Focus Enhancements FSH200 DTE clip import strangeness

Ok, I figured this out. FCPX can import the HDV .mov's from this DTE, as long as the movie files are flattened before import. The two files that were modified that could be imported were flattened, all the others that couldn't were not.

Another bit of information here, those mov files that worked didn't get flattened without any input like I thought. It was Adobe CS4 Premiere Pro. I had tested out something with Premiere while installing FCPX, and on import to Adobe Premiere Pro, the file gets automatically flattened when Premiere Pro adds its metadata to it.

You can flatten Quicktime files by opening the file in Quicktime (either Quicktime X or Quicktime 7 Pro), and then doing a "Save as..." and saving a self-contained movie. Do not re-encode the movie as a different codec, just save the file as a movie (Quicktime X) or a self-contained movie (Quicktime 7 Pro). This operation should take about as long as it would normally take to copy the file to a new location.

I'm also noticing that if you have Lion installed, all Quicktime related applications (Compressor, FCP7, even MPEG Streamclip) do not open non-flat Quicktime files as well.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3215695

Sorry for the long, detailed answer above, and thanks for the link to the Firestore thread; I'm glad someone has talked to Apple about it. I can't seem to easily figure out where or how to submit a bug report for Lion or FCPX through the web.

I really do think it's flat Quicktime files vs. non-flat Quicktime files issue, and once that's fixed/enabled on the Quicktime end (if it ever is), all will be well. If our DTEs get updated with new firmware to fix it, the DTE will make good files from then on, but all my existing footage (hours and hours) will not be usable until I flatten the files.

I may not be correct about the "Flat" file thing. It may be due to the fact that there is no "ftyp" atom in the file from the DTE.

See my reply about .mov atoms here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3132042?answerId=15773243022#15773243022

Message was edited by: markclea

Yeah, I think Focus needs to tweak the way the file is written to the card on the DTE--maybe they can do this with a firmware update of some sort. However, this still leaves files shot in the past without a workaround in Lion--leaving me to believe Apple needs to update the new Quicktime frameworks, if possible.

In Snow Leopard, converting the DTE files is fairly straight forward, simply add metadata to the file, or open and re-save the file in Quicktime. That new file then works in Lion and FCPX.

Since Lion can't open these files at all, there is no way to add metadata to the file, or open it in anything Quicktime related to re-save.

Here are more atom lists from files I made, note that the FTYP atom is missing in the ones that I created, and they still work in Lion/FCPX:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3132042?answerId=15784097022#15784097022

I found a way to add proper atoms to these clips in Lion using ffmpeg that's bundled with the open source Media Converter. Lion and FCPX can then import/open these clips, with a big caveat.

http://media-converter.sourceforge.net/

I made a preset that makes a MOV container, and just passes the codecs into a MOV container, not re-encoding the file. However, I've noticed that it messes with keyframes of the file, probably due to the fact that it shuffles the mdat atom around in the file (can't be sure of this though). For now, I'm going to steer clear of any new Quicktime framework based software (Lion, FCPX). Oddly enough, the file plays just fine, but when scrubbing through, it's almost as if certain keyframe information is missing.