turn the tide on AVCHD as a popular codec.

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 20:31:58 +0000

It seems to me that we are still in the stone age when all these things should have been thoroughly dealt with. We act like we are very advanced but still really primitive.
Avchd, mts and e.t.c. are still here and are not going away yet, so why not just the developers of the cameras themselves and the developers of editing programs deal with these things instead of individuals like I see here and all over the net trying to clean another person’s unfinished work.

it’s just a world of crazy people. the people who manufacture these things don’t use them otherwise. and those who really use them are not quite into manufacturing.

There we are!. But the first one I blame is “Apple” themselves and the day may come when another more opened minded company will push them to the side. Sony Vegas, Premier, and e.t.c. could just edit mts and many other formats with ease. why not Apple or atleast new cameras start coming towards one or two industry standard wrapper codec video formats. just like in the audio world Wav Aiff and Mp3…. and aiff is almost over. just wav and mp3.

Lord have mercy on us.! I have spent going to 24 hours finding how to import my avchd footages from a GH 3 into final cut pro x….. and still reading all these is pretty annoying…..

Lord have mercy….. is all I can say.

By: Abe

Abe — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 03:41:56 +0000

In reply to PodcastSteve. No one uses Sony Vegas anymore old timer.

By: Alfred S

Alfred S — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 20:28:50 +0000

Thanks, great article. Can you recommend a process when the original card structure is not existing anymore? Migrated from Windows to Mac and basically have the Sony PMB folder. Converting with clipwrap kills the Date meta data of each clip 🙁

By: Ron Dawson

Ron Dawson — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 13:13:13 +0000

In reply to Matthieu. You're correct my friend. I found the smoothness of FCPX and h.264 can be improved with beefed up RAM. I don't even transcode anymore to save the time.

By: Matthieu

Matthieu — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 07:16:12 +0000

In reply to Ron Dawson. I would totally agree with you Ron. One caveat though. I found it really useful to transcode footage I would be using for multicam as it is much much smoother than using the original h.264 IMHO. BUT importing AVCHD is really a small annoyance

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 19:43:40 +0000

In reply to Ron Dawson.

I posted my first comment about having issues w/ this to begin with b/c up until today, I’ve always just inserted my SD card into my MacBookPro, opened FCPX and it would recognize the files automatically then import them and convert to .MOV. For some reason today, it didn’t work which is why I started researching what the heck was going on. Spent a couple hours reading forums and ended up here. But yes, I had copied the file structure exactly and it still didn’t work. At that point, I reformatted my SD card, shot a test video and all is back to normal and FCPX is recognizing the AVCHD files on my SD card. No clue what happened….but I’m over it at this point. Thx though for the reply.

By: Ron Dawson

Ron Dawson — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 19:27:20 +0000

In reply to Steve. Did you copy the file structure EXACTLY as it is on the card? Don't just copy over one folder.