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Very slow log and tranfer in FCE
I’ve been a long time iMovie user and just upgraded to FCE, installed it last night and am trying to log and transfer files but it’s mind numbingly slow. I’m thinking it shouldn’t be taking literally hours and hours to process a 20 minute clip?
My new iMac is brand new, just two months old. Just did a general software update and have installed the update to FCE 4.01 so I’m pretty sure I’m current with that end of things.
I had some footage professionally shot on an HD camera and it was downloaded onto my external hard drive last week. I’m managed to figure out how to access the files and am in the process of logging and transferring into FCE.
Last night I had problems with the process, kept getting error messages. I did some research and changed the preferences to Apple Intermediate Codec and Plain Audio. That seemed to solve the problem and I was able to log a couple of short clips 1- 3 minutes in length.
I queued some longer clips (4 of them, each 35-40 minutes in length) and went to bed, expecting to wake up and be able to start work on them.
However this morning I saw the error had happened again and my clips hadn’t completed. I thought maybe my computer’s sleep settings had disrupted the process, so this morning I change my preferences to never sleep.
I’ve been watching the transfer status bar ever since. The first clip I tried gave me the error message after about an hour (this was one of the long clips). So I tried a shorter clip, about 20 minutes in length. It’s now been 3 hours to process half of my 20 minute clip.
Can anyone suggest what I might need to do to get things moving along a little faster?
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6 Replies
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Update – The 20 minute clip eventually gave the error message.
I then tried transferring some of the shorter clips, all under a minute or two in length. I was able to transfer several dozen of these with no problems.
Decided to try the 20 minute clip again. After an hour and what looks like about 20% in the status bar, it appears to be “stuck.”
I’m not sure what my limit is, but it seems to be a problem with longer clips, as all the shorter ones transferred quickly and easily.
Anyone aware of known issues with this, or any suggestions I might try to get my footage transferred?
Many thanks!
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Hi Rafael, thanks for stopping in to help. I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse my ignorance, but as I’ve only ever worked with iMovie before I don’t know how to tell what kind of clips they are.
All the footage was shot on a professional HD camera and was downloaded onto my external hard drive. I’ve had a look at the files themselves, and what I see inside the top level folder is a folder called AVCHD and then inside that, a folder called BDMV, and inside that if I click on the CLIPINF folder I can see 314 files all with the extension .CPI
There are also the same number of files in the STREAM folder, all with the extension .MTS
Does this help at all?
I’ve set up my capture folder on a different partition on the same external hard drive, and just discovered that the clips that didn’t appear to transfer previously, actually did a partial transfer. I can see them in the Capture Scratch folder but they are not complete, and they don’t show up in the browser in FCE. All of these partial clips are about 16:30 – 17:00 in length. Could there be something causing the transfer to “hang” part way through?
Please let me know if you need more info. Just speak nice and slow, like you would to a 2 year old!
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Hi Susan,
Most new camcorders records AVCHD, but all different flavors. Some are harder to manage than others.
First thing you need is a free player call VLC, so you can see what is in the clips.
Then you should try “ClipWrap” (free demo), that lets you transcode the clips to Prores, or EVEN BETTER, re-wrap the MTS as QT files. This process is faster and doesn’t degrades the picture.
Rafael -
OK, so I should download VLC to view the clips, then once I’ve found the long ones that I’m not able to transfer I should use Clipwrap to change the MTS files to QT (Quicktime, right?) files? Then I should be able to use them in FCE?
I know I’m an extreme left-brainer, but I’d still like to understand why I don’t have any trouble transferring shorter files, but can’t get the longer ones to cooperate. Do you know if this is a common problem with FCE?
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[Susan Peach] “OK, so I should download VLC to view the clips, then once I’ve found the long ones that I’m not able to transfer I should use Clipwrap to change the MTS files to QT (Quicktime, right?) files? Then I should be able to use them in FCE?”
Yes. That’s the way, but make sure that ClipWrap works for your AVCHD. I’m having problems with the AVCHD of an small JVC camera. FC doesn’t like them once re-wrapped.[Susan Peach] “Do you know if this is a common problem with FCE?”
I think is a problem with the codec. Too many flavors and the NLEs not ready yet to manage all of them.
However it could be also a problem of the performance of your system.
rafael
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