Final Cut Pro imports .MPG's with no audio.

[Benhermies]

I have some footage from a Sony hard drive based Standard Definition widescreen camcorder. It created .MPG files. I've since copied the files on to an external hard drive and returned the camera. But when I import the files into Final Cut Pro 6 there is only video and no audio. Same if I try to play it in Quicktime. Playing the files in VLC works fine. It seems pretty silly that Final Cut Pro comes with this amazing looking intro video saying it can handle virtually any file format, but can't handle MPG's which have been around since the dawn of digital video. Is there any codecs or plug-ins I need to get? Or is my only option to convert them to some other format? HELP!

[terryj]

I hate ask, but is this a retail copy of FCP 6?
I don't have FCP 6, only FCP 5, but the retail copy
of FCP 5 comes with the QT Mpeg-2 component,
which enables playback / decoding of MPEG-2 files
in FCP and QT.

If you do not have it, you can buy it from the Apple Store here.

[rumplestiltskin]

Assuming you get the MPEG2 component issue resolved, you'll probably find it difficult to edit the MPEG2 footage without constant rendering. I was provided advice to convert the footage to DV or Apple Intermediate Format and I had no more rendering issues.

MPEG2 is mux'd and this causes the need for the constant re-rendering.