Audio MP3 on FCP - Cannot be like this!
 

Hello.
I have an MCP for almost a year and always when i import an MP3 to fcp timeline (mostly in HD apple intermediate codec sequence) i have to render the audio file. Up there, its ok, BUT the quality of sound falls apart.. actually in the conversion, because i have a lots of erros on audio like some milisecounds is missing..... usually in the ramdom parts of the media....

If i import the SAME file (mp3) on Premier CS3 / CS4 and export to .AIF and i import on FCP the file plays perfectly! I already changed in FCP preferences to high quality audio playback... but.... Nothings change...

I can't believe that i will have to use Premiere to do a simply task like that because Final Cut Pro (6.05 or less) can;t handle with quality...

is this correct?? Thanks.

Convert all mp3's to aiff before importing and your problem will go away.

Yes, but i think its a flaw that FCP can't handle well with it.. I know mp3 isnt a pro format for edit, but is the so used.... could be more compatible...

Well most professional editors can easily export to .aiff instead of .mp3, so it's not a convenience thing...

Final Cut has never been friendly to MPEG formats. MPEG1, standard MPEG2, mp3 and so on. It has to do with the way MPEG compresses the signals. HDV (which is MPEG) has to be rewrapped to fool Final Cut into treating it like a standard frame based video file.

However there are some very good programs that convert mp3 files quickly and for free. I use Switch - Audio Sound File Converter Software- Convert to wav, mp3, wma etc.. It has a batch window so you can convert a number of mp3 files to whatever you want.

One of the reasons that FCP *doesn't* want MP3's or MPEG audio in the timeline is because Final Cut was always designed from the get-go to interface with other professional editing applications and be able to transfer work back-and-forth, not to mention that no broadcast standard would accept MP3 for an audio format.

Until recently Premiere was never designed - or considered - to be a "pro" level editing application, more pro-sumer. iMovie, for example handles MP3 audio just fine but that's because it's a consumer-grade application.

The same is true for production audio capture; no sound engineer on the planet will capture in MP3 format, it's always 48k AIFF or an uncompressed format so that it will drop right onto the timeline.

FCP isn't perfect but it's mission is to be a pro-level editor and as such uses industry set standards.

I would like to thank's everybody for your answers... Some of my sources of songs is only MP3, but now i will convert before to import...

I bought the MCP mainly because of the FCP... in my mind this software where perfect (ehehe) but know i see that nothing is perfect. ;)

Just in case you didn't know this....

You can use Quicktime Pro to convert the MP3 to a AIFF, 48k, 16-bit. Quick and easy. Drops right into the timeline without rendering.

Hope this helps! :)

I simply use iTunes to convert to Aiff it's free too

Old versions of iMovie had this problem too... has something to do with sample rates not converting accurately due to funky calculus math used to go from one bit rate to the other.

IIRC, MP3's were new when FCP was first written (by Macromedia) so probably weren't added as they were really lossy at the time... (still really lossy, but much better sound recreation than then with all that new fangled VBR doothingies and whatnot.).