• Apple Final Cut Pro

  Canon Consumer File Formats?

  Posted by Jimmy Stephans on May 15, 2014 at 7:07 pm

  Hello, and thanks in advance for any help or tips provided.

  I’ve been “invited” (pushed) by a friend to help some local middle school age kids with a couple of video projects. Simple stuff but I’m out of tune with best practices. One kid plays in a band (12) and the older brother (14) wants to play around taping them and editing homemade music videos, then the next week they change places while the older kid does his BMX bicycle tricks and the younger one tapes, etc. Couple of other kids involved, along with one dad (my chiroprator / friend).

  I’m involved because I have a computer better suited to editing. 27″ iMac, 3.4 Intel I7, FCP X, 16Gb ram that was in my photo studio a couple of years being used by paid staff (meaning I know very little about this stuff). The 14 year old has interest in editing as a job and has a Windows machine with Sony Movie Studio, but wants to try FCP.

  They have access to a couple of Canon amateur camcorders.

  Canon Vixia 42

  https://shop.usa.canon.com/shop/en/catalog/camcorders/consumer-camcorders/vixia-hf-r42

  Canon Vixia 40

  https://shop.usa.canon.com/shop/en/catalog/camcorders/consumer-camcorders/vixia-hf-r40

  Yes, it is understood those are very basic camcorders – but its what they and the neighbors have.

  It seems both units have similar features but the main question I was asked and couldn’t answer revolves around file formats.

  Seems the Canons both offer MP4 format (35 Mbps) and AVCHD Progressive (28 Mbps) and I wasn’t able to state which is “best”.

  The goal is 1080p clips, but maybe also smaller for YouTube.

  Thoughts from more experienced folks about which recording format they should select considering that they wish to edit on the iMac?

  Also, a workflow or some guidence?

  Thanks,

  Jimmy

  Jimmy Stephans replied 11 years, 12 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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