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Importing C300 Footage into an External Library
Hi all,
Quick question in terms of workflow.
We’re moving to using FCP X at the office, but since we have mutliple editors and a shared environment we’re using “external libraries” rather than managed. I’ve watched a bunch of the tutorials and read a bunch of the articles and I think I have a pretty good understanding of how everything works, but my question is how do you go about creating an external library from media that isn’t in a format that FCP X can natively read, ie. Canon C300?
For the time being this was my workflow:
– Receive HDD with card source backups (folders for each card)
– Open those folders with FCP *7*’s log and transfer window to import the footage as pro-res
– Re-organize that pro-res material into the correct folder structure to match the source folder strucure (A01, B01, etc)
– Import the new pro-res material into FCP X as an external library being sure to “leave files in place” on our Media Server Raid.I know that if I were to create a “managed” library with FCP X I could import the card material and create optimized/proxy media but since I wanted an external library wasn’t sure what made the most sense, and to ensure I didn’t screw anything up went back to the legacy software (FCP 7)
Any thoughts/opinions/tips/tricks would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
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15 Replies
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You’re not going to screw anything up by staying in FCPX; there’s no unrecoverable Library situation. At the very worst you can still show package contents for a library and manually manage your media that way.
Based on the workflow you mentioned, why not just create a Library to digitize the C300 footage, create your proxies and optimized as you want and then consolidate the event files to an outside location? You’d still have to put them in camera folders if that’s how you have things organized on the SAN,but at least you could work completely within FCPX instead of moving to FCP7.
Andy
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107277729326633563425/videos
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Get the canon XF plug in for FCPX and take the FCP 7 step out of your workflow.
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That was sort of my next step consideration. That or perhaps a 3rd party tool like Shot Put Pro?
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Canon C300 media is already optimized in FCPX. You can’t create ProRes movies from it in FCPX (optimized media is greyed out)
So, you import the footage, and when you click the import button, you will get the import preferences screen.
The first radio button under the Event section is “Media Storage: Copy Files into:”
From there you select the door down and select “Choose…”
Then chose a folder on the server for FCPX to rewrap the footage to 50Mbit 422 MPEG2.
Here’s a picture (this is with C300 footage importing):
Jeremy
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Jeremy,
Canon footage is MXF and thus not optimised for FCP X. It will only work directly if you have an MXF plugin like Hamburg media.
When you ingest with the canon plugin it is re-wrapping it as .mov (this is exactly the same process as importing XDcam material).
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
[Michael Sanders] “When you ingest with the canon plugin it is re-wrapping it as .mov (this is exactly the same process as importing XDcam material).”
That’s exactly what I said. The footage is rewrapped to .mov. Once it’s rewrapped, you can’t optimize it.
Jeremy
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Adam.
As others have said, get the Canon FCP X plugin and ingest the material directly into FCP X – but as you say copy it to external folders on your external drives.
FWIW The events can also live in on external drives such as a SAN so they can be shared.
Its worth reading this: https://images.apple.com/final-cut-pro/docs/Media_Management.pdf to get a better overview.
Its also worth noting Shot Put Pro is just a copying programme – but a very good one. Its aimed at backing up cards after a shoot.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
My deepest apologies Jeremy you did indeed say that – I made a terrible error and read the head line and then skim read the rest. I jumped the gun and I am sorry.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
When I ingest C-300 footage into FCPX, ( I have the canon plug in) I copy the material to a folder I designate, rarely one inside the FCPX library.
My point about the canon plug in is that you can side step the ” convert MXF to pro res step and go right into FCPX and a folder of your choosing . This is far less time consiuming that doing the conversion to pro res outside of FCPx.
Shot Put Pro is my go to soution for creating camera original backups/ offloading camera cards. The app isn’t designed to do anything other than that.
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Thanks everyone. This seems to have answered my question, and will allow us to stay entirely in FCP X.
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