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Using Canopus AVIs?
Hey Gang…
I’m brand new to the Aja family, having just installed our new Xena system.
Our company has been long-time Canopus users, and have been through several Canopus NLEs in our suites through the years… however, the Canopus gods decided not to play well with Premiere anymore, so we went with an Aja system in our newest suite after hearing great things about that company.
So far we have been pleased.
However, we have tons of old projects created as (and using) Canopus AVI files. Does anyone know any way to successfully import these into Premiere on our Aja system? Or perhaps a way to easily convert the Canopus AVIs to something that our system can use?
This may be an impossibility, but can’t hurt to ask. Over the next year or so our Canopus-based suites will probably be phased out, and I would hate to have to keep a Canopus computer up and running JUST to use the thousands of files we already have.
Thanks much,
Todd -
6 Replies
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I tried the converter found here…
https://www.dvideohome.com/canopus_dv.htm
…based on a recommendation on the Canopus forum. However, it doesn’t work. It’s SUPPOSED to, but doesn’t accept any of our Canopus AVI files as source files for conversion. It will acceopt other types of AVI files, just not the Canopus.
Any help still appreciated,
Todd
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Todd,
Can your Canopus AVI’s be imported into either Premiere Pro or After Effects at all? If so, use one of the AJA complilers here. Simply import the file you need to convert and then export it to an AJA file type off of the Premiere Pro timeline or from an AE comp.
Alternatively, try exporting from one of your Canopus suites as a DV AVI file, or as an uncompressed sequence like TGA or TIF. Many of these file types will be compatible on a Xena timeline in Premiere Pro.
AJA Xena Support
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Good suggestions, but unfortuantely does not solve the problem.
The Canopus AVIs do import into Premiere on the Aja machine, but come in as audio only. Over on the Canopus forum someone else is having the same problem trying to get Canopus AVIs into Final Cut. Someone there recommended a Canopus file converter that SHOULD work, but the converter doesn’t recognize my Canopus files (says “unsupported file type,” or some such like that).
The second suggestion of exporting from one of my Canopus suites as a DV AVI file does work, of course… but that’s not a perfect solution because it ties up two suites, AND we hope to be moving to a time when we have NO Canopus suites, only Aja… I’d hate to have to keep an aging Canopus system around (and up and running) JUST to convert files.
If I could find conversion software that actually WORKS that would be a good solution, but havn’t found it yet.
Any more suggestions mucho appreciated!
Todd
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Todd,
If the Canopus files can only be read by a system which has the Canopus suite on it, there might not be a better solution. It sounds as if they are encoded with a proprietary codec which must be present for the files to be read. That means you’ll need a Canopus suite to read them as long as you have assets encoded like that.
This is actually one of the great things about the Xena system. The formats that we capture in are not proprietary.
If you have a spot where you can post a file a few frames long, you can email a link to it to xenasupport@aja.com and we’ll try to take a look at it, but I can guarantee a solution better than the one you already have
AJA Xena Support
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Just discovered that ProCoder 2.0 from Canopus will definitely work and solve this problem. Unfortuantely, it is somewhat pricey software, but it works well.
Thanks for advice,
Todd -
Yes, it works because it has the Canopus codec on it.
Once upon a time, Canopus used to have a read-only DV codec that was free to download…
Almost any software will import the canopus DV files, but the codec has to exist on the machine.
TimK,
Director,
Kolb Productions,Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net
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