mpeg2 file in FCP...
 

I have a mpg2 file that when I open it in Quicktime Player 7.0, I have the video and audio. When I import it into FCP it only plays the video. Does anyone know why this is? In the viewer, it only shows the video, no audio track. I was under the impression that FCP uses Quicktime, so I am just wondering why the audio does not play in FCP.

Hi Jay
I've had the same problem in the past- the problem i believe is that Mpg2 has the audio intergrated with the video, hence when u import it into FCP, it doesn't recognize any audio files- big pain
there IS a program you can use to extract the audio, i can't remember what it is, i think it's Demux? correct me if i'm wrong anyone-
But yeh, i believe you'll have to extract the audio before you can use it

Hope this helps
Vish

As far as I know there's no sequence preset that can be used in FCP using mpeg-2 files w/o needing rendering. At best you can use a free program called Mpeg Streamclip that can demux the raw mpeg-2 file and can convert it to various codecs that can be used in FCP and iMovie.

(DVCPRO seems to be a great codec to use and retains allot of the mpeg quality. Until QT can play muxed streams natively- we'll have to convert the video and take some measure of quality hit....if someone knows otherwise I'd be interested in reading it.)

FCP needs a video track and an audio track in its timeline. When you capture video into FCP, the clips are stored in the Capture scratch as QT files in whatever codec your timeline is. A QT file actually has 2 tracks, video and audio. They are separate tracks and can be seen by hitting Apple J on your keyboard if you have QT Pro, which you do have if you use FCP.

MPEG files of any flavor, are Muxed (multiplexed) files which have no "Tracks".That's why when you look at the video_ts folder of a DVD you see no audio files. To demux the MPEG files MPEG Streamclip is the best solution I have found.

It allows you to demux mpeg files to any video codec or audio codec you need for editing. It works great and is free to boot.

MPEG Streamclip seems to be the best bet!

Thanks to everyone for your help.

Bottom line is that there's no easy way to edit mpeg-2 on a Mac. Alternatively there is software for the PC platform that does allow native mpeg-2 editing.

However- a new program for simple mpeg-2 editing has emerged as well as a "copy" of iDVD for DVD authoring which requires no recompression and works with AC3 (Dolby Digital) muxed audio. This software was just announced for the Mac platform just 2 days ago! Further info can be found here------>

http://www.pixela.co.jp/oem/jvc/e/capty_mpeg_edit_ex/

If anyone buys it and tries it- let us know how well it works.