Best Workflow for Sony F3 footage (native MXF files) and Davinci Resolve

[Andy Mees]

>I was surprised to learn that Sony F3 MXF files are not natively supported by Davinci Resolve – am I mistaken?

No, I believe that is correct, you’ll need to rewrap the files as QT … this is not a transcode of the image data, you’re just changing the wrapper. The standalone application XDCAM Transfer and its successors (XDCAM Browser and Content Browser) can do this for you.

>A couple years ago there was a stand alone program called XDCAM Transfer that enabled encoding to another codec (ProRes) , but I haven’t been able to find it… does this still exist?

Yes, it still exists. You can download it from one of Sony’s professional support pages, here’s one:
https://support.sonybiz.ca/esupport

>It seems like the only way to transcode the to ProRes is to use Final Cut Pro with the XDCAM plugin or Adobe Premiere?

If you want to transcode then yes, you can do this in FCP or Premiere or a transcoding app, but there is no need to do so. Just rewrap.

Hope it helps
Andy

[Ian Cook]

A few things worth clarifying..

F3 files are .mp4-wrapped, not .mxf-wrapped.

XDCAM Transfer, XDCAM Browser and the FCP Log and Transfer add-on only rewrap to .mov using the native XDCAM MPEG 2 codecs. They do not transcode to ProRes. This would have to be done after the rewrap using Compressor, Episode etc. For one-stop shopping you can use a dailies program like Proxy Mill to quickly generate ProRes directly from XDCAM EX .mp4 files.

If FCP and Resolve are resident on the same system you can bring the rewrapped (to .mov) XDCAM files directly into Resolve. If FCP is not on the system, the necessary QT components will not be present in the QuickTime library and you’d need a 3rd party QT plugin like XD-Decode to add support for these files. (Apple does not license the XDCAM codecs for use on non-FCP systems the way they do with ProRes.) If you convert to ProRes you can bring the files into Resolve with no additional components.

Hope this helps..

[Robin Probyn]

Hi Ian

What is the process with XDCAM browser .. to get XDCAM 422 UDF MXF files to re wrap to .mov files..

Without FCP in the system.. just to put them onto an ext HDD.. can that be done

Thanks