JVC GYHD200 and Firestore MRHD100
 

My camera is the JVC HD 200 and I'm shooting 720p60 to both tape (as a back up) and the Firestore MR-HD100 (primary). The footage is being saved as Quicktime files. I'm editing on a 2010 Mac Pro with FCP 7.0.3

When I try to import everything directly into FCP, I get a warning that says "The following media files are not optimized for FCP. It is highly recommended that you either recapture the media or use media manager to create new copies of the files to improve their performance for multi-stream playback". Then it lists all the file names.

The item properties for everything shows that the clips are 1280x720 at 59.94fps and that the compressor is HDV 720p60. Why am I getting this message? Isn't HDV good enough?

Maybe you know this already:
FCP will rewrap the mov files keeping the same info (mpeg stream) inside. It's probably because the quicktimes saved by the firestore is different from the quicktimes FCP generates - which cannot be played back on systems that do not have FCS.

I suggest you import a sample and let FCP choose the settings, and compare the quality of the footage with the original. It most probably will be the same. If it's worse, then FCP is transcoding your footage again, which is a bad thing, so it might be better (if you cannot recapture) to transcode into prores and work from there. Downside: More hard disk space required. Upside: Faster speed.

Hope this helps.

When I import 1 or 2 clips I don't get a warning message. But when I import several I get the message.

I did transcode to pro res using MPEG streamclip and everything seems fine. I just don't like loosing my original timecode. I'd rather use the original files, but I don't want to run into problems down the road.

I don't use FCP, but something sounds amiss because I believe that particular Firestore is designed specifically for FCP, it's considerably more expensive than the otherwise identical FS4 HD.

Have you tried calling FE? They're usually not too hard to get ahold of.

maybe not all your files have an issue, and it's possible only a few are causing the problem. If there are many, it's tough to figure it out. Wish I could give a better answer.

After the warning message it listed all the file names. I'll try doing it again and getting a screen freeze frame. I'll try contacting FE.

Here are some freeze frames if that helps.

Ignore the warning.

Open a test sequence with one of these 'warning clips' and export it with best settings (Suggest a TIFF Sequence uncompressed export as an image sequence of 10-20 frames). Then export a 'control clip' (the same clip imported individually). Compare both with your eyes.

If you don't trust your eyes, and if you have a compositing app or photoshop, import two matching frames from both clips. Then apply the difference blend and see if the image is pure black. If it is, you're okay. There is no better test.

I think you should be fine. If you do hear from tech, please let me know.

I opened the quicktime file and the ProRes file and watched both side by side and they look the same.

FE Support wrote back and said
"How do your files look when you play them back through the camera? There is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to import your files if they are recorded in Quicktime?"

I just tried the import again. If I only import 1 - 5 files I get no warning message. If I go a few above that, it only lists the last few files as being bad. If I then try another import that starts at those bad files, it will import them ok and make the new last few files bad. Without being too scientific, if I do a large import it shows about 30% of the files being bad. But if I start the import with those bad files it shows them as being ok.

Weird...as long as it works though!