can't eject media with fcpx open
I'm using fcpx on a late 2009 13" mbp (8g ram, events and projects going to an external fw800 drive) to edit dSLR video captured on SD cards. I insert a card and do an 'import', initially set to 'optimize media' and 'analyze people', then trying it without transcoding to optimize. The media transfers OK, taking quite a while but completing - the background tasks show 100%, all tasks idle, and all the clips are in the event browser - but I can't eject the SD card; the finder indicates it's still in use by final cut ("The disk "" couldn't be ejected because "Final Cut Pro" is using it").
I'm pretty sure I've been able to eject media with it running at some point - after letting it sit for days on a few short clips - but that's unacceptable - I don't have days to import media. I can quit final cut, eject the card, then restart it, but starting fc takes quite a while to restart (>5 minutes - or much longer; at least once I've had to reboot to get FC restarted). Is there a recommended technique to get fc to 'let go' of a media card, or do I need to use the finder to copy the media to a local drive first, THEN tell fc to do the import from there?
thanks,
ch
13" MacBook Pro