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FCP X Import from Canon C100 AVCHD
I am a senior editor but on my first project in FCP X. On my old system, I would convert my AVCHD files to ProRes422 files with a tool called Clip Wrap, since the editing system (Media 100) did not support AVCHD directly. On FCP X, it can see my AVCHD files and import them directly… however I notice the resolution looks terrible, regardless of whether I tell it to optimize the clips or not. If I run Clip Wrap first and import the Process 422 files, things look great. Am I missing something?
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5 Replies
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You have probably selected “Better Performance” in the viewer so fcpx shows you the image with less resolution to increase editing performance. Select “Better quality” in the viewer menu. However this does not affect the final export
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In general the best approach with AVCHD is externally re-wrap with EditReady2 (successor to ClipWrap), then import using “leave files in place”. If ClipWrap still works I guess you could use that, but if it’s 32-bit it will never run on Catalina or later. Under no conditions copy the .mts files out of the AVCHD bundle and import those “in place”. This causes a severe I/O problem in the library. This seems unique to AVCHD and doesn’t happen with other tree-oriented media.
By itself FCPX will only import from the AVCHD bundle using “copy to library”, and in that case it properly re-wraps the files. However this creates a large library.
Oftentimes the .mts files inside multiple AVCHD bundles have redundant filenames, e.g, 00001.mts, therefore to avoid duplicate filenames FCPX will append a (fcp1), (fcp2), etc. “uniqueifier” to the on-disk filename. In a few edge cases this causes problems, also it improves data management to avoid this. This isn’t specific to AVCHD but can happen with Sony Alpha and other cameras.
It facilitates data management if you have totally unique filenames across an entire project. I suggest externally re-wrapping that media, then renaming the files before import to incorporate a 5-digit incrementing serial number. This is easy to do with Finder. See this MacMost video: https://youtu.be/fDcvqyHduHc?t=188
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Thank you for validating (my old) workflow. I have been waiting to upgrade from ClipWrap to Edit Ready, since I am still running Mojave (So that my Media 100 still works for legacy projects). By the way, aside from the lack of ability to keep files in their original folders, I discovered an old thread that explains why the quality looks so bad. Apparently, when FCP X imports AVCHD files that are progressive, it labels the files as interlaced. This can be fixed by going into the inspector, going down to Settings and changing the field dominance override to Progressive. Seems like a major bug either with Canon or Apple, but given the other info you have provided, I will stick with the external conversion in ClipWrap or Edit Ready, since there is more control over conversion settings. Thanks for the response! Somehow I knew that transitioning from one edit environment to another wouldn’t come without quirks.
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Thanks for this. I wasn’t aware of that setting… however the difference between the quality of the two clips was another issue. The fix is mentioned in the response to the other suggestion below.
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Since you have Media 100, you’ve probably used Avid. See these tutorials about transitioning from Avid to FCPX. Possibly some of it applies to Media 100: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZEWB-9BQ2DW-gwBlJJaWNg
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