.mts (AVCHD) pains me

[John Rofrano]

[Christopher New] “If your client hands you a drive with the files copied off the SD/CF card, then you just have to live with the pain”

Actually, If your client hands you a drive with the files copied off the SD/CF card with no folder structure, ask them if they also removed the tape from their miniDV cassettes? Essentially this is what they are doing. The AVCHD folder structure is the “container” for the video. It is the “cassette”. Tell them to stop that and give you the entire AVCHD (or whatever root folder) on a hard drive. Have them put each AVCHD folder into a nicely named folder so you know what it’s for.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[James Taylor]

I edit a lot of footage from a set of Sony handycams – same problem with the AVCHD files. Brings my Macbook Pro to a slow crawl. Especially with 9 angles of AVCHD files in a multicam clip.

I now run everything through ClipWrap. It doesn’t actually convert anything, just wraps it. Very fast. And my Macbook loves the files. Wouldn’t edit AVCHD files without it.

JT

[Darren Roark]

[James Taylor] “I now run everything through ClipWrap. It doesn’t actually convert anything, just wraps it. Very fast. And my Macbook loves the files. Wouldn’t edit AVCHD files without it.
“

If you import via the import window as opposed to drag from the finder to the event FCP X does this as well and you don’t have to wait to start cutting while it is importing in the background.

Is there something that ClipWrap does that has advantages to letting FCP X rewrap the files? I stopped using it since native MXF handling came.

[James Taylor]

Not sure about that. I’ve had trouble with it even with the most recent version of FCPX. Maybe my laptop just doesn’t like it. Does this wrap the original files, or make new media that is FCPX friendly?

JT

[Darren Roark]

It does the same thing AFAIK that clipwrap does by wrapping the original media in a .MOV QT container. (Something I had to do with CW in the FCP 7> days.

[Doug Metz]

[Darren Roark] “It does the same thing AFAIK that clipwrap does by wrapping the original media in a .MOV QT container. (Something I had to do with CW in the FCP 7> days.”

ClipWrap will also add a bunch of metadata, and transcodes the AAC audio to PCM. Maybe it’s the audio conversion that makes it ‘friendlier’… ??

Doug Metz

Anode

[Darren Roark]

[Doug Metz] “ClipWrap will also add a bunch of metadata, and transcodes the AAC audio to PCM. Maybe it’s the audio conversion that makes it ‘friendlier’… ??”

I’m of the mind that the further away you get from your camera originals the more complex things can get later on.

Many AVCHD consumer and prosumer cameras record audio in AC-3 which back in the day was problematic. The pro cams record uncompressed PCM. The test could be to make a duplicate timeline and render the audio which makes uncompressed render files.

If the behavior doesn’t go away then it wasn’t the audio, if it was then clipwrap away.

Is there camera file metadata that clipwrap can extract that FCP X doesn’t? I stopped using it once I didn’t need to anymore. If it does I want to know, you can’t have too much metadata.

[Doug Metz]

[Darren Roark] “Is there camera file metadata that clipwrap can extract that FCP X doesn’t?”

I can test this later today – the camera I have on hand is the Canon HF G10. The single most annoying issue with this camera is that every clip starts at 00:00:00:00…

Will report back with results.

Doug Metz

Anode

[Doug Metz]

I was able to test this with an FS7… ClipWrap mangled the spanned clips on a simple re-wrap (lost a few frames at the transition point), while FCPX brought everything in perfectly.

Bye bye, ClipWrap!

Doug Metz

Anode

[James Taylor]

So what did you end up with for media?

At the moment, I use clipwrap to wrap everything in an .mov file. I archive the originals. I then import the wrapped files into FCPX. That keeps my libraries as small as possible.

When you import the AVCHD files into FCPX, do you just have the one set of files? Or do you end up with originals and the wrapped files? Is the file size for the library double?

JT