This is so simple it makes me smack my head. Who knows why I didn’t try this in the first place. Here I am jumping thru hoop after hoop trying to update the firmware on the camera (which I did, BTW…I’ll blog about how to do that later, and link to the file you need as it was a bitch to track down) and it has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT.

Are you ready? Set?

Turn off the REMOVE DUPLICATE FRAMES option in the P2 Import preferences. The default setting is for this option to be checked. Simply uncheck it and click OK.

That’s it. That simple. Once I did that all of the clips from card 1 imported just fine…when previously only 4 out of 10 would import. I didn’t think about it because I didn’t find that option until recently. And I didn’t think it was the solution until it was suggested that I uncheck it, then try again. When I did…boom. Success.

Here is where you find the preferences, in this drop down menu:

And this is the box to uncheck:

For all of those with issues importing Panasonic P2 footage with FCP 5.1.2, this should solve that issue. If it doesn’t, please let me know and I’ll mention it to the higher ups.