Ingesting XAVC files while "Leaving in Place"

When I use Sony Catalyst Browse to transfer my files off an SxS card onto a hard drive and then ingest the footage into FCPX from that drive, I can't select the "Leave in Place" import option. My assumption was that it was just re-wrapping the files and not duplicating them into my library. Is that really the case?

I'm looking at a recent library size and it sure looks like the footage has been duplicated. Preparing the files that way (with Catalyst Browse) is a recommended practice for XAVC footage form a F55 like ours because it verifies the validity of each file while clearing off the card.

If the files are not re-wrapped and still in folder tree format after Catalyst Browser offloads them, they cannot be imported with "leave files in place". See this post for further discussion: www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/...hen-ort-lassen#91497

By "footage has been duplicated", do you mean within the library or it was copied to the library despite existing outside the library on disk? If the clips are duplicated within the library that should not be.

OTOH if the offloaded clips are on the hard drive, that's expected since FCPX doesn't allow import with "leave files in place" for this situation.

Your options include:
- Copy the video files to a separate folder and import from there. However this is considered poor practice because it separates the video files from metadata files. I personally haven't seen a problem from doing this with XAVC-S files but it definitely causes a problem with AVCHD.
- Use EditReady to externally re-wrap before import with "leave files in place". This combines the metadata into the video files: www.divergentmedia.com/editready

Whether you need validation for file offloading is a judgement call. You can do this using a general file/folder comparison tool like Beyond Compare: www.scootersoftware.com/

Or you can use a specialized offloading utility like ShotPut Pro: www.imagineproducts.com/index.php?main_p...ath=5&products_id=59

Or Hedge: hedge.video/

Or you can keep using Catalyst Browse, although I think that's only available by subscription.

Thanks for the information. Sorry if this has been covered already. I had just never heard a detailed description of what's going on with these XAVC imports. Catalyst Browse is free but Prepare & Edit cost $$. I'll certainly do some tests to establish definitively whether the files are being duplicated in FCPX. If not than no issue here. I definitely wouldn't want to separate the video files from the metadata.

I've used several of the various offloading utilities before. I guess I should try some of them to see if the footage can then be imported "Left in Place". Hedge is very efficient in the field so I'll give that a try first. As far as I can tell, EditReady converts to Prores and I don't need the huge file size hit from going there from XAVC.

Thanks again and I'll let you know what ends up working for me.

JarrodMFay wrote: ....As far as I can tell, EditReady converts to Prores and I don't need the huge file size hit from going there from XAVC....

EditReady can simply re-wrap, which is super fast. It also can transcode but that is optional and usually not needed.

Re offloading utilities, I used ShotPut Pro for a while but it threw spurious errors and I didn't have time to keep debugging it. However I was copying three cards simultaneously. I currently manually check offloads with Beyond Compare but I may try Hedge.

Cool. I'll look into EditReady a bit more. I got the wrong impression from it's website. A quick re-wrap tool would be perfect for me.

So what I've found is this. When I import the XAVC files using the import media window then they get transcoded (or re-wrapped or whatever) and add their file size to the library. If I just drag in the MXF files from my hard drive then, having previously selected to leave files in place, they drop in and the library doesn't get any larger. I'm not sure exactly why this happens since I thought the drag and drop method was identical to the import media window in functionality. Anyway, I'm certainly willing to drag in the MXF files to prevent duplicating files.

I did try EditReady and while it does re-wrap the files quickly and efficiently, it essentially duplicates them and then I would need to choose whether to keep the new files or the original media.

JarrodMFay wrote: ... When I import the XAVC files using the import media window then they get transcoded (or re-wrapped or whatever) and add their file size to the library. If I just drag in the MXF files from my hard drive then, having previously selected to leave files in place, they drop in and the library doesn't get any larger. I'm not sure exactly why this happens since I thought the drag and drop method was identical to the import media window in functionality. ...

The import dialog is looking at the folder tree on disk which appears to be identical to the card, so it treats it that way and only permits copy to library. If you observe the “leave files in place” option in the import dialog it is probably greyed out. However I have seen a case where it improperly allowed selection, yet did not perform leave files in place.

When you drag/drop individual video files one by one, it doesn’t look at the superior folder structure, so does “in place” if that pref is set. I think if you tried to drag/drop the entire top-level folder it would do a copy no matter how FCPX>preferences>import is set.

Exactly right. If I drag the whole top level folder then it also re-wraps the footage and adds it to the Library. I'm in good shape now with just dragging in the MXF files. No file duplication and I can keep my footage in its folders.

I appreciate your help.

Something I discovered when having the problem of "leave files in place" being grayed out is that the folder where my files are located (on my SSD), had the incorrect permissions. It had read only for some reason and when I changed it to read/write, I could then leave files in place.

Hope this helps anyone else searching for related solutions.