Sony FX9

So many of you will know by now that there are major issues importing material from a Sony FX9 in to FCP X 10.4.9.

If you try to ingest a card directly into FCP X, it won't show all the clips on the card. There seems to be no logical reason for which clips show up..

The process worked perfectly in previous versions.

If you open the card in Sony's Catalyst Browse software and then export the clips as MXF's - which is basically a passthrough and all this is effectively doing is rebuilding the Metadata - the material loads into FCP X perfectly.

The bizarre thing is the codec is exactly the same as the FS7. There is obviously something slightly odd in the metadata on the card that throws everything out.

This is the response someone on Facebook got from Ryan at Apple:

"Hi there,
Engineering did confirm the camera is indeed unsupported. And is not expected to work correctly regardless of success in the past. One can backup a working computer with an older version of FCP using time machine
then go into utilities (command + U in the finder) and open the migration assistant to restore the machine to that disk image. (Dont forget to backup your own computer as well first). In regards to timeline with engineering
Its not actually an Apple related bug. We have a set of set standards for things to be compatible with OSX/ FCP/ Quicktime and our pro codec formats as our OS and software is open source, manufacturers and developers
work with our engineering to get products in spec. Our engineering team is recommending to contact SONY for support in this instance. My recommendation would be to transcode the footage into a .mov using the SONY
software until SONY can possible come out with a plugin (similar to what RED did) that enables the FCP workflow with this unsupported camera. I totally get the frustration on this one. I’m so so sorry this is happening."

Pretty unbelievable.

Why does this matter?

This matters to everyone who uses FCP X because the FX9 is rapidly becoming one of the best selling cameras of all time. It has a long way to go before it beats the FS7, but anecdotal it seems it is fast catching up and even during the height of the pandemic they were still flying off the shelves. Features like S Cinetone, Variable ND and AF are driving camera ops and producers across the world to adopt it as their preferred camera. And the FX9 is responsible for the crash in value of the F5 and F55.

Apple and Sony need to get working on sorting this out ASAP - for both their sakes.

Just to say we have heard on the grapevine that Sony and Apple engineers are rapidly trying to work out what’s happening..

Fingers crossed!

FWIW, the footage from my (crashed value) F55 loads beautifully into FCPX.

Ha! Yes I have a crashed value F55 as well - and it works fine

Official help doc from Apple confirming your process: support.apple.com/en-us/HT211827

Is this agonizingly slow for you too? Taking like 5-6x real time for me.