FCPX not seeing video track of rewrapped MTS files

I have to disagree with most of your points as incorrect, but I'll leave it there.

Here's a clip from a Canon VIXIA description that can be found on Amazon right now:

“you may choose to set the VIXIA HF R20 to capture video in 30p (30 progressive frames, recorded to 60i)”

They're all like that -- consumer grade camcorders that is — every single one I've considered worth looking at. All 1080 progressive frames are recorded at 60i, no matter what. I am not wrong about this. Show me a camcorder under say, $500, or even $800 where you can actually shoot 24p or 30p *native* frame rate (and NOT “recorded at 60i” which is the "fine print" to which I referred.)

And so what conclusion should I draw from your information? I'll take your word for it, but I personally have never seen an instance where Smart Converter changed the framerate... Admittedly, the video I've been converting has not been nearly as damaged as the OP's.

And for ClipWrap (and even MPEG Streamclip) I have seen *perceptible* degradation in quality. Loss of detail in shadows and blocking in those areas. Granted the test video was probably not the best to begin with (probably already 2nd generation) and I was testing their ability to transcode the media and most people probably wouldn't notice, but over 40 years involvement in photograhy has given me a trained eye. Subjectively, ClipWrap is not acceptable to me. I just can't help it.

I don't believe I have been incorrect.

I don't think you understand what you're reading. 60i is 29.97 frames per second recorded interlaced in two fields per frame. It is never 59.94 frames per second. What you quoted means the media is recorded in 29.97 frames per second as progressive segmented frames. It's ironic that you quote Canon on this who have problems with this format. Google malignant progressive segmented frames.

None of this is relevant. 60i should never be flagged as 59.94 frames per second. Furthermore, the material I used to test Smart Converter with was shot in 2008 on a first generation AVCHD camera prior to the AVCHD part specification that included so-called Full HD and 59.94fps progressive recordings. The material was 1440x1080 at 29.97fps interlaced. Nothing should flag it as 59.94fps. This is not psf material anyway.

As far as the audio goes, compressed audio in production has nothing whatsoever to do with your ability to hear, but with your system's ability and the application's ability to process multiple streams of compressed video, interframe compressed video at that, together with compressed audio on multiple layers. Both Apple and ClipWrap understand that this should never be used in production, and the audio should be converted to Linear PCM, allowing the computer to handle the audio seamlessly while dealing with the compressed video. FCP has always done this, and not doing this will create problems in the post-production process including audio dropout and distortion. Just read the forums over the years including in this forum and you'll see the issues compressed audio creates.

I'll stand by what I said: Smart Converter should not be used for this.

None of this helps the OP of course, whose material has been FUBARed I believe and has not been properly salvaged by his recovery application. Some of the header information in the files appears to have been lost and the media is not being interpreted properly in some applications. It's possible MPEP Streamclip can open the files that the QTX player can read. If so it might be able to get it converted to a correct format that's useable in FCP.

Thank you! That was considerably more helpful than: most of my points are incorrect.

I get that 60i is recorded as two fields... the frames don't really matter (they're assembled in software anyway: 24, 25, 30...) that is still 2 fields that are slightly different in time, and not one whole image that progressive should be. Or do I not understand the concept of progressive? It should in no way have the claim of being progressive.

When I open my camera's 1080 clips in QT(7), the Info window shows 59.94 fps, so I guess media from my camera gets "flagged" incorrectly? This is what I'm used to. QT still "knows" to play it at 30.

There's a rather large gap between "should" and "what is" and quite a lot of us have struggled with the in between. I don't think it was until FCPX 10.0.3 that the media from my camera would import into FCPX without transcoding in another app first. I have been faced with that "black video" on import in FCPX and I was only trying to help with my personal experience of that situtaion. And while I'm thinking of it, if the OP is still tuned in... he should make sure he has upgraded to the latest version of FCPX. There have been significant improvements (again, based on my own experience) in its ability to handle more types (brand variations) of imported media.

As for audio, my clips (AAC) import just fine (without transcoding) and play without issue (with the accompanying video.) [It will be automatically transcoded to the project settings upon rendering.]

I agree in theory about Smart Converter (and all other non-Apple conversion software), but in practice when faced with no other alternatives, I'll take what I can get... except VLC. I personally am not going to spend a lot of money desperately looking for alternatives and SC has an unlimited free version (the only restrictions being: no batch mode and one location to save conversions.) I am more willing to recommend free software over something for which users have to pay simply because I make no assumptions about their ... let's just say: budget for the projects they are working on. If they find SC will work, then they might have more confidence in buying a more commercial product that does essentially the same thing — but that would have to be their decision. In general, the next nearest "pay for" software I actually would recommend is Quicktime 7 Pro... and that's IF they had Final Cut Studio as they would already have that software with all the pro features enabled. The reasoning behind this is that QT uses Apple codecs whereas everything else has to use x264 (which I don't consider as being "the same" as H.264.)

If the OP (is still hanging in) already has Toast, he should try that as well. If he has ScreenFlow and has ANY software that will play the video (he would need a monitor capable of at least 1920x1080 and a Mac with some muscle), he might be able to recover the video via screen capture. He might even be able to simply import the video into ScreenFlow, but I don't want to recommend he go out an buy these products on a " maybe..." BTW, both of these apps can export ProRes/AIFF. If it were important enough and the media could be opened in Photoshop — I'd even try that: convert to an image sequence (PNG); reconstituted as video and exported as ProRes from Motion. I'm not one to accept FUBAR until I've tried everything at my disposal...