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Native AVCHD editing in FCP X

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brokeneck

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 6, 2010
47
4
Boston, MA
After reading the tech specs and features of FCP X I purchased it thinking I could edit and export 1080p 60fps originally shot from my Panny AVCHD Camcorder, which stores the files as .MTS. Alas FCP doesn't recognize the MTS files and I seem to need to convert them to something else such as ProRes using Aunsoft or something similar.

Even my trusty Rewrap2m4v doesn't work as my footage has a green frame in it at least once per second. I'm not off to a good start here... I thought conversion finally wouldn't be needed. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
 
You probably need to have the complete file structure intact from your SD card for it to work.
 
brokeneck said:
After reading the tech specs and features of FCP X I purchased it thinking I could edit and export 1080p 60fps originally shot from my Panny AVCHD Camcorder, which stores the files as .MTS. Alas FCP doesn't recognize the MTS files and I seem to need to convert them to something else such as ProRes using Aunsoft or something similar.

Even my trusty Rewrap2m4v doesn't work as my footage has a green frame in it at least once per second. I'm not off to a good start here... I thought conversion finally wouldn't be needed. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Click to expand...
It is impossible to edit AVCHD natively. The format must first be transcoded to a frame-based format. Whether the transcode step is explicit or hidden from the user, it must still be done.
 
MisterMe said:
It is impossible to edit AVCHD natively. The format must first be transcoded to a frame-based format. Whether the transcode step is explicit or hidden from the user, it must still be done.
Click to expand...
According to the Spec page:
Native editing(3) support for:
...
AVCHD, including Panasonic AVCCAM and Sony NXCAM
...
(3.) Native editing includes support for import and playback without transcoding.
Click to expand...
Apple is just flat out lying if what the original poster is saying is false.
 
From Steve Martin (not the actor)'s detailed first look:
fcp_x_first_look_martin_02.jpg

You need to uncheck the box to prevent transcoding.
 
Btw you do have to download the new codecs that were released later today as a optional download.
 
brokeneck said:
After reading the tech specs and features of FCP X I purchased it thinking I could edit and export 1080p 60fps originally shot from my Panny AVCHD Camcorder, which stores the files as .MTS. Alas FCP doesn't recognize the MTS files and I seem to need to convert them to something else such as ProRes using Aunsoft or something similar.

Even my trusty Rewrap2m4v doesn't work as my footage has a green frame in it at least once per second. I'm not off to a good start here... I thought conversion finally wouldn't be needed. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

I'd be pretty annoyed if still FCP X couldnt transcode my 50p footy from my Pany. Im really hoping you come back now saying "Oh yeah if you download (this) from (there) it works a treat". I hate waiting forever for VoltAIC to transcode my footy.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. No transcoding is selected, and downloaded add-ons, no luck. Saw a note elsewhere to import directly from camera. FCP does not recognize my camera. So I think it's just a bug that will be addressed. Getting the feeling this product was shipped before it's time.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Please report back on this issue, if native AVCHD editing is listed in the spec sheet, then it must somehow be possible.

Do you have the original file structure from your camera ? This is generally a problem for tapeless media...
 
MisterMe said:
It is impossible to edit AVCHD natively. The format must first be transcoded to a frame-based format. Whether the transcode step is explicit or hidden from the user, it must still be done.
Click to expand...
It's not impossible as there are NLEs that do it. The decompression happens on the fly during playback. It is very processor intensive though which is why many people still advise to transcode into an codec that uses intraframe compression.


Lethal
 
Sirmausalot said:
That plug in will be for Final Cut Pro 7. I think Apple should have worked on natively supporting DSLR footage into Final Cut 7. In fact, it isn't too late.
Click to expand...

Yeah...

The plugin is a QuickTime plugin, and those only work on a 32 bit QuickTime based program. FCP X is neither 32 bit nor QuickTime based.

QuickTime Player X has a lot of funkiness to get around all these issues. I think QTX actually runs a sandboxed version of QuickTime 7 to get plugins working.
 
28Mbps 50p/60p is not supported because it is not part of the AVCHD standard - although both Panasonic and sony now use it for some of their cameras. If it is added to the standard, Apple will probably support it....

"Native" AVCHD editing is probably not a good thing anyway. It requires more processor power than transcoding first, and if you try to do anything complex the quality will degrade as the computer can end up decoding and recoding multiple times on the same sequence (as it edits it and performs effects).
 
martinX said:
That's the whole point of letting the GPU do it though.
Click to expand...

Sure, just because your GPU can do it, doesn't mean you should have it necessarily do that. It takes some horsepower, which means you have less horsepower available for real time rendering of your edits.

It's a tradeoff. Transcoding means possibly choppy playback.
 
LethalWolfe said:
It's not impossible as there are NLEs that do it. The decompression happens on the fly during playback. It is very processor intensive though which is why many people still advise to transcode into an codec that uses intraframe compression.


Lethal
Click to expand...
I could say that it is a matter of semantics, but it is more than that. If decompression happens on the fly, then decompression happens. It is the decompressed video that you are editing. Decompressed video is not native. When Apple says that you can edit natively, then I would not call it "lying." I would call it "marketing."
 
MisterMe said:
It is the decompressed video that you are editing.
Click to expand...

No, you're viewing the decompressed video, but editing would include the cutting and assembly, and that's referencing the source files, not the decompressed video. Too abstract?
 
martinX said:
That's the whole point of letting the GPU do it though.
Click to expand...
But while the GPU is doing that it has less processing power for other tasks. If the edit isn't too tasking you won't notice a difference but if you start stacking the effects and pulling multiple streams of video your performance will degrade faster if you are editing AVCHD footage vs ProRes (for example).

MisterMe said:
I could say that it is a matter of semantics, but it is more than that. If decompression happens on the fly, then decompression happens. It is the decompressed video that you are editing. Decompressed video is not native. When Apple says that you can edit natively, then I would not call it "lying." I would call it "marketing."
Click to expand...
Decompression always happens on the fly so you can view the images. DVDs are decompressed on the fly. A JPEG image is decompressed for viewing. ProRes, DV, DVCPro HD, etc., are all decompressed on the fly the moment you hit the 'play' button. And if you are trying to decompress a very complex codec, like H.264, on an old computer like a G4 the playback will be horrible because the CPU can't decompress the video stream fast enough for real time playback. There is a difference between decompressing on the fly for playback and transcoding from one codec into another.

Let's say someone gets a letter in Morse code and reads it aloud in English. That person is 'decompressing' the letter on the fly but the letter itself is still in Morse code. That is different than if someone received a letter in Morse code, wrote down the decryption in English in another letter, and then read that aloud, right?


Lethal
 
LethalWolfe said:
But while the GPU is doing that it has less processing power for other tasks. If the edit isn't too tasking you won't notice a difference but if you start stacking the effects and pulling multiple streams of video your performance will degrade faster if you are editing AVCHD footage vs ProRes (for example).
Click to expand...

Everything is a tradeoff. Everything. Native editing of h.264 is handy if you want to "get it in, cut it, title it, lower third and get out". Plus you don't have mega gigs filling your hard drive.

Doing the same thing in, say, Motion (don't know if you actually can) would be a recipe for choppy playback.

A lot of my stuff falls in the get it in/get it out category.
 
Chaos123x said:
You probably need to have the complete file structure intact from your SD card for it to work.
Click to expand...

In conclusion, is this still the same as FCP7? i.e. need to complete file structure intact to log&transfer to proRes?

Does FCP X support mts files by itself?
 
JabbaII said:
In conclusion, is this still the same as FCP7? i.e. need to complete file structure intact to log&transfer to proRes?
Does FCP X support mts files by itself?
Click to expand...

That is the $64 question. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Although I understand from reading a Vegas user's frustration with his Sony NXCAM that cameras split large files into separate MTS file but the splits aren't even and there may be overlapping. If you import the files via your NLE, the NLE reads those little accessory files on the card when reconstructing a "whole" clip (as shot by the camera) from its two or more parts (as stored by the camera). When this user was just bringing in the MTS files individually and directly he had all sorts of audio sync issues. This was solved by loading the entire card and doing it properly.
 
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