P2 Footage Out of Sync and/or Wrong Speed

Does anyone have any insight into the ongoing issues with imported P2 footage being out of sync and/or slow/fast?

FCPX 10.1.2 (on MBP running 10.9.4)
(Also, I'm a teacher and my students use FCPX 10.0.9 on 2008 Mac Pro towers. Same problems across the board.)
I have been using FCPX since 10.0.1. The problem has been with FCPX since the beginning.

Camera: Panasonic HPX-170. (I have four for the class I teach. Problem is consistent across all).

I write this now concerning footage I am trying to import shot in camera at 1080i/24P.

My students only shoot at 720P, and the problem has happened a lot (though not 100% of time - particularly frustrating). I have been in the habit for a while of having students back up the CONTENTS folder on the P2's. This sucks because FCPX is designed to manage media from within the program, which is great, in principle.

What I know: anything on a P2 card except 24PN and 30PN is wrapped in an NTSC 60i container.
This includes 24P = 23.978, 30P = 29.97, 60i = 59.96, etc. These formats use pulldown.
24PN (and 30PN) = 24 (and 30) actual (N = "native") frames. These formats do not use pulldown.

I have come to suspect that FCPX gets confused when it has to handle P2 pulldown. I know that a common fix is to uncheck "remove pulldown" in the import window. This often does not fix the problem for me.

Pulldown is the suspect because what has been working is shooting at 720P/24PN. Switching to 24P (ie., 23.978, requiring pulldown) brings back the problem. This has been working with or without "remove pulldown" checked on import.

With any other footage (ie., anything that is not "native"), I can transcode using Adobe Media Encoder. This = extra steps = sigh. Compressor might work, too, but since this is an Apple problem and I know and trust Media Encoder, that's as far as I got.

So I cannot say I am totally stumped at this point, but it's been a real PITA sussing it out and I'm still not 100% on anything.

Any info from the community is greatly appreciated.

I can only confirm that we shoot DVCPRO HD in all the recording formats you listed as well as over and under cranking using HVX200, 200A, HPX170 and 250's. We don't experience this problem on any of them. We always select REMOVE PULLDOWN when using the appropriate formats (FCPX automatically recognizes this) and I have never heard of not selecting it to be a remedy for anything.
Are you finding audio to be out of sync directly in the timeline or upon export? What speed issues do you notice? Are you retiming anything in the project?

Thanks for the reply. Good to know it's working properly for someone, probably many.

Audio out of sync shows up immediately in the event browser, the audio waveform will extend half way through the clip or so then drop to nothing/silence, video will continue. The display indicates that the problem exists. Understanding pulldown, I get when you say REMOVE PULLDOWN should be selected for DVCPRO footage. It was difficult for me to accept that it should be unselected, doesn't make sense. However, folks have kept telling me to try it, of course I have no luck with it.

Unfortunately, with corrupted footage, using Reveal in Finder from the event browser to go directly to the Original Footage folder, then open in QuickTime Player or QuickTime Pro 7 shows that the footage is not salvageable. Dropping it in any Project timeline has no effect. The footage is untouched, no retiming, none of the footage is shot over/under cranked. With footage shot using 720p/24p, footage is slow with audio "normal" but once again not all the audio is there. Have tried retiming the video to match audio -- what a mess. With the 1080i/24 footage I just shot, footage appears sped up, but it's difficult to tell sometimes. Audio is completely jacked, nothing in sync at all, and even some audio is warbly, though I guess that could be 1080 vs MBP CPU resources for 1080 display (doubtful), not sure because it's so off. I'm at a loss.

I have seen the 720P/24P issue quite often. 1080 problem is new to me.

Not sure what to make of all that, but a couple things to note. It is not the DVCPRO footage that requires PULLDOWN removal, it is footage that is shot in 24p or similar which streams over 60i.
Secondly, the audio waveforms in the event browser and in the timeline may take some time to render which could explain why you are seeing half of the waveform. You can check your background tasks by clicking the render circle in the timecode HUD to see if the system is generating waveforms. This may be taxing your system. I would suggest turning off the waveforms in the browser by unchecking "show waveforms" at the bottom right of the event viewer (click on the little icon at the far bottom right). You can also neglect to show waveforms in the timeline by selecting a different clip appearance to the right of the zoom slider. Also in preferences you can deselect " show reference waveforms". Maybe these options will improve your performance.
Finally, make sure your project timeline matches the frame rate of your clips. A clip at 24p ( or 23.98 FPS) will play faster if you drop it into a 29.97 timeline for example if you choose automatic speed. If you don't choose automatic speed, FCPX will properly adjust it to play at the project frame rate.
Also, if you are unable to play the clip successfully in QuickTime, you may indeed have corrupted footage or just not quick enough media drives to deliver the content to the application. Your media should be on a fast external drive and not the system drive (and also not on a USB 2 drive).
Be sure to turn off background rendering in the FCPX preferences.

Hope this helps.

Thanks again.

I am with you on all points. Confirmation is good, too bad though, I wish there was something here I didn't consider.

After all, the original footage is corrupted on import. I don't think it is a computer/CPU performance issue. Our scenario with 720p footage playing from a 7200 rpm separate media drive definitely does not choke QuickTime.

Here would be something I did not consider: the 2008 Mac Pros have always generated the message about the vid cards not being supported by FCPX, yet there has never appeared to be a serious issue, except for video cards burning out from time to time (they die a glitchy death). And FCPX on these machines does not take advantage of GPU acceleration. Is there any clue here? This idea does not hold up regarding my MBP, which has a supported vid card.

A good supported video card is critical for decent performance with FCPX. You mention footage is corrupted upon import so if that is the case, how are you importing? Are you connected to the camera either via FireWire or USB? Are you using Panny's P2 reader ( if so, which one)? Are you write protecting the P2 cards before you connect reader or camera to Mac? You can use P2CMS from Panasonic to ensure your footage is good. It does checksums and compares the ingest to what is copied. Might be worth trying that.
We use Aj-PCD2 readers and occasionally the camera to copy footage to an external drive. Then we import from the drive. This has worked well for us since 2009 with many versions of fcp.

To import the 720P/24P footage, we use the Panasonic USB card readers, or FireWire from camera.

I used FireWire from camera for the last round of 1080i/24.

Maybe here is the rub: I have always tried to avoid the extra step saving P2 CONTENTS folder to an external before importing to FCPX (plan . In theory I love that media management should all be from within FCPX, esp. how I tend to consider database management in FCPX, storage space, etc. But after this I am starting to wonder (checksums, etc.). After what I have been through, the safety measure might be the ticket.

Never considered write protecting the cards. What does that do regarding import?

Thank you for the tips. I really appreciate your knowledge, glad I posted. I'll look into the P2CMS software. I had a glance at that a few years ago, then was happy not having to use it with FCP 7, then FCPX came along.

I hear you on the graphics cards. Must say, It's been pretty amazing that those 2008 towers have been able to handle FCPX at all. But they do okay (unless there is something about it causing issues here). Another remarkable thing has been FCPX's ability to handle USB 2 drives for editing (as in, Duplicate Project to a USB 2 drive, using 720p, lots of unoptimized footage, not using proxy). There is no other software I know of that can do anything with video to/from a USB 2 drive, but I have seen it work time and again with FCPX. Not recommended! I have learned a few things from students who don't listen. (You did what?!)

Write protecting the P2 card by sliding the switch to the position that shows orange is recommended to avoid possible clip corruption which could occur when the FireWire or USB connection is made between computer and camera. Other possibilities could include ejecting the card if using readers prior to completion of the copy, power loss or interruption on either connected device or port, etc.

In some instances it has been reported that some Mac OS versions could attempt to write something to a P2 card upon insertion, thereby causing random issues with the contents. I have never had this problem, but I always protect the card before offloading.

You probably know this, but you should always copy the Lastclip.txt file along with the full unmodified Contents folder if you are copying to a drive before importing. This file recognizes the footage that may be spanned onto another card if the camera fills card 1 and cascades the recording to card 2. FCPX will handle this if importing directly from camera or reader.

Last point I can think of - check for any updated P2 drivers and firmware for the camera on Panny's P2 Asset support.