mp4 problem
 

I got a cute little sony still camera for christmas that takes amazing 720p mp4 videos--great image quality. And just for fun I thought I'd see if I could edit them directly from my Final Cut Pro (version 6.0.6). Well I was able to import the mp4s into the clip bin just fine and then I was able to drag them over and play them on the timeline just fine--but then the computer freezes whereever there's an edit point. So then I let Final Cut Pro just use the default timeline specs (HDV 1080 24p) and then that let me drag the mp4s into the timeline all right but every mp4 had to be rendered (taking ages and ages) every time I dragged it down to the timeline. And then re-rendered all over again whenever I had to adjust an edit point, making editing a tooth-pulling nightmare of an affair. Is there any way I can either work with the Mp4s directly OR can is there any way I can render all the footage into the proper file format at the clip bin stage so that it doesn't have to rendered and re-rendered at the timeline stage? I thought I might find this answer somewhere online but either I'm typing in the wrong search terms or not much has been written on the specific solution. Thanks in advance if you have any feedback, guys:)

I have an Aiptek 1080P camera that shoots in QuickTime mp4 and I have the same problem editing the footage. Final Cut does not recognize the format as editable although it will play it in the viewer and render it in the timeline. Neither will FCP bring in the footage from the camera through Log and Transfer. Perhaps that's the same problem with your Sony still camera. A solution is to convert the footage, either in Compressor or QuickTime Pro, into a format that FCP can work with like ProRes. Or you can use MPEGStreamclip to create AIC files.

This is the same problem that we Canon 5DII/7D users suffer. You need to convert to ProRes & then you will be able to edit them easily. MPEG Streamclip is the quickest & easiest way to do this conversion.

MPEG Streamclip can convert to ProRes but only if the ProRes CODEC is present (need to install FCP) otherwise AIC will be present if iMove is installed
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This is great Will and Nigel. I'm going to try it tonight and report back...

Yup, my son has FCE and can only go to AIC.