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Apple Compressor “Error trying to open source media file.” XAVC-S .mp4 files from Sony A7s
Hi all, I searched for an answer but couldn’t find anyone with the same problem.
Whenever I try to open Sony A7s XAVC-s format .mp4 files using Apple Compressor, I get this error: “Error trying to open source media file.”
Does anyone know how to get around this or what it means? I am trying to batch convert a few hundred files into a lower quality format to send to an editor in another part of the country.
This happens whether I import a bunch of files or just one. There has been the odd one which did open in Compressor, but this was rare and by accident, and I could never duplicate it.
All these files open fine in Final Cut Pro X and the Adobe suite of products. It also happens on both my iMac and Macbook. I have tried reinstalling Compressor from the app store, no luck so far.
My camera is the Sony A7s shooting in XAVC-s .mp4 files. These files open fine in Quicktime Player X and Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Premiere and Adobe media encoder. I want to use compressor because of how it handles batches, it would be useful to my workflow.
Thanks for any help.
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10 Replies
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NEW Compressor might be able to handle it…as it’s updated. The Compressor that came with FCS 3…won’t. It’s old.
I use EditReady for XAVC-S files. It’ll convert the whole card. Demo is available.
Wait…why are you trying to convert if your editing software already deals with it?
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanks. I have the latest Compressor. I thought it was perhaps a buggy install or something, but I tried it on two computers with many different files.
Edit ready sounds good, but I feel like Apple owes it to me that the software I purchased work.
I am actually converting the footage to a lower bit-rate to send via web to another editor in another part of the country. This reduces the files size by about 90% (taking a 200GB project down to 20GB) and when the edit is done he sends back the project file and I reconnect it to the high quality media.
I ended up using Handbrake, of all things, and it worked OK, but I still would really like to use the Compressor workflow as Handbrake is a clunky workaround.
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Thanks, Dave, I have definitely considered that. In fact, I could probably compress it just enough to fit on the large SD card and that would be even cheaper to mail.
However, my original question is mostly just why can’t I open my files and compressor. Is anyone else having this problem with XAVC-s footage, for example?
If someone was willing to try it, I could post a link to a couple of clips.
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Using Handbrake was the wrong thing to do.
If you want them to edit, and then you to be able to relink to it later…all that footage needs to have important metadata…like TIMECODE and SOURCE (tape…or tapeless ID). For that I’d suggest using FCX and the MAKE PROXIE option…and send those proxies. If you compress to H.264 or other highly compressed format…especially with Compressor…that needed information will not be included, making relinking near impossible.
You say you can access this footage with FCX…then use that, and make proxies. Heck, I think that even EditReady does that…and retains metadata. But that’s something that needs testing. XAVC-S is a new and difficult format.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Hi Shane,
XAVC-s is actually just high profile h.264. It’s tightly compressed which is why it requires a lot of horsepower to decode.
The make proxies option in FCPX is great, and I use it sometimes to reduce the load of XAVC-s on my system. However, even ProRes proxy is 45mbits/second, and XAVC-s is 50mbits/second and variable (so it could be less if there is not much motion in a scene). So it’s not much of a savings and degrades the quality quite a bit.
I also realize that you lose a lot of necessary info in compressing with Handbrake, which is why I am asking my original question about Compressor (maybe it’s irrational for me to be hell-bent on using this piece of Apple software, but even Adobe CS6 from 2010-2011 has no trouble with this format, and this is the latest version of Compressor 4 we are talking about here).
Ideally, I want to batch-convert a bunch of files, leave it overnight to upload to dropbox, and have my guy on the other end have the files magically appear on his system in the morning through Dropbox.
I have used this workflow several times with Canon DSLR footage, and it works fine. The problem is that Compressor cannot seem to open the .mp4 files generated by my Sony cam. I’ll try to attach one here if anyone else would be interested in trying.
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got the same problem. waiting for an answer too.
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The answer is to use EditReady to convert to ProRes.
divergentmedia.com
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanks Shane, and God bless Divergent Media and EditReady, but I am definitely not interested in converting to ProRes, since those files (while beautiful) will be too big to send quickly over the web.
I’m still amazed that this could just not be supported in Compressor. I regularly email them about these things, but Apple seem to have no interest in fixing… anything.
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Noah,
I stumbled upon this thread while looking for an answer to the same question you had. My needs were to convert XAVC-S 1080p footage from my A7Sii to really small h.264 files so I could upload rushes of the day to my client (just for viewing purposes).I ended up having to use an old install of Adobe Media Encoder from CS5 which did the job and reduced my 10 gigabytes of footage to 300mb (due to my extremely downsizing settings, of course).
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That was one of my solutions in the end as well. I pine for the days when Apple had a decent pro department working on these things, now they don’t seem to care. Enter Adobe, I guess. I love Apple software but I don’t think I can deal with the perpetual abandonment anxiety anymore.
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