[Dan Bowman]

I think you’re right Doug. After importing AVCHD clips from my Sony FS5 by the drag and drop method I find that every time I open the library the colored spinning wheel pops up for several minutes. Looks like I’ll have to transcode. Trouble is, with EditReady the file sizes grow five-fold. Not sure what settings I need in order to closely match the quality and files size of the camera originals.

[Dan Bowman]

Wow Liz, that worked, thank you so much. BTW I called Apple tech support and they told it is impossible to import AVCHD files without embedding them into FCP.

Anyway, Here’s what worked for me:
1-Copy the PRIVATE folder and all its contents from the camera SD card.
2- Open the PRIVATE folder, right click the AVCHD Icon and select ”show package contents”, this will reveal an icon called BDMV.
3- Right click the BDMV icon, and select ”show package contents”. This will reveal a folder called STREAM.
4-Open the STREAM folder and select the clips you want. They will be named 00000.MTS, 00001.MTS, and so on.
5- Drag the clips onto FCPX. There will be no progress bar, just the deadly colored spinning wheel, but fear not. If there are many large clips, go meditate. Eventually the clips will appear in FCPX. And no, the file size of FCPX will not suddenly jump to 50GB.

[Dan Bowman]

Hi Liz,

Thanks for your help. But I can’t see the Sony FS5 mxf files when I look in the finder.

[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?

[Dan Bowman]

Reinstalling AE worked, thanks Todd!