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XdcamEX quicktimes to avid help
hey guys i posted this in the avid forums but they are kind of lethargic compared to the final cut forums so i decided to post the problem here and see what you guys think:
hey guys so i had to ingest some footage for a client and it was shot on the ex-3. I did not know that they were editing on avid so i ingested them on my mac using the xdcam transfer utility and have them as quicktimes on my external. i erased the cards and delivered it to them. They then told me the clips do not work, they wont import to avid. Is there any way they can put the clips into avid? whats the best solution for me to get them in a format they can be read in? transcoding them to another codec? using final cuts sony xdcam export plugin to mxf files? i just need to know the best way to go about this problem i only have final cut and no avid to test on. so can anyone recommend me their best solution to their problem.. thanks alot!
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7 Replies
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[nayim saati] “i ingested them on my mac using the xdcam transfer utility and have them as quicktimes on my external. i erased the cards and delivered it to them.”
You did WHAT? You erased the cards? Why did you do that? Those are you MASTER TAPES. Do you shoot on tape, capture, then erase the tapes? Never ever EVER erase the master footage. What you do is copy the ENTIRE file structure off of the cards onto a backup drive, THEN erase the cards. So that you have the footage as it was shot…and can use it on any NLE that supports that format. Now you are stuck….but not horribly so.
They will need to buy the XDCAM decoder from Calibrated…
ttp://www.calibratedsoftware.com/QXD.asp
Then they can import the footage and convert it to the Avid format. Yes, there will be quality loss as you are transcoding. This would have been avoided if you kept the card dumps. Let this be a lesson.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
big lesson i know……
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BTW, this also works the same with P2 footage…
Can you say, “BluRay is my friend.”?
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com -
Shane,
Im curious – you mentioned a quality loss in transcoding, but AVID handles XDCAM natively. So, I guess in this situation the issue is that there is no known tool to revert or rewrap the file back to its native MXF wrapper? Im not getting how Calibrated{Q}’s decode helps here.j
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Help is on the way although it may be time consuming.
Export from FCP back to MP4 (see video). Create new BPAV in Sony ClipBrowser. Use CliipBrowser’s export to MXF for NLEs.
Maybe it’s faster to buy CalibratedSoftware plugin but I’d that I’d mention the possibility of wrapping back to MP4.
Backing up Masters was something I learned in 1980 when I started working in the tape room doing dubs after being a messenger in a big post facility. Don’t people believe in learning the fundamentals.
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Just a theory – If you can somehow achieve getting these files back to a MXF wrapper, AVID MC may just be able to see them as native MXF’s. I have only dealt with XDCAM-HD discs, so never having imported EX1/3 footage into AVID MC Im not sure how to point AVID to the files without “Importing” them and subsequently reducing quality through transcoding as Shane mentioned earlier.
I noticed a another thread and a link to software that may help in getting back to MXF assuming AVID will see them natively.
Full disclaimer – I have not tried this software or the workflow you are trying to achieve in going back to a AVID-friendly file… just trying to help.
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1046302
https://mxf4mac.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96&Itemid=97
j
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[Jason Lyons] “you mentioned a quality loss in transcoding, but AVID handles XDCAM natively.”
Yes, I know this…but the issue is that the footage is no longer in the native XDCAM format. He imported it all as QT, and then ERASED the cards. The format is gone.
[Jason Lyons] “in this situation the issue is that there is no known tool to revert or rewrap the file back to its native MXF wrapper?”
Well, as others have stated, there might be hope.
[Jason Lyons] ” Im not getting how Calibrated{Q}’s decode helps here. “
All the OP has are the QT imported files. Files that cannot be viewed on any machine that DOESN’T have FCP installed…not without a decoder. Calibrated makes a decoder…so that will allow the Avid to view the XDCAM QT codec, and then transcode it to the Avid format.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
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