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FCP X Import of M2TS AVCHD files causes pizza wheel on browse?
I’ve been delivered 2.2TB of AVCHD files in M2TS wrapper format. When I open FCP X’s Import dialog and browse to the folder where they’ve been restored and select a couple of 4-5 min clips, the Import window goes into high gear and I get the busy wait cursor (spinning beach ball) while FCP X goes to sleep.
Since the CODEC Apple/Sony provide to deal with these must be the problem, is there a better CODEC or plugin out that will allow me to convert these files to a more workflow-friendly format?
I shudder to think what will happen if I import the entire 2.2TB of content into FCP X and let it create the optimized media from the originals.
How do others deal with the AVCHD content in FCP X? Is it just going to be a “wait for it …” process?
Thanks,
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
29 Replies
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I remember having a similar problem some time ago trying to import AVCHD media without the entire structure (.mts files alone). I ended up downloading an app called “ClipWrap” that did the job of rewrapping those files. You could check if that’s what you’re looking for.
Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4 -
Perfect solution, Fabrizio. ClipWrap is now part of my toolbox. In my first test, it rewrapped an 18min M2TS file and FCP X opened it with no more delay. Much faster than transcoding and no spinning beach ball!
New workflow –
Restore LTO BRU tape to ingest array
Drag clips to ClipWrap
Import rewrapped clips into FCP X.A good $50 investment.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
[Tim Jones] “Perfect solution, Fabrizio. ClipWrap is now part of my toolbox. In my first test, it rewrapped an 18min M2TS file and FCP X opened it with no more delay. Much faster than transcoding and no spinning beach ball!
“I’ll disagree slightly. It’s not “perfect” because somebody upstream didn’t understand metadata and THREW AWAY all the valuable camera metadata – causing you to HAVE to ClipWrap to fake some.
The “perfect” solution is to swim upstream and school whoever sent iso files instead of complete card clones to call 2007 and tell them to come get their workflow back.
Metadata preservation is professionalism.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Yea, Bill – in a perfect world… 🙂
I actually consider myself lucky that the provider understands that the files are (were) difficult to work with and didn’t place undo expectations on delivery.
BTW – what metadata should I expect to be missing in this type of scenario? So far as I can tell, everything needed is there.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Since 10.1, Fcpx can read avchd transport files natively without any card structure at all.
I would think there’s something else going on.
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Tim,
If someone is finder copying (drag and dropping) the movie files around, they risk breaking the structural arrangement between them and the INF (info) and the THM (thumbnail) files.
It puts at risk all the camera metadata (including lens data) being stripped out of the stream. The thumbnails are actually trivial since they can be regenerated later, so that’s a convenience rather than a necessity) but the INF files often carry very useful metadata information that should be imported and preserved for later user benefit.
Even if that INF data is copied to a new card or drive, if X can’t “see” it because it’s in the proper location, it won’t flow into the X metadata stream.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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What Bill is saying is technically correct, you may lose some metadata (although sometimes, that metadata is baked in to the transport stream) you do not need this information to import an AVCHD file to FCPX any more.
FCPX can read avchd files without any other wrapper or info. The Finder can read AVCHD files as well.
If none of this is true for whatever reason, I would suspect that there’s a bigger problem, perhaps the file didn’t survive the layoff to LTO and back.
Jeremy
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The curiosity is that the INF files apparently do exist (the Import dialog only shows the .m2ts files). The trouble that I’m running into without the rewrap is that simply opening the Import dialog, browsing to the storage folder, and selecting just one of the clips puts FCP X into “Not Responding” mode and I have to wait for quite a while for the import dialog to finish whatever it’s doing.
Dragging the un-rewrapped m2ts files from Finder into the event is no better and it then even puts Finder into the “Not Responding” category as well.
By simply rewrapping the m2ts files, I alleviate both of these situations – the Import dialog allows me to import the clips right away, and dragging from Finder doesn’t hang up either FCP X or Finder.
BTW – the storage folder is on a 4TB SSD array via TB2 and ATTO H680, so it’s definitely not an issue with the drive’s speed.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
[Jeremy Garchow] “If none of this is true for whatever reason, I would suspect that there’s a bigger problem, perhaps the file didn’t survive the layoff to LTO and back.
“Since someone will read that and say “see, I told you tape is not safe.”, I’ll state for the record that the copy on LTO is exactly the same as the copy on the user’s original ingest system. This is strictly something in the way that FCP X is seeing the m2ts files. Otherwise, simply rewrapping them with ClipWrap would not resolve the issue that I’m witnessing.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
[Tim Jones] “The curiosity is that the INF files apparently do exist (the Import dialog only shows the .m2ts files). The trouble that I’m running into without the rewrap is that simply opening the Import dialog, browsing to the storage folder, and selecting just one of the clips puts FCP X into “Not Responding” mode and I have to wait for quite a while for the import dialog to finish whatever it’s doing.
“Can you see the file in the Finder? You should be able to open it in Quicktime. Mavericks now “packages” AVCHD and when you double click it in the Finder, it should let you decide which file to open (if there’s more than one to open in the package).
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