Import mistake with AVCHD...Help needed

Hi there,

As I was importing from my memory card into my laptop instead of dragging across the whole AVCHD root file I opened the package and took out the separate .MTS files...WHICH ARE NOW TAKING FOREVER to import into the library in FCPx and in fact often it's just crashing my comp.

I know I'm a stupid idiot! I should have just imported the whole AVCHD, but I haven't.

What would the recommended workflow be in my current predicament? Would Premiere for instance be a good bet or do I need to transcode everything? It's hours of footage as I was filming a weeks worth of presentations... : (

If you still have the AVCHD package you can just import from that. FCPX will automatically re-wrap the files upon import. However I assume you no longer have it.

In that case your best bet is halt the import and re-wrap the AVCHD .MTS files using either EditReady: www.divergentmedia.com/editready or the free tool ReWrapAVCHD. I have not used this (I always use EditReady) but supposedly it works: www.macupdate.com/app/mac/39800/rewrapavchd

Re-wrapping is much faster than transcoding. FCPX does not handle bare .MTS files very well and it can cause performance problems even after the import. Re-wrapping the files before import makes the import go vastly faster and helps performance even after the import.

Hi! tahnks so much for your help....

So I can re-wrap if I've only imported the .MTS files?

Re-wrapping is either done before importing (using a separate utility) or it's done by FCPX itself if importing from the AVCHD package.

If you have already imported the .MTS files I suggest deleting them from the library, re-wrapping them externally then re-importing. Even if you have a lot of content this procedure goes pretty fast. It will be much faster than transcoding a huge amount of stuff you already imported.

If you're going to try ReWrapAVCHD, it might be better to use this download location, since the first one I listed apparently tries to install some other software: download.cnet.com/RewrapAVCHD/3000-2194_4-75570723.html

In general I recommend using EditReady which is a professional-quality tool.

Apparently ReWrapAVCHD requires some additional software called Perian, which may not be available any longer.

EditReady can re-wrap several gigabytes of AVCHD files in 30 sec. on an iMac 27.

Generally I'd recommend using FCPX Camera Archive feature which will properly copy the card to the disc of your choice and then importing from there.