Hi everyone,

Serious video hobbyist and enthusiast here--learning that video production is an art and not always easy. I could use a little help. On what? What else? MTS workflow. I want to edit HD video and retain HD for future product -- with an Internet version for YouTube and other marketing purposes. I am Mac. I am learning to use FCP X. I have FCP 7 but stopped using it after I ruined the audio/video sync on some test projects (:-) and also use iMovie as my "backup" project/data for a quick get--it-done rough cut. I read the forums and tech blogs quite a bit and have a moderately good understanding of all the concepts. I don't have the real-world-this-is-how-its-done-son experience. I am primarily using a Canon Vixia M40 and S20 consumer camcorders.

My goal: I would LOVE to edit, delete, prune, shorten my video files before importing them to either FCP X or iMovie. I know that editing in MTS is generally not workable. I know that rough cuts are generally done within the program after ingesting. What I would love to do is clean up the video BEFORE ingesting to the main programs. Or do I ingest, then clean? Now my backup MTS originals are still filled with the junk I want to get rid of.

Here is my current process: (1) Make a project folder on an external hard drive. (2) Copy the AVCHD folder from both the internal camcorder or SC cards to that folder. Sometimes FCP X says "cannot copy unsupported files" or your directory is messed up--I swear I didn't touch the directory structure. (3) Import the video into FCP X (that's copy 2). (4) Import the video into iMovie (that's copy three). (5) Then I try my rough cuts in one of the two programs.

The problem is that I sometimes keep the camcorder shooting knowing that I will edit out the in-between videos with the dizzy motion, or sometimes I forget to pause the recording and end up with 10-minutes of close-ups of my feet walking on the ground. I want to TRIM my MTS files and get rid of the crud--never to be seen again. Should I do my trimming in either iMovie or FCP X -- and then export that rough trim as my new "rough cut?" Now I'll have one big file. Will that cause problems later on? Does this rough-cut 1st step create qualty-conversion issues later on? Any books or videos (Larry Jordan, MacProVideo) I should look at? Cineform or Toast to pre-edit the videos?

Thanks - sorry for such a long post. Any tips will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

John

In FCP7 what you would be looking for is Log and Transfer, but I dont know if that carried over to X.

Thanks Justin,

Log and Transfer in FCP 7 was an obvious solution that happened to skip by me. I was hoping for a simple pay-app that a person who did not use non--Final Cut Pro X or pro 7 could use. They are PC. -- I suspect it is more trouble to use something like Toast to pre-ediit your rough cut but perhaps the transcoding is not a high end as the Final Cut Pro Studio software.

Thanks,

Jon

If you happen to come across a pre-cut/transfer app, update this thread. I wish Adobe Bridge offered a similar function to the Log and Transfer function in FCP7 to use when importing footage off of cameras, but alas I don't think it exists....