Strange Import Failures

I was on a shoot yesterday and had two import failures that I'd like to better understand.

1) Importing a card from 5D3 and FCPX pops up a dialog saying file import failed for file xyz. Click the Ok button and it simply continues as if there were no problems. All files appear to be present and correct in the event. This happened both importing from cards (which I know is frowned upon but is supported by FCPX) AND importing from card images on the HDD. The files are not truncated after import.

2) Needed to do some rush checking of footage before the subjects left so we imported directly from the cards to save time. Most of the time this worked, but twice FCPX would start importing then appear to just stop at 1%. No more card activity, nothing. If I left it nothing happened. No real CPU, HDD activity, zero card activity. It just sits there. Quit FCPX, reboot, same happens again. Copy the card to the HDD and FCPX imports it fine.

Normally we would copy the cards, but just occasionally we don't have time net need to check the footage before leaving a location (or some one else is leaving). Since it's happened twice in one day and has happened to me before with a different card reader and different MBP I'm a little concerned that I don't understand why it happens, so can't take proactive steps to prevent it.

Any ideas?

Importing from a Canon 5D and Canon DSLR cameras in general will remain quirky and unpredictable until Canon fixes its lousy import plugin once and for all. We, as well as many others, have had similar issues with Canon footage before. And help forums for other NLEs are also filled with complaints about this. Importing straight from cards, although it is not a wise thing to do, is perfect with P2 or any other cards from other cameras than Canon. So Canon really should fix this.

The only way to be relatively sure that Canon D5 footage will be imported correctly is to copy the cards to your desktop. And still then can you get unexpected behavior, as you have experienced. Send feedback to Canon, as many others have already done.

- Ronny

Yup. this bug sucks. Just was mentioning in another post I've been using BulletProof to import my stuff (and make backups) and as long as I import as media files (not maintaining the card structure - which isn't important as my camera doesn't do timecode/metadata) it comes into FCPX great.

Why is importing straight from the card not a wise thing to do? The only time I've ever had an issue with this was in FCP7 when, during import, I clicked on the Browser window which ended up truncating the file that was importing at that particular time. The lesson I learned was to not mess with Final Cut Pro 7 until importing is done. Except you can mess with the log and transfer window, it doesn't mind that. Otherwise no issues... ever.

Redifer wrote: Why is importing straight from the card not a wise thing to do? The only time I've ever had an issue with this was in FCP7 when, during import, I clicked on the Browser window which ended up truncating the file that was importing at that particular time. The lesson I learned was to not mess with Final Cut Pro 7 until importing is done. Except you can mess with the log and transfer window, it doesn't mind that. Otherwise no issues... ever.

Personally, I don't have a problem with importing straight from the card, but many others here seem to frown upon it big time, telling anyone and everyone with an import problem that the cause is reading directly from a card and not copying the card to the HDD first.

Having said that, I do normally copy the cards to the HDD first because it gives me a backup if the card was lost, damaged or otherwise corrupted during the import process. It also means I can name the folder it goes in to and FCPX then uses this as the reel number instead of calling everything CANON. I'm often importing 10 or more cards at the same time so having the reel follow the card number helps if I ever need to go back to the original media.

@ other replies : Thanks guys. I was actually unaware of this Canon bug. I will certainly and my name to the complaints going to Canon.

I'm pretty sure FCPX copies the files from the card before it transcodes them instead of transcoding directly from the card unlike the Canon Plug-ins in FCP7 do. My card reader shows no activity after a bit even though FCPX is still going crazy filling up its % gauge.

Ronny,

i'd like to understand why importing straight from the card is not a good thing to do. We hage done it ever since P2 came out, we do it with our GoPro SD cards, we never encountered a problem. I understand that by creating an archive first you get yourself a back-up - but is there any special reason why NOT to import from the card?

Thanks,
Sebastian

Because many of us DO in fact have major issue constantly when importing directly from an SD card. That's why. Simple as that. But if you're not having issues, then you're one of the lucky ones and don't need to worry about it. Bugs are not 100% universal all the time.

I'm curious as to what those issues are that some people are having importing directly from the card. Incomplete clips? Missing clips? All footage upside down?

FCP X claiming it has an issue with some clips, and can't import them completely, so they'll reference the SD card, although you can eject the card and edit anyway. But when you export, it says, "Can't, still referencing the SD card, bra."

Our Canon 650D (t4i) files also have trouble importing and are very slow to import and often give the failed to import message (even though it did seem to import the file just fine). Other sd cards from our Panasonic video camera (avchd) import just fine and much more quickly. So there does seem to be an issue.

If you check optimize media on import, fcpx does transfer the original file from the sd card as well as transcoding and optimized version of it in your event folder location.

I have heard that importing without optimizing checked (and then optimizing afterwards) can help with the error message, but I have not tried that yet.