Working with AVCHD, how to leave “files in place”

[John Rofrano]

FCP X is trying to prevent you from doing something dangerous like delete your original media files. 😉 It’s not a bad failsafe mechanism. I assume you copied the entire card card structure to the external drive. If you really want to edit your original media, try moving the files into another folder that is not under that card structure. FCP X will then let you leave them in place.

What I do is work with two external drives. One contains all of my camera card archives. The second contains all of my projects. If either one gets corrupt I have the other one as backup. This is how FCP X works too. So I can select files from my camera card archive drive and have FCP X copy them to my project drive just like it wants to. Then I eject my camera card archive drive and continue editing on my project drive which is also external. I like to keep my media contained in my library but if you want it to be external, just set up your library media location to external and FCP X will use that.

In the Library Properties under Storage Locations press the Modify Settings button and change the Media location to your external folder. All future media will be place there. I believe this is what you are trying to get FCP X to do.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Liz Parham]

We’ve already backed up all the raw media, so the only thing I’d prefer to backup again would be the optimized ProRes files. If I “copy to library”, isn’t FCP unwrapping the AVCHD codec, placing a copy of the original into the “original media” as well as placing a 422 file into the “optimized” folder? Or am I misunderstanding something…I just want to import + optimize to 422, edit + not deal with proxies or copying my original media again.

If I change the storage location to a folder on my external, it still won’t let me “leave in place”.

[John Rofrano]

Sorry if I confused the matter with the library stuff. I gave you the answer in my first paragraph (I guess I should have stopped explaining at that point) 😉

All you need to do is move the AVCHD files outside of the camera card structure and place them in another folder and you will be able to import and leave them in place and generate optimized media.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Liz Parham]

ah I see, yeah I tried moving a .mxf file, but when I imported into fcpx, I only saw the audio. File structure looks like this:

[Tangier Clarke]

You could also import the media into FCP X with no optimization. This way it just rewraps into an MOV file. Then go into your library package and COPY them out of there into unique folders as reels. These will server as your backups. Make sure to assign the same folder names to reels inside FCP X.

Doing this method you get:
Small file sizes (pre optimized)
Quicktimes you can just point back to easily

Tangier

[Liz Parham]

If I don’t optimize, then it will rewrap to an .h264 MOV file, right? I’d like to edit and finish in 422.

Or do I copy the rewrapped MOVs and then reimport and optimize? gah brain! seems rather circuitous

[Tangier Clarke]

That is correct. The file type stays the same – H.264, but it will be wrapped in an MOV. You can still tell FCP X to transcode all of the video content once it’s already imported. The above mentioned method just insures you have an as-close-to-original copy of your AVCHD files as backups. ProRes was not your original.

One workflow recap:
Import ALL media into FCP X
Go into library package and COPY MOV files out to unique folder reels
Assign same folder reel names to appropriate content.

The danger in doing this is that you have to be certain you imported all of your footage. Some people only import some of the contents of an AVCHD card; particularly if the card wasn’t wiped before the most recent shoot and therefore has leftover content from a previous shoot that isn’t necessary to keep.

It’s safer just to backup the card data into a unique folder as a reel. But if you know what you’re doing and are thorough, the method above isn’t a problem.

Just be mindful that with multiple cards you may end up with Clip1, clip 2, clip 3, etc multiple times. This is why you need unique reels folders.

Tangier

[Jeff Kirkland]

I personally prefer to use something like EditReady to do the rewrapping or conversion before I import the files. That way I get the format I want, in the folder I want, and can just do a ‘leave in place’ import in FCPX.

[John Rofrano]

Sorry I didn’t realize they were in an MXF wrapper. When you said AVCHD I wrongly assumed MTS files which FCP X can read fine from any folder. MXF files are a whole other story. FCP X cannot read MXF files unless they are in their original card structure like you have. Since you don’t want FCP X to make copies, because you already did, and these are your copies… you’re going to have to manually convert your files to ProRes some other way.

For future reference, your workflow should be to not make your own backup copy, but rather, have FCP X copy the files from the camera card structure into the folder that you really want them in and then edit from that folder. Then you won’t have these workflow problems. In other words, instead of having two copies both in camera card format, take the original drive with all of the camera card structures on it and ingest that with FCP X to a target folder that you will work from. The original camera card drive will then be your backup. You can still do and it might be quicker than manually trying to figure something else out.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Dan Bowman]

I’m having the same problem. I’m trying to import Sony FS5 AVCHD footage into FCPX 10.2.3 without embedding the clips. I’m on a Mac pro trashcan running El Capitan. But FCPX won’t let me leave files in place. I’d love to leave Premiere CC and put an end my digital sharecropping, but having to copy clips before importing to FCPX is a deal breaker for me. Has anyone found a solution?