Importing from an SD Card

Hello! This marks my first post to the forums.

I've been using FCPX pretty steady for the past five months. I admit I like this program.

In the FCPX class I took, we learned that from a camera we can select a range of footage and only import that specific range.

When we do our video shoots, our videographer uses a Canon DSLR. Afterwards, he hands me the SD card with the raw footage on it.

When I try to view the footage and select a range to import, I can't find an option inside FCPX that will allow me to do that. I can only import the entire .mov file.

(1) Is there a way I can do this "range import" from an SD Card? Or must the camera be connected? Which seems goofy . . .
(2) Would this work if the video was recorded in a different format other than .mov?

Thanks for your time.

"we learned that from a camera we can select a range of footage and only import that specific range."

This only works in the camera import window, not when you're importing files as you are from a DSLR.

Here's how it works, for now.


1- If the originals are already .MOV files, you use Import Files, and you get the whole thing, period.

2- If the originals are not already .MOV files, but some other format, use the Import From Camera option, and you can select ranges to import.

For anyone who stumbles onto this, FCPX 10.0.6 now allows for a range to be selected when importing media. MacBreak Studios did an excellent tutorial on YouTube showcasing this feature.

But only for clips on a camera card, not for clips on a hard drive. It is very inconsistent.

That's correct. What I described only applies to a camera card.

Per the MacBreak guys, if one wanted to import from a hard-drive then using "create archive" is the only way to do it. Apparently there is data on the camera card that does not get transferred if the files are simply copied to a hard drive. The "create archive" feature does a complete transfer of the entire card or camera and all of it's contents. Once finished, the selection range import will work on the archive.

As I think about it, it seems the intended workflow is to either insert a card or connect a DSLR-type camera, then create an archive and work from the archive.

Yes, Steve and Mark are great guys. We trainers wish there were more like them in our ranks.

Archives are simply a specific type of disk image. They are for creating backups of camera cards. You want two copies of you originals just in case one drive crashes, you have a copy on your backup drive.

When you copy a card to the hard drive, in tact, it still has all of its metadata. OS X 10.8 handles how it presents cards in the Finder, it is buggy at this point in time, and FCP X is struggling to work with that, and FCP has a few bugs in the process as well.

But there's no real reason to have ranges and view choices for one and not the other. I really hope this behavior will be improved and become consistent in the future.

Yes, it is a move in the right direction for importing media. One window, one process, good move.

sergeson wrote: For anyone who stumbles onto this, FCPX 10.0.6 now allows for a range to be selected when importing media.

Range selection upon ingest for camera cards was available prior to 10.0.6. Not sure which release provided this, and it may have been there from the beginning.