Stuttering timeline when editing 50p shot footage

I have encountered a real issue with editing speed when using footage shot at 50p - the same footage shot at 25fps gives absolutely no problem at all! I am a bit of a rookie at all this so any advice welcome but so you know I have recently RAMed my mac out so that isn't the problem. Am shooting on a Sony NEX VG30 and importing via SD card.

Hey Andrew, welcome to the forums.

What is the frame rate of your FCP X project?

- Ronny

Hi Ronny, thanks for such a prompt reply.
I load up a 1080p format, 1920x1080 resolution and a 50p rate project in FCPx.
I had assumed this would be the correct match for the footage I had shot at 50p.

Andrew

Hi Ronny, thanks for getting back to me - I did reply earlier but can't see that on the thread so will do so again.
I had set up a 50p rate for the project timeline BUT I have since done a test at setting a 25 rate project up using the same footage and there is NO STUTTERING! I do not understand this at all! Is the Sony 50p shooting rate a con? Or is this a strange software glitch with FCPx?

AFDay wrote: ...I had set up a 50p rate for the project timeline BUT I have since done a test at setting a 25 rate project up using the same footage and there is NO STUTTERING! I do not understand this at all! Is the Sony 50p shooting rate a con? Or is this a strange software glitch with FCPx?

By stuttering, do you mean during 1x playback, when skimming the material in the Event Browser or timeline, or when playing the timeline at FF or REV speeds?

Is your viewer (drop-down menu in upper right corner) set to "better quality", or "better performance?"

Normally I'd think a recent Mac could edit 1080p/50 content with no problem. However the VG-30 records AVCHD which is fairly compressed and limited to 28 megabits/sec. You have several things you can try:

- Verify viewer is set to "better performance"
- Transcode media to proxy, which can be done after import. To do this right-click on media in the Event Browser, and select "Transcode Media", select only the "Create proxy media" checkbox, then set the viewer to View>Proxy. Remember before exporting the final version to set the viewer back to "Optimized/original" or it will export proxy resolution.
- Try re-wrapping the AVCHD content to MP4 before importing. You can use this free tool: www.macupdate.com/app/mac/39800/rewrapavchd or the commercial product EditReady: www.divergentmedia.com/editready

Normally none of these steps should be necessary for 1080p content on a recent Mac. However doing them will help characterize the problem and find possible workarounds.