Choppy imported AVCHD footage - FCPx 10.4

I've had issues with the C300 w/ Canon XF codec since the update. Posting on the support boards isn't going to reach Apple, you have to call support directly. I would encourage you do so.

I was told Apple no longer supports the C300, since only the Mark ii model is listed on their camera support page -

Cameras supported by Final Cut Pro X - Apple Support

I see the AF100P is listed but not the AF100, so while it may seem obvious to you that shouldn't be an issue prepare to get that response.

I was also told to post feedback here so that the dev team actually gets it -

Feedback - Final Cut Pro - Apple

There have been several issues with AVCHD recently that have been caused by people having Perian installed.

Perian is an old Quicktime plugin that has been discontinued years ago but many people still have installed even without realizing it. Look in your System Preferences in the bottom row.

This is a bug in 10.4. at least on some machines. Like on my MacPro 6.1.

It's as simple as that.

You are not alone suffering from that.

But you could work with optimized (ProRes) media.

Or switch back to 10.3.4.

That's what I did.

Hopefully Apple will fix this but at the moment it is not confirmed.

My business is taping actor auditions all day. I've been using FCPX as part of the workflow, so when this bug happened, I freaked. No only is the footage "choppy", but it also adds black frames to the ends of clips.

My only workaround (given how fast I need to import, edit, and compress) is to import to iMovie, drop the clips into a timeline and send that project to FCPX. So far it seems to get rid of the problem. It should hold me over until Apple figures this out and releases another update.

Did you do an upgrade to High Sierra? I bet that if you do a clean install (on a separate drive or partition), and put FCP X in there, you won't see the problem. Most of these "bugs" occur as the result of software conflicts caused by other stuff on user machines. Doing a clean install is usually the best way to prevent problems with older kexts, launch daemons, etc, wreaking havoc on a new system.

I have a late 2017 15" MacBook Pro 3.1ghz i7, 16gb ram, 1TB SSD, Radeon Pro 560 4gb card, graphics 630 1536mb, High Sierra and I get that same annoying choppy playback. I did a full reboot and clean install of FCPX and still get the same choppy playback, I tried everything, proxy media, transcoding and I still get choppy playback. This is a bug that apple needs to be aware of and fix asap. Everything in my computer is up to date, FCPX 10.4 and nothing seems to fix the problem. I hope apple updates this.

Do not put too much faith in a list of supported cameras. There are just too many out there.

Did you take the card and used it directly on your mac?

Also, most of the AVCHD problems end up being caused by other software conflicts (like having Perian or A52 codec installed) and have nothing to do with specific camera models.

And for me, when I import, or even use a library that was created in HighSierra with FCP X 10.4 and use it on Sierra 10.12.6 with FCP X 10.4 it also works fine.

So the question might be:

will an update of HighSierra or FCP X fix this?

But since I have to use Waveburner and DVD Studio Pro from time to time, upgrading again to HighSierra is not so important.

I'm having this same issue! I'm using Canon XA10e, which is one of the supported cameras. The problem is not the camera but FCPx 10.4 which for some reason doesn't support AVCHD. I actually sent the camera to Canon and they run a number of different tests without being able to replicate the error (on PC). I have contacted Apple's senior advisor who forwarded the ticket to California to engineers. It's been now for more than two weeks and no reply yet from Apple. I believe they are working on this and I do hope it's going to be fixed in the following version.

I have fully updated my Macbook Pro and FCP version and suddenly cannot import my Gopro Hero 5 Black footage shot at 1080 120fps. Inspector shows that these 1080 120fps clips are importing as 1080 60fps, so when I drop the clip on my 30fps project timeline, slow down to Automatic speed (25%), the slow mo is blurred/choppy, and frames are obviously missing. I thought it was the gopro camera, so updated firmware, then called GoPro Tech support. I then tested my old Gopro Hero 3 Black footage shot at 720 120fps, and that clip also imports into FCP at 60fps, not 120fps, so slowing to 25% looks just as awful. What has happened in FCP??? How can I get smooth slowmo from 120fps footage in my 30fps timeline? Again, all firmware is up to date. Thanks for helping a girl out!

What are the exact settings of those clips?

Can you open one of them in Quicktime Player, press command-I and post a screenshot?

Better yet, if possible, post one small example clip in its original form to dropbox or wetransfer or similar, so we can test.

The frame rate is not accurate. This is a real problem with many cameras. The value would seem to indicate that the frame rate is variable and fluctuates. I would suggest converting the media to ProRes using an exact frame rate of 120 and not pass through.