How to Import AVCHD Files from a Memory Card or Hard Drive to Final Cut Pro X on Mac Mountain Lion 10.8

If you try to get .MTS files taken by an AVCHD camera into FCP X, there are a couple of extra steps required. Here are some tips and tricks to make it smoother to get AVCHD .MTS clips off of a memory card or hard drive, without the need to connect the camera to your Mac.

When working with AVCHD footage in FCP X on Mountain Lion 10.8, the key to importing .MTS footage is to use the “Import From Camera…” dialog and NOT the “Import” dialog. This is true when using either a memory card or importing the .MTS files from your hard drive.

Before importing camera media into a NLE app, some people prefer to copy footage files onto a hard drive, usually an external drive. When working with AVCHD .MTS footage and FCP X, it’s important to put the entire file structure of your AVCHD to your hard drive. FCP X sees this folder structure as that of a camera, or rather a camera archive. If you just grab some loose .MTS clips and put them in another folder, you will have trouble when importing them to FCP X for later work.

If you are importing from a memory card, you will see the card’s name show up in the list of “Cameras” when you click “Import From Camera…” In this example, the card appears as “NO NAME”, because it doesn’t have a name.

If you drop the card contents onto a hard drive before you bring it into FCP X, you will need to choose “Open Archive…” at the bottom of the Camera Import window. This gives you access to your available hard drives or other archives that you’ve created.

Once you have selected your memory card or camera archives folder location, you can then choose to import all of the files by just hitting the “Import All…” dialog.

If you only want to import some of the .MTS files, you can select your clips and even selected portions of the clips and choose “Import Selected…”

We don’t know why FCP X doesn’t support importing .MTS files through the “Import” dialogue. This is not a big problem, but it can be a little confusing if you don’t know that importing .MTS files means selecting “Import From Camera…” regardless of the file location.

However, .MTS files aren’t equal when working in Final Cut Pro X on Mountain Lion 10.8. Some .MTS files produced by Sony AVCHD cameras cannot be read correctly even you use the above mentioned methods to import. In that case, you are suggested to use Pavtube MTS to FCP X Converter for Mountain Lion to transcode Sony AVCHD .MTS to Apple ProRes 422 before getting them into FCP X. This is also available when you only have some separate .MTS clips and need to edit them with Final Cut Pro X.

Additional Information - The list of Sony AVCHD camcorders:
* September 2006: HDR-UX1 (DVD), HDR-UX3/UX5 (DVD), HDR-UX7 (DVD)
* October 2006: HDR-SR1 (30 GB HDD)
* June 2007: HDR-SR5 (40 GB HDD), HDR-SR7 (60 GB HDD)
* July 2007: HDR-SR5C (100 GB HDD), HDR-SR8 (100 GB HDD)
* Summer 2007: HDR-CX7 (Memory Stick Duo)
* March 2008: HDR-SR10 (40GB HDD, Memory Stick), HDR-SR11 (60 GB HDD, Memory Stick), HDR-SR12 (120 GB HDD, Memory Stick)
* HDR-TG1/TG3/TG7 (Memory Stick Duo)
* August 2008: HDR-CX12 (Memory Stick Duo)
* March 2009: HDR-XR520V (240 GB HDD), HDR-XR500V (120 GB HDD Version)
* March 2009: HDR-XR200V (120 GB HDD)
* March 2009: HDR-XR200VE (120 GB HDD + GPS)
* March 2009: HDR-XR100 (80 GB HDD)
* July 2009: HDR-CX500E, HDR-CX520E
* October 2009: HDR-CX105 (8GB Memory Stick Duo)
* January 2010: HXR-NX5, HDR-AX2000.
* March 2010: HDR-XR550 (240 GB HDD)
* June 2010: Sony NEX-5, NEX-5C (without Eye-Fi support), of both models, variants with AVCHD 1080 50i and AVCHD 1080 60i only exist
* July 2010: Sony HXR-MC50E.
* March 2011: Sony NEX-FS100
* August 2011: NEX-VG20
* October 2011: Sony SLT-A65, Sony SLT-A77V, Sony NEX-5N, and Sony NEX-7
* January 2010: Sony DSC-HX5V (GPS+COMPASS), HX5V-E
* March 2011: Sony DSC-HX9V (GPS+COMPASS), HX9V-E
* 2012: Sony HX10V, Sony HX20V, Sony DSC-RX100

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