FCPX - wrong clip timecode? Always starts at 0?

Hi everyone,

new to these forums and fairly new to FCPX (been cutting in it the last couple months), so sorry if this has been asked already, but I couldn't seem to find the answer anywhere online.


-It seems like FCPX is not retaining the timecode of the clips, as it shows all clips as starting at 00:00:00:00.

-In the first screenshot of the FCPX Import window, notice that the timecodes for FCPX always start at 0. In the 2nd screenshot, Premiere has a unique timecode for the same clips.



Does anyone have any info into how FCPX reads clip timecode, or if there's something I'm just stupidly overlooking? I'm trying to export an XML of a cut from FCPX to Premiere, and of course some things don't port over such as speed ramps etc., but it's really difficult to manually match them up because the timecode doesn't match. Much appreciated!

What camera is this?

I would ask the same.

Can you post a clip?

- Andreas

Hi guys, sorry about that, this is the Sony A7R II. Footage was captured at 4k (3840x2160) at 23.98. Footage was copied to the drives with all card folder structure intact.

Here's a link to the smallest clip in the folder: www.dropbox.com/s/1dlpgv8qeege0oo/C0006.MP4?dl=0

Thanks Julian.

Are there any more files (beside the movie clips) on the card?

- Andreas

There are XML files alongside every clip. Come to think of it, I did import the clips into FCPX via drag n drop, because since the folder is an exact duplicate of the camera card structure, FCPX will not let me import via the import window with the "Leave in Place" option ticked (it will only allow copying to the Library). However, as it shows in the screenshot earlier, the clips still read as a 00:00:00:00 start timecode in the import window anyway, so I'm still not sure what the case is.

Here is the folder of the A7R II footage, on my external hard drive (2-drive G-RAID Thunderbolt 2, RAID 1). The "THMBNL" folder has .JPGs of all the clips.

Thanks again everyone!

When you import from a camera structure you cannot leave in place. It always has to be copied to the library location, managed or external. Would be interested to know if it works correctly when imported using the application procedure for camera imports.

Hi Julian

That explains a lot.
Could you post the XML as well?

- Andreas

I brought the clips in via the import window, copying it to the Library. It still reads in the import window as 00:00:00:00 starting timecode, and once brought into the program it still reads as such.

I finally stumbled across this forum post where a user surmised that the problem was FCPX could not read the timecode through Sony's MP4 XAC-S wrapper. He re-wrapped it to a .mov via EditReady and then FCPX was able to read the timecode.

In the screenshots here, you can see the difference in timecode in FCPX between the original MP4, and the re-wrapped .mov. Premiere is able to read them in both cases. The one spot where my situation differed to the user from the other forum was that he was able to read the MP4 timecode in Davinci Resolve 12, whereas in my case, Resolve was still showing it as 00:00:00:00, before re-wrapping fixed it.

I guess that answers my question for now... It seems like the potential workaround is to re-wrap all the footage before starting a project in FCPX with Sony A7R II footage, which is less than ideal. Any other thoughts on if there's any other ways to get FCPX to read the clip timecode?

RE: Andreas: here is the XML for the clip I posted earlier: www.dropbox.com/s/kuy78pwwmtwb9z1/C0006M01.XML?dl=0

That's what I thought after you said that there are XMLs for each file.
It's kind of shame FCPx can't handle that – I personally think.

Probably I have a solution for this.
Please drop me an email: kiel@spherico.com

- Andreas

This is odd, I had the same problem with A7s and FCPX 10.1.4, but then it was fixed with a subsequent update of FCP (I don't remember which version.)

With 10.2.3 I have proper TC on all clips. That's with an A7s in HD, haven't tried the A7R II in 4k.

- François

Yep, I downloaded your A7R II 4k clip and TC is 00:00:00:00 indeed...

I guess we need a FCP update.

In the meantime if you have CC you can use AME to batch convert to Prores with proper TC.
Not ideal, but not too bad.