Chapter 3. Importing and Transcoding Your Media

The first step in editing is bringing your footage, stills, and audio into Final Cut Pro X. Although this may seem like a simple step (just drag and drop, right?), it actually involves many choices. You have several ways to access your files as well as several important decisions to make.

Do you want to work with the native camera files or optimized ProRes media? Should you analyze your clips to speed up the audio repair and color grading stages of your production? Would extra metadata and clip analysis speed up your editing as you search for the perfect shot?

Choices, choices, and more choices. Let’s start making them and get to the fun part of editing.