beachball playing optimized .mts files

Client got from videographer folders called 'Cam1' and 'Cam 2', with mts files inside. I have imported and optimized, but cannot play them without many, many seconds of spinning beachball. 1080 with 6 channel surround audio. I have never worked with surround sound from a camera before. (It is completely ridiculous to have recorded that way, but I understand that certain cameras have that as the default. Will be a real hassle for my 'audio dept')
MPEg Streamclip can't deal with them (can't read timecode)
I have not yet been able to contact the shooter to ask if he has intact card still, but wondering if anyone here has insight.
FCPX 10.2.2
Yosemite

TIA

What are the full system specs including drives and how they're connected?

Did you try trashing prefs?

In my experience it is practically impossible to use .mts files in FCPX without long periods of spinning beach ball.

I've always assumed it had something to do with the ac3 audio (final cut transcodes the audio when importing AVCHD from the original card structure.)

You need to run them through a software like clip-wrap; www.divergentmedia.com/clipwrap

or for a free solution; media-converter.sourceforge.net/index.html and download and use the additional 'Re-wrap AVCHD for Quicktime - uncompressed Audio' preset; media-converter.sourceforge.net/presets.html

hope this helps,
-Mark

Well, it looks like trashing the prefs has solved it. thanks once again, Tom.
I will post again if it rears its head again as I work.
The project itself is set to 720/stereo, and library is on a TB mirrored RAID 1, late 2013 iMac.
Still confused about working with this 6 channel audio. Is there any quality enhancement to be had by changing the channel config. and muting dull and/or funky channels?

Hi Gretta
Sounds like a consumer level cam that has "upgraded/enhanced" to onboard surround sound. This is a sales gimmick only and in my experience results in worst sound as it picks up more operator and camera noises. I understand you just received the files, but the shooter is better off setting the cam to stereo only, not surround sound and even then the on-board mics aren't all that good.

I would attempt to only use the best tracks for audio unless the vid absolutely needs surround sound.

Hope this helps, Greg

I agree with Vidgreg about the surround quality on cameras. You can try a couple things. In the inspector under the audio tab change the configuration to stereo or dual mono and see if the sound is acceptable. Otherwise, as mentioned experiment with turning some channels on and off to see if you find an arrangement that is useful.