Final Cut Pro X Import Problems

Hello Everyone,

I am having problems importing my footage into Final Cut Pro X. What I usually do when I return from a shoot is to copy each SD card into a folder marked "Footage." Each SD card will go into its own folder entitled, "Card One," "Card Two," etc... I have been copying straight from a Finder window into these folders retaining the original Canon file directly structure, not just copying over the .mov files. These files are kept on a second hard drive on my computer, not the boot drive. My FCPX projects and events are run from this drive as well.

Ok.

So, when I am ready to begin editing my project I select my "Footage" folder and import all my footage at once. I do not select any import options, I do not transcode, nor do I copy the files into FCPX because it is all on the same drive already.

My problem is how long it is taking to import these files. Is it normal to take all night to import around 500 clips shot on a Canon 60D that are not being transcoded or copied? The other problem is every 100 or so clips I will get an error saying it can't be imported. FCPX will not continue importing until I click Ok, meaning when I get there in the morning my files still aren't imported.

My computer is a Hackintosh running the latest version of Mountain Lion and Final Cut. It has a 3.3 GHZ I7 processor with 24GB of ram. It also has an Nvidia GTX570 video card. I should think it is powerful enough.

I am more than willing to switch up my workflow if I am doing something incorrectly. Any help you guys can give me would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you need any more information from me. Thanks!

What version of the software are you using? What you're describing is not how the application should work. Importing aliases is immediate, but this is not the correct workflow for the current software.

I am running the latest version of Final Cut - 10.0.7. What is the best workflow for this version?

Thanks so much!

The application isn't working as it should with your computer. The import function should recognize your folders as cameras and import as if importing from a camera. When you select the folder that contains the card structure the application should switch to camera import, which it does not seem to be doing from your description.

Hmm ok so I went back to the Media Import panel and noticed that some of the folders were marked "Media Folder" and some "Folder." From what I can tell, the ones marked "Folder" were simply a folder with the .mov's in it. (Probably imported using OSX's Image Capture app) Might that be what is causing the slowdown?

Incidentally, which is the proper way of offloading footage? Copying straight from Finder retaining the camera directory structure, or copying the .mov's into a folder using Image Capture?

Copy the entire folder structure so the application can use the camera import function. It will behave differently from previous versions of the application working with DSLR footage. You will need to import the video into the event. That's the way you should work.

Hold that thought, I checked the other folders that retained the camera directory structure and Final Cut Pro is labeling them as "Folder" as well. I do not know why two of the folders are marked as "Media Folder" when they were copied over the same way.

I think I figured out what is going on. It is the same thing that is happening to this user here:
www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/...r-footage-and-10-0-6

When I have a master footage folder that contains my card backups in both directory and non directory structure, it automatically copies the structured directories into my FCPX event even though the option to copy is unchecked. (Because it contains at least one folder that is not in the directory structure.) Leading incredibly long import times.

Yes this is almost the exact same problem I have had since 10.0.6. When importing while preserving card structure sometimes you can get an error saying something about a camera reference, I dont have the message in front of me. The work around is not preserve the card structure, which is wrong, but it works.

I"ve been having this problem too since about version 10.0.6. Same process - duplicate cards to a hard drive from 600D footage. It's been a pain. The only way not to get impossibly long import times (with pauses as it helpfully tells me it can't import a certain file, holding up the whole process unless I keep watching it) is to drag the folders from the finder to the event. Don't know why this is but it's annoying.


I keep forgetting so this is for my own benefit as well