how to import video from canon xa10

That's weird, and I don't blame you for being disappointed. I'd try and get your money back for FC and put it towards PP..... FC is supposed to work with your camera, after all. I wonder why it causes some Canons problems and others not? Really odd....

Do you have to do some kind of close out routine on the card when you're finished shooting?

Do you have anything else on the card aside from the Canon formatted content?

Do you have another card also mounted in another reader or camera?

Does it only disappear in FCP's camera import window?

What other drives do you have connected to the computer?

After it disappears from FCP is it still on the desktop?

Nothing is required in terms of a "close out" routine. Merely point and shoot. The card contains only video footage from my camera. The XA10-A has two card slots - and I shoot with both of them. The mac will treat them each like a hard drive and mounts them with no issues. I have a Firewire 800 hard drive connected to the Powerbook, but have tried it without - with no change in the issues. The desktop icons for the SD card never leave and are accessible. It only happens in FCPX. Again, Canon is aware of this issue.

Only if the card was full - but I have very little on it. I will swap the card and see if that works, but FCP isn't seeing the camera at all - not the internal hard drive - or the SD cards. They have both been formated and I've viewed the footage through the camera and it is perfect. Hang tight and I'll get right back to you.

I've tried both ways with success, import from camera and import directly from card. There didn't seem to be anything special I needed to do to get it to work. I know this info is of limited use at the moment, but I'm just highlighting that you should not have to do anything special for it to work....

Nothing changed. Tried both cards. Tried copying the ACHD file over to reside on the computer's hard drive. FCPX would not recognize the .mts files. ***? I will use Express to finish this project as I can't waiste any more time on this. It's clear that FCPX isn't going to work for me going forward. If you guys fix this program, let me know, but I'm heading to Adobe to purchase Premiere. Not that I want to send you a parting shot, but FCP 7 was a beautiful program - a flawless program. I can only hope that Apple fired the developers of X as it has done horrendous damage to your reputation.

Importing video from a Canon XA10 could not be simpler.

Connect the camera with its USB cable (provided with the camera). Make sure the camera is powered on. Flip out the LCD screen and push the round button on the left of the inside panel (there are two round buttons, you want to push the one that has a little icon that looks like a camera and two arrows pointing in opposing directions). This will bring up a touch screen on the LCD display. Select the item representing the memory card on which your video was recorded. That will bring up a selection panel from which you could, if you wanted to (but you won't need to here), fiddle with the video in-camera.

Now, inside Final Cut Pro X, either click the camera icon on the far left of the center panel, or go FILE - IMPORT FILES. Choose your Canon camera from the available cameras.

That's it. Select the file(s) you want to import.

You'll need to leave your camera connected while Final Cut Pro X transcodes the files on import.

And what part of this was too complicated for you?

Do not JUST import the files, you need to ensure you setup teh project correctly or it will "downgrade" the video to 50/60i (even though you might record in 25/30p). Likewise if you use Clipwrap (as I used to) it will break the video into 2GB chunks that have a visible break in them - also bad juju.

The solution is easy - just make sure you use Dr Tepper's tips as outlined here http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/atepper/story/psfs_missing_workflow_part_ 10_fcp_x/ it made a huge difference to my final product.

Enjoy!

ptm

http://blog.xthestreams.com

You can drag the entire AVCHD folder from the XA10 onto your hard drive, then in FCPX choose file>import from camera and then click archive, find the AVCHD folder on your hard drive and open it in FCPX, it will read it just the way it reads the files on the camera memory.

I keep a backup of the AVCHD folder on a separate hard drive so that I can safely erase the camera memory. It can alway be reopend by FCPX, if needed. I don't rename the AVCHD folder, I just name a folder with the info I need and stuff the AVCHD folder inside it. It is true that FCPX can't read the individual MTS files. I have found that Toast 10 can open them and play them, for whatever that is worth.

Claude Lyneis solution works!!

I also would copy my camera's card content onto a media drive and could not get FCPX to see them, 5D, 7D footage no problem but not with the AVCHD form the Canon XA10. I was trying to import as a regular file but the FCPX would not recognize them unlike the 5D and 7D files. If I use import from camera and click archive and direct to where I saved my AVCDHD folder then it works like a charm. Follow what Claude does and it does work.

This might even be useful when the XA-10 memory gets filled up with footage. I noticed that FCPX needs up to 1 minute to initialize the import and it seems to get longer the more clips are in the camera.

Keeping a live copy of the entire AVCHD folder on my fastes HD should also be more speedy for FCPX..?

BTW, I would not be surprised if some people with import problems simply have forgotten to set the camera in playback mode. Happend to me at the beginning and I got desperate too ;-)

I think its a FCPX issue which tries to regenerate thumbnails at every import session. The SW does not keep track of already imported clips so the more clips you have in the XA10 flash memory they longer it takes to import. Even if you just want the last 10 out of 1000 clips..😟

OK here is what I get when trying to import video into Final Cut Pro from a Canon XA10. On my mac mini running Lion and the most recent update of Final Cut Pro. Connecting the Camera via USB and placing it into USB mode to read the internal memory nothing pops up on my computer. Nothing in the Finder nothing in Final Cut. I take the camera over to My MBP running Snow leopard and a slightly older not upgraded yet version of Final Cut Pro. Connecting the camera in USB mode not only shows up in the Finder but also instantly in Final Cut. I have reason to believe that Lion is having an issue with seeing the camera and accessing the memory. I have been able to take video on an SD card and use that on my mac mini.

I just have a little side topic to this. What would you think is the problem if fcpx does not show the SDHC card under "camera" but just under "volume" (or whatever the name in english is, cause i have the german version)?

I've successfully imported .mts files from (a different) card before (also shot with the XA10) exactly like you've written but this time it seems to be some information missing. But the structure of the card and directory look similar to the one it worked with.

To sum it up. I can't import .mts files (1920*1080 50i) from the card, whether the card is inserted in the camcorder and connected via USB or directly attached to my computer.

There are no mixed formats on the card and they are all under "private-avchd-bdmv-stream" and there's been nothing deleted from the card. Copying the "private"-Folder to my computer was not successful as well, because under "Volumes" the .mts-files are greyed out.

Any idea?

Ok, I had a lot of problems with video from a canon xa10 that someone gave me to work on. It had random flutters all throughout the video when I put it into a premier pro project. I used video-converter from wondershare, and converted the mov's from the canon into MP4 files. It got rid of the flutters. Hope this helps someone. video converter is about $20, but it's been worth every penny and has gotten me out of a lot of problems.