import troubleshooting: ‘leave files in place’ not available

[Joe Marler]

[inanc tekguc] ” these archive files of FCPx can only be read by FCPx.
I just switched from Premiere to FCPx and I can imagine switching again in the future”

The FCP X archive files can be read by any computer. It is just a package wrapper. On a Mac you can click on the archive file and select “Show Package Contents” and it reveals the original camera card structure. If you copy the file package to a Windows PC it just appears as the original camera structure.

However my documentary group does not use this method for several reasons:

(1) In the field we back up, duplicate and verify each day’s work from each camera. This consists of copying the entire folder structure then verifying the source/destination with Beyond Compare: https://www.scootersoftware.com/ We could theoretically also do this with the current FCP X archive feature, but this workflow was in place long before FCP X had the current archive functionality, plus there are other factors (below).

(2) Our shooters sometimes fail to reformat their cards and creating a camera archive would create duplicate clips and waste space. That said there’s a good argument for just copying everything and de-duplicating it later.

(3) Some of our cameras shoot combined stills and video, and the FCP “create camera archive” function puts the stills and video into the same file package, but we want the stills handled in a separate workflow. We could dig into the archive and copy them out but that violates the idea of not messing around inside the archive.

(4) In the often rugged field environment we may not have a Mac laptop with FCP X installed, or it might be unavailable. We might have to do the daily backup copy using a Windows laptop.

That said there are significant advantages to using camera archives, as discussed by MacBreak Studio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv1gRTUXcDw

Re Carbon Copy Cloner, I think the checksum mode is normally not used. You have to invoke that.

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[Joe Marler]

[Craig Alan] “…can FCP X even use the original card files as “original media” . I had always thought these needed to be decoded”

I believe yes except for the special cases of AVCHD and XAVC. In those cases the “leave files in place” import option is not allowed — even if the folder structure is first copied to a hard drive. If the video files themselves are copied outside the structure (generally not a good idea) then it can import those file types with “leave files in place”.