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Importing Question
Hi Everyone,
I have something of what might seem as a silly question so bare with me please 🙂
When I import from a Camera Archive, or from a copy of a SD card which resides on my Hard Drive FCPX will not allow me to keep the file in it’s place and will create a duplicate of those files inside the Library or in a Folder of my choosing. My question is why do I have to copy the files? and should I delete the camera archive since those “original files” are essentially the same files with the metadata embedded in them.
Since lets say that for a certain project I know I will do a lot of effects and some colour correction on, so I will create optimised media in order to keep the fidelity, I end up having 3 copies of the same card.. the original copy of the card which i manually copied, the “original media” folder and the “optimised media” folder
so what is your workflow and recommendations?
Thanks 🙂
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10 Replies
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The original is of a format the X doesn’t support natively, so it rewraps it as QT mov file. The optimizing is your choice.
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Since my camera cards are copied/archived to a dedicated external drive, I always want the files to be copied to my Media Drive when imported. Then I can eject the camera cards drive before starting to edit.
BUT, didn’t I read in a thread here that if you drag the clips from Finder directly into the Event that it will NOT copy the files? I couldn’t find the thread, I think it came up in an off topic disscussion. Maybe that was only for files that do not need to be rewrapped. Surely someone who actually knows can expand on that.
Oh, and don’t delete the original camera card backups. Those you keep forever, you can delete the imported clips when your done with the project. Then if you need to work with those clips again, FCPX can recreate the clips it needs by re-importing from the originals.
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Yes, that would only be for files that are native. Apparently it’s a bug that if you go through import it’ll copy some, like Canon, even If your settings say don’t copy.
Wonder if 10.1 fixed it.
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Bret the files i tested were from a Canon 60D, so they are h264 files wrapped in .mov, so there shouldn’t be a problem of reading them natively
I’m just a little frustrated that there isn’t an option, not to copy the original media if you chose to create optimised media :/
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Seems to be some misunderstanding here. If you import directly from a camera’s card or a camera archive in FCP 10.1, your options are to either import into a Library (as “managed media”) or to any external location of your choosing (“external media”). You cannot “Leave in Place” because it makes no sense to be reading media off a card that you can eject (and a camera archive behaves just like a card). It has nothing to do with FCP X not being able to read the media or rewrapping the media.
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Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net -
Definitely may be. But recently, pre 10.1, it was found that if you import from a copy of a canon dslr card, vs. dragging (still from a copy of the card) the files to a keyword collection or event, then it would disregard your import settings of “leave in place” and copy the files to the original media folder. If you dragged, it would leave them in place if that was your preference setting.
That said, it can’t leave in place if it requires rewrapping because it isn’t native, so it will copy as rewrapped mov files regardless of your preference. But now with 10.1 those rewrapped files should go to the external folder if you have one setup. Then of course transcoding to ProRes is one’s choice.
I never transcode my DSLR footage. Can’t see the difference in performance on 2012 iMac. I never use camera archives. Don’t see the point. I always drag and drop to keyword collections from the finder. I only use the import window if it’s required, like AVCHD or AVC-Intra, etc. X always obeys my “leave in place” preferences. But that’s just what works for my workflow. If you’re into RAW or 4k or something, then I’m sure things are completely different.
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I definitely recommend making camera archives, and then importing from those for your edit. They are your backup, and if you every have corrupted or lost media in a project, you can use FCP X’s “Restore from Camera Archive” (or similar) command to relink all those file immediately.
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Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net -
Can any app other than FCP X read a camera archive?
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It’s just a package – right click, show contents, and it’s an exact copy of your camera folder structure.
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Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net -
So a different question. Can Premiere Pro import from it via the media browser? I’m not playing devil’s advocate. I honestly don’t know the answer. Can aliases to it be used in After Effects as well?
Half the time we don’t even get our hands on the cards. We get a hard drive with a copy of the card on it. That gets copied to the local raid project folder before importing of course. The hard drive they sent becomes the originals.
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