Continue reading »]]> No matter you are using Final Cut Pro 7 or Final Cut Pro X, you may more or less face some problems when trying to import and edit AVCHD files in the Apple professional editing software. Some may be related to the importing clips, editing like effects and transitions, and rendering, etc. Here we focus on importing AVCHD to FCP 7, and rendering.

Question: My new Sony CX190 can’t connect to Final Cut Pro 7 HD.

Answer: Sony CX190 shots videos in AVCHD folder, you say you can’t view it, I guess you are using Mac OS X 10.8, as on this new mountain lion system, AVCHD is showed as a file not a folder, so you may can’t view the file via FCP 7. There are two ways, first just rename the AVCHD fodler to AVCHD.mts, then rename the BDMV folder to BDMV.mts, it will let you see the mts files under it forever. Second, you can use a AVCHD converter to help you convert Sony CX190 AVCHD to FCP 7 preferred ProRes MOV, then you will have no problem to import it into FCP 7. The converter I am using is a converter for Pavtube, you can google Pavtube Sony AVCHD Converter for Mac, then you will find the free trail. In addition, the Converter supports batch conversion, so you are allowed to add multiple files to convert at a time.

Here I will share my experience: How to convert Sony CX190 AVCHD to ProRes MOV for importing to Final Cut Pro 7 on Mac(include Mac OS X Leopard 10.5, Snow Leopard 10.6, Lion 10.7, Mountain Lion 10.8).

Step 1. Connect your Sony HDR-CX190 to your Apple with USB2.0. Install and launch the best Sony AVCHD Converter for FCP 7. When its main interface comes up, click “Add video”/ “Add from folder” to input AVCHD source files captured by your Sony CX190 camera. You can tick the box in front of the file you want to convert. If you are Mac 10.8 users, you can load directly from your camera or from a file folder that contains your source files that stored on your Mac computer.

Tips: 

• 1. If you have multiple 1080/60p MTS/M2TS files, you can select the “Merge into one” box to merge the files into one single file for FCP 7 so that you can play these files without interruption.
• 2. If you intend to split long video for uploading to website, such as YouTube, please select the Split.

Step 2. Go to “Format” menu and choose an output format depending on the editing application you are using. For FCP 7 users, I recommend “Format > Final Cut Pro > Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov) or Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) (.*mov)” as output if you mainly forcus on the HQ quality. But you should know that the AVCHD file is a highly compressed and the AVCHD to ProRes conversion will make the imported files bigger than the originals. If you want a smaller ingested file, ProRes 422(Proxy) and ProRes 422(LT) are the right options for 480i,p and 576i,p shootings. Then you can set the output folder by clicking “Browse” icon as you need.

Step 3. Click the “Settings” icon and you will go into a new interface named “Profile Settings”. You’d better set the video frame rate as 30fps, video size as 1920*1080 to keep the best video quality for editing Sony HDR-CX190 recording file in Final Cut Pro.

Tips:

• 1. If you want a HD converted video in a relatively smaller size but keep the good quality, you can set the video size as 1440*1080 or 1280*720.
• 2. If the original files are shot in 60p, please choose 30 fps as frame rate while 25 fps for 50p files.

Step 4. Click “Edit” and you will go to the “Video Editor”. Then click “Effect” and select “deinterlacing”, then you can Deinterlace the Sony HDR-CX190 shootage on Mac.

Step 5. Click the “Convert” button under preview window to export Apple ProRes MOV files for Final Cut Pro 7. You can find the process in the “Conversion” interface.

Tips:

• 1. If you converted AVCHD  to ProRes for FCP X and got files with sounds only, but no video, you may try to download Apple ProRes codec and convert the videos again.
• 2. If you are using FCP 5 or below on Mac, you can convert AVCHD files to MOV with Apple InterMediate Codec for high quality editing with AVCHD Video Converter.

Once the conversion finished, click “Open” button to get the generated Apple ProRes 422 MOV files.

How to import the converted Canon C100 AVCHD clips to Final Cut Pro (X) for further editing?

Launch Final Cut Pro 7, choose “File > Import > Files…”, and browse to where you save the converted AVCHD clips to. Choose the videos that you’d like to add.

• Read More: How to Import the converted AVCHD to Final Cut Pro 7?

Here is a problem from CreativeCow.net:

“I want to be able to burn all my projects from FCP 7 on a DVD”

If you have a similar problem, don’t worry. I will share some easy steps, pls refer to my old article, as follows:

• How to Free Burn projects from Final Cut Pro 7 to DVD on Mac

Hope my experience helps you.