FCPX won't import .AVI files over 1gb?

[Ben Fullerton]

Hey Guys,

So I've been having this issue lately when if I try to bring a batch of files into FCPX, it will tell me that some files are unsupported, even though the whole batch is all the same kind of file, .AVI. After hunting around to see if I could figure out anything different about the ones it wouldn't let in, I realized that it seemed to be a size issue. The ones the were "unsupported", seem to be the largest ones, mostly all over 1gb, but a few around 900mb. Even if I individually select those files and try to import them outside of a batch, it still says they are unsupported. I'm shooting on a Pentax K-5 that writes motion jpeg files in an AVI format. Does anything different happen in the encoding after the files hit a certain size, or does any one know of any other reason why it won't let these ones in? Super annoying...

Thanks!

[William Hohauser]

Try MPEGStreamclip instead. AVI files can be be very different from each other depending on the implementation of the hardware manufacturer. I have not heard of size limitations in transcoding from AVI before but who knows, over the years I have received some very odd AVI files.

[Ben Fullerton]

Are you saying I should transcode everything into ProRes in MPEGstreamclip first, then import into FCPX, and not let FCPX trandscode anything? Or what?

I understand that AVI can mean a lot of things, but we're talking same shoot, same camera, same card, and it's taking some and calling others unsupported, and the only difference I can figure out is size related. Could it be something with the way the camera write files over a certain size?

[William Hohauser]

That is certainly a possibility that files over 1gb are being split in some way that FCPX doesn't like. You should be able to see the split by looking at the card directory. If MPEGStreamclip can play the files it should be able to transcode them. It's a free program so it's worth a try. A look at the FCPX documentation doesn't show specific AVI support for MotionJPEG (instead in the form of something called OpenDML), perhaps MPEGStreamclip is your best bet.