MXF files into FCPX from a hard drive, not from a camera

Hi all,

I've been handed a hard drive with a whole lot of Canon MXF files shot on a C300.

The camera structure is in tact.

I have a solution that I have found but I'd like to run it past your very large brains in the hope that someone can tell me I have the wrong idea or alternatively to help someone else in future.

I know that Canon released software to import but discovered that it only works for importing from a camera, not from a hard drive even, as I discovered, if the file structure is in tact.

Out of curiosity I took the entire folder that all the files lived in and threw it into Premier. I was impressed but not surprised to see how it discovered all the MXF files, gave an import error for all the associated files and then displayed all the MXF files with no further fuss.

However, I much prefer working in FCPX so I continued my experimenting.

A long time ago I stumbled across a $6 app in the app store called AnyVideo Converter HD and thought I'd see what that did with an MXF file. At the highest setting (MOV 1080p Full HD) it did what i had hoped but not truly expected - it re-wrapped the MXF files into a .mov that FCPX could read without trouble. Impressive.

I noticed however that FCPX wasn't scrubbing as snappily through the footage as I am used to. So I optimised to ProRes in FCPX and now it's butter.

An interesting note is I converted a test clip (MXF rewrapped to MOV) using compressor and it took considerable longer to transcode in compressor than in FCPX. I am at a loss to explain that.

I also noted that when I opened the wrapped (not transcoded) MOV in QT and brought up the information panel that the compressor was "libx264". I am not sure if that is correct for c300 footage and would appreciate any thoughts from those who know better.

Any thoughts on the wisdom or folly of my workflow would be most appreciated.