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I'm thinking of buying Final Cut Pro but have a few questions

S

snerkler

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 14, 2012
1,176
171
I'm currently using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 on my PC for movie editing, but have just ordered a MBP and so will need some new software. It's only amateur stuff and just editing holiday videos etc, nothing too taxing. I know that the MBP comes with iMovie which probably has all of the features I need to be honest, except I believe it doesn't support HD (AVCHD/mts), which all my video is recorded in.

So I was all set to buy Final Cut Pro X until I've been reading a few posts that say whilst this software supports AVCHD/mts you can't use files stored on your hard drive, and have to be added directly from your camera/camcorder, is this right? My trouble is that I've a lot of old video footage archived on my hard drive and so are no longer on the camera. I'm sure I've read that you can transfer the files to an external hard drive and then the program will recognise them, is this right?

I have bought the MBP as it's going to be much faster (and I'm going to get a SSD to make it faster still), especially editing/rendering and saving edited video. Currently it takes my computer about 3 hours to save a 10 minute video I've made onto my hard drive. If I have to export files to an external drive surely this will cause a bottleneck and so editing, rendering and saving edited video will be no faster than what I currently have? Am I right in thinking this?

If the above is correct is there any software that doesn't cost an arm and a leg that can use AVCHD/mts stored on your hard drive? Or am I going to have to partition my drive and use windows software?

Or can you convert video files to a file type recognised on your hard drive by final cut that won't lose picture and sound quality?

Cheers
 
snerkler said:
I'm currently using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 on my PC for movie editing, but have just ordered a MBP and so will need some new software. It's only amateur stuff and just editing holiday videos etc, nothing too taxing. I know that the MBP comes with iMovie which probably has all of the features I need to be honest, except I believe it doesn't support HD (AVCHD/mts), which all my video is recorded in.

So I was all set to buy Final Cut Pro X until I've been reading a few posts that say whilst this software supports AVCHD/mts you can't use files stored on your hard drive, and have to be added directly from your camera/camcorder, is this right? My trouble is that I've a lot of old video footage archived on my hard drive and so are no longer on the camera. I'm sure I've read that you can transfer the files to an external hard drive and then the program will recognise them, is this right?

I have bought the MBP as it's going to be much faster (and I'm going to get a SSD to make it faster still), especially editing/rendering and saving edited video. Currently it takes my computer about 3 hours to save a 10 minute video I've made onto my hard drive. If I have to export files to an external drive surely this will cause a bottleneck and so editing, rendering and saving edited video will be no faster than what I currently have? Am I right in thinking this?

If the above is correct is there any software that doesn't cost an arm and a leg that can use AVCHD/mts stored on your hard drive? Or am I going to have to partition my drive and use windows software?

Or can you convert video files to a file type recognised on your hard drive by final cut that won't lose picture and sound quality?

Cheers
Click to expand...

FCPX cannot read MTS files directly, it has to be part of a camera archive (which FCPX can do and archive your files in the future).

You can use programs like this to transcode the footage to ProRes and you should have no quality loss. This will take up more space though.

Any new footage can be imported in native AVCHD. Just make sure you do not check "Create Optimized Media" when you import or it will create ProRes files.
 
zedsdead said:
FCPX cannot read MTS files directly, it has to be part of a camera archive (which FCPX can do and archive your files in the future).

You can use programs like this to transcode the footage to ProRes and you should have no quality loss. This will take up more space though.

Any new footage can be imported in native AVCHD. Just make sure you do not check "Create Optimized Media" when you import or it will create ProRes files.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I've just discovered that you can convert the mts files on my hard drive to quicktime files without any picture/audio loss using media converter or clipwrap. Have you any experience of this?
 
zedsdead said:
Clipwrap is good.
Click to expand...

I might give this a go then when I get my MBP next week.

I do still find it strange though that my old PC running old software can do this simple task ot reading/using mts, yet a brand new all singing all dancing mac with new software can't. Why is it that PC doesn't need the metadata files and the Mac does? Or I should really ask, why doesn't the Mac have the capability of reading/using files without this data when an old PC can?

It seems strange (and a bit annoying to be honest) to me that I'm upgrading my computer, yet it can't perform tasks that my old PC can without a costly/time consuming workaround. Are Apple likely to change this in the future?
 
snerkler said:
I might give this a go then when I get my MBP next week.

I do still find it strange though that my old PC running old software can do this simple task ot reading/using mts, yet a brand new all singing all dancing mac with new software can't. Why is it that PC doesn't need the metadata files and the Mac does? Or I should really ask, why doesn't the Mac have the capability of reading/using files without this data when an old PC can?

It seems strange (and a bit annoying to be honest) to me that I'm upgrading my computer, yet it can't perform tasks that my old PC can without a costly/time consuming workaround. Are Apple likely to change this in the future?
Click to expand...

Final Cut can only read Quicktime files. Has always been that way. Not sure why Apple never changed that...would make things far easier.
 
zedsdead said:
Final Cut can only read Quicktime files. Has always been that way. Not sure why Apple never changed that...
Click to expand...
It's Apple. That's really all there is to say on the matter.

snerkler said:
I do still find it strange though that my old PC running old software can do this simple task ot reading/using mts, yet a brand new all singing all dancing mac with new software can't. Why is it that PC doesn't need the metadata files and the Mac does? Or I should really ask, why doesn't the Mac have the capability of reading/using files without this data when an old PC can?
Click to expand...
See above. Old versus new really doesn't matter. You're trying to apply reason to a situation where it isn't relevant.
 
takeshi74 said:
It's Apple. That's really all there is to say on the matter.


See above. Old versus new really doesn't matter. You're trying to apply reason to a situation where it isn't relevant.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, I guess they do like to keep everything Apple don't they :rolleyes:

Would PC users have issues the other way around then that if they've been using Final Cut (and quicktime files) they'd have to convert files to use it on PC based software? I'm wondering if I should keep a copy of the original mts files and tehn make quicktime copies too, just in case I ever go back to PC and need mts :confused:

I wonder if someone will be able to clarify how you transfer files from your camera for use with final cut please? Do you just open up the camera 'drive' and drag and drop from the camera to a video folder on the Mac, and then it automatically stores it as quicktime, or do you have to transfer the files using final cut?

If it's the latter, are the files still stored in a video folder on the hard drive in full file size and accessible by all programs, or are they only accessible to FCP?
 
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