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Need to change codec without conversion. xdcam to h264
I’m trying to find a simple way to change a bunch of video’s codec from the unsupported xdcam to h264, in the .MOV format. I have a bunch of footage from a canon camera which is already MOV h264, and runs perfectly on PC. I don’t want to do a conversion though, and lose quality in the footage, or result in supermassive files. Anyone know how I can change the codec without doing any compression/converting?
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12 Replies
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You will have to transcode.. no other way around it that I know of. And While you are at it dont bother transcoding to H.264. It is not really an editing codec and its compression algorithm produces a very randomized (data) final product that does not re-compress well. Your best bet would be to transcode to another less compressed editing friendly codec. Just because PrPro can read it does not mean you should use it.
“Think of everything in terms of building capacity.”
Kris Merkel
twitter: @kris_merkel
Product Manager, Flanders Scientific Inc.
http://www.shopfsi.com
Co-Founder, Atlanta Cutters Post Production User Group
http://www.atlantacutters.com2.2Ghz MBP core i7
16Gb RAM
CS6/FCP7
AJA T-Tap
AJA IO XT
FSI LM-2461W/CM-170W
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It is my understanding that XDCAM is MPEG-2, so you won’t be able to generate an H.264 file without transcoding. The .mov format does not support MPEG-2, so you can’t just change the wrapper to create a QuickTime file.
Are you planning to edit the footage or do you just want playable copies? XDCAM files can be imported to Premiere Pro CS6 for editing. Even if you export as MPEG-2, the files will be re-encoded.
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These shots all need to be put into a timeline to be edited with the other canon clips I mentioned. The problem is that the raw footage was already rewrapped using XDCam Transfer, and now it will not load into the timeline on my PC. It plays fine in VLC, but that’s it.
As for h264, I wanted to change the codec to that since the raw Canon footage is already h264, and I thought it’s typically better to work with all the same stuff. And the canon videos are so beautiful, I have to wonder if it is as bad as Kris says, no offence.
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[William Terrio] “The problem is that the raw footage was already rewrapped using XDCam Transfer, and now it will not load into the timeline on my PC. It plays fine in VLC, but that’s it.”
Premiere should support XDCAM natively just fine if you use the Media Browser to import clips from the full XDCAM folder structures.
Since you have XDCAM .MOV files, maybe you need Calibrated{Q} XD Decode [link]? Try the demo and see if it works for you.
[William Terrio] “As for h264, I wanted to change the codec to that since the raw Canon footage is already h264, and I thought it’s typically better to work with all the same stuff. And the canon videos are so beautiful, I have to wonder if it is as bad as Kris says, no offence.”
Premiere excels at native workflows. There is no need to transcode all media to a single codec for editorial.
Kris is correct that H.264 (especially long GOP, relatively low bit rate H.264) is not built for editorial. You do not want to use it as an intermediate format if you can avoid it. You’d be better off using native media, or transcoding to a mezzanine format like DNxHD, ProRes, or CineForm.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
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none taken, It all depends on how well you want the transcoded footage to look and how much time you have to get there. Premiere Pro will handle XDCam footage natively if you have a recent, within a few years, and if you are in CS5.5 or above you will be able to work with both H.264 and XDCam in the same timeline.
It sounds like the XDCam transfer did not wrap the clips correctly. can you open the files in AME?
“Think of everything in terms of building capacity.”
Kris Merkel
twitter: @kris_merkel
Product Manager, Flanders Scientific Inc.
http://www.shopfsi.com
Co-Founder, Atlanta Cutters Post Production User Group
http://www.atlantacutters.com2.2Ghz MBP core i7
16Gb RAM
CS6/FCP7
AJA T-Tap
AJA IO XT
FSI LM-2461W/CM-170W
-
– Do you have the original XDCAM files from the camera?
– What is the file extension and codec of the files produced by XDCAM Transfer?
– What version of Premiere Pro are you using?Premiere Pro supports multiple file formats within the same sequence. There is no need to transcode if the source files can be imported. Some formats will work more smoothly than others, though.
As Kris mentioned, H.264 is not an ideal codec for editing. Premiere Pro will work with it, but transcoding from another format to H.264 for editing is not recommended.
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Nah AME just says it’s an invalid codec. Which by the way, the codec is xdv9. I looked into this issue a few months ago, and all I could learn about this codec was that nothing can load it unless the computer has Final Cut Pro installed, so only a mac. I tried both Calibrated XD Decode and Content Browser by sony, which neither worked either.
I just tried Calibrated again, and I can’t seem to find any actual program. It just has an Options application, which basically only tells me that I’m in demo mode. There’s no way to load footage or anything like that.
Lastly, I am running CS 6 of everything, and the footage loads just fine on a mac, in FCP and Premiere. I am in a situation where I only have a PC, and need to find a way to make this work. I really appreciate your help so far.
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[William Terrio] “I just tried Calibrated again, and I can’t seem to find any actual program. It just has an Options application, which basically only tells me that I’m in demo mode. There’s no way to load footage or anything like that.”
That’s right — it installs as a QuickTime plugin. Once you have Calibrated{Q} XD Decode installed, you should be able to read XDCAM MOV files in any QuickTime-aware application, like QuickTime Player or Premiere Pro.
[William Terrio] “Lastly, I am running CS 6 of everything, and the footage loads just fine on a mac, in FCP and Premiere. I am in a situation where I only have a PC, and need to find a way to make this work.”
You could transcode to some other format with ffmpeg, which should be able to read the XDCAM MOV files just fine. If the command line is not your thing, there are plenty of GUI front-ends like AnotherGUI or Cinemartin Cinec.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
I am happy to report that Cinemartin Cinec works! It successfully converted a clip to ProRes and played in premiere. WOOOOO! I had tried ffmpeg before, but spent forever trying to get it to work and didn’t get anywhere.
Now I guess my final challenge is finding a way to keep the file size about equal to the original without it looking terrible. It seems to only have a few presets, and no way of making custom ones. Anyone have experience with this program?
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[William Terrio] “I am happy to report that Cinemartin Cinec works! It successfully converted a clip to ProRes and played in premiere. WOOOOO! I had tried ffmpeg before, but spent forever trying to get it to work and didn’t get anywhere. Now I guess my final challenge is finding a way to keep the file size about equal to the original without it looking terrible. It seems to only have a few presets, and no way of making custom ones. Anyone have experience with this program?”
ProRes is designed to work at specific bit rates. You can’t arbitrarily change it.
If you need to keep the file size down, maybe re-wrapping to MPEG-2 will work.
Try an ffmpeg command like this:
ffmpeg -i mymovie.mov -vcodec copy -acodec copy mymovie.mpgThis command reads the QuickTime movie, copies the video and audio as-is, and outputs an MPG file. There is no recompression and the output file will be nearly the same size as the input file. You will have to replace “mymovie.mov” with the actual file name of your movie.
I have no idea if this will work with Premiere or not, but since you have ffmpeg installed, it might be worth a shot.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
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