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FCP Browser not telling me what I expected re: XDCAM footage
I’m editing a project shot on a Sony F3, outputting to a Nanoflash at 180Mb/s.
When I brought it into FCP to check the details in the browser the codec was “XDCAM HD422 1080p25 (50 Mb/s). This is the first time I’ve cut with footage shot in this codec, and my plan was to convert to Prores as usual.
What I’m confused about is a; why does the browser say the XDCAM footage is 50 Mb/s when it was shot at 180 MB/s and b; when I do convert the footage to Prores, the resulting file is only 2/3rd the size of the original HDCAM file. Shouldn’t it be bigger?
I’m holding off going any further on the project to I can be sure I have the correct workflow.
Any help appreciated.
cheers
hugh
FCP 7.0.4
Macbook Pro
Mac OS X 10.7.4 -
6 Replies
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Is like that. FC can’t see other data rate than 50Mbps because that’s the standard for SONY XDCAM HD-422. FC has never been too fine identifying footage specs.
But don’t worry, I work with a NANO,and I can tell you that the extra data rate is there.
BTW, no need to transcode to Prores.
rafael -
Hi Rafael – thanks so much.
Really so there is no advantage to prores? XDCAM is ok as an editing codec?
cheers
Hugh
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Not sure about your flavor of XDCam, but regular XDCam can be edited in a native XDCam sequence, but renders set to ProRes. It’s in the render settings for the sequence. It’s a special feature for HDV and XDCam.
Also, when editing in an XDCam sequence, be sure to turn off the “FULL” check under Sequence>Render…
If you don’t, you’ll have to go through this tedious conform thing every time you render.
My theory, edit native XDCam. Why transcode a bunch of stuff you’re not going to use? When you’re done, you can switch the sequence back to ProRes and render the whole thing as ProRes. If you leave it XDCam, then when you export a “current settings” it has to render/conform the whole thing to XDCam. Slooow.
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Yap.
The best of the NANO files is that you can import directly to FC without any rewrapping or transcoding.
In certain cases, like when you intend to work with many layers, is convenient to transcode to something like Prores, due to the LOGP structure of the average XDCAM, but I guess your 180Mbps files are Intraframe, so they should work well even in a multilayer scenary.
Cut and edit on an XDCAM sequence (conform the sequence to the footage?, and when you are ready to export, change the sequence codec to Prores422 or HQ and set “Render ALL yuv material in high precision”. Top processing quality and you get a wonderful prores master.
Don’t export to XDCAM, because your 180Mbps-Intraframe, will be crunched to 50mbps LGOP.
rafael -
OK great – thanks very much for all your help on this.
cheers
Hugh
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sorry to bother you again but just had a thought – should I grade my finished project before or after converting to Prores?
cheers
Hugh
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