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Canon .MXF Clip issues
I recently posted with a question regarding how to bring .MFX files into FCP, which was answered thanks to Shane Ross’ informative tutorial video (link to original post: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1132551). However, I am pretty sure that some of the clips are not being recognized by the log and transfer function in FCP. The footage I am bringing in is from a canon xf305, and the file structure of the raw footage seems to place clips into individual folders with the title “DC0####”. In some of these folders there is only one .mxf file (along with the corresponding metadata files), but in other folders there is more than one .mxf (example: DC0###1.mxf and DC0###2.mxf). I am curious: are these two different clips or is this part of the file structure for one clip? My problem is that when I use Log and transfer to bring these clips into FCP, I am pretty sure FCP is only recognizing the first .mxf file in each folder (i.e. DC0###1.mxf and not DC0###2.mxf). I am not very familiar with the camera or this kind of file structure, so any insight would greatly appreciated. I included a screen shot of the file structure. The highlighted files are the ones in question.
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5 Replies
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Did you install the Canon Log and Transfer plugin for that camera? If not, FCP won’t work with it.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanks for the response. Yes I did download and install the plug-in, and it seemed to work for all of the first .MXF files in each folder (like the one labeled DC094401.MXF), but like I said, there seem to be multiple clips in some of the folders (like the one highlighted in the image above: DC094402.MXF), and these additional clips do not appear in the log and transfer window. I am able bring the first files in each folder into FCP (thanks to your advice), but I am not seeing these second, and sometimes third and fourth .MXF files in the log and transfer window. Below is a screenshot of my log and transfer window with the above files being brought in. Notice how DC0944_01 is present, but DC0944_02 is not. I am not entirely sure if these additional .MXF files are actually individual clips as I am not familiar with this file structure, but I do know that some of my footage appears to missing in the log and transfer window, so I can only assume at this point that these additional files are the missing clips.
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OK…look at the footage. Watch it. Is there something missing that you knew you shot? Because many tapeless formats shoot with file size limits. MXF media, for example, might have a 4GB limit…like P2. Therefore the one shot you had of an interview, that might last 20 min, is spread across 15 MXF files. FCP then ties them all together.
In looking at this format, I think that the _01 and _02 is how Canon does this. Because the OTHER number…DC0944, DC0945…that goes up incrementally by one digit. So the last number might be spanned files that FCP then ties into one QT file.
Watching the footage and seeing if everything is present is how you check things out…see if stuff is missing. Don’t go digging into file structures…odds are you don’t understand how they work and might misinterpret things.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Yeah, that sounds about right with the ~4GB limit- that would make a lot of sense now considering the correlation between the duration of the clips and the number of additional .MXF files that are created in each folder. The missing footage is from a separate interview than the footage shown above, and I thought maybe somehow the missing footage got saved into the same file path thus causing these issues (something file structure related). Now I am starting to suspect that the missing footage is just missing from my hard drive altogether. At least I can eliminate this file issue from the troubleshooting process. Thanks for the insight.
-Josh
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Yes, I have a 305, and the multiple takes you mention are file spanning.your canon utilities will help you bring it back together. The clips ought to end up as you shot them. I use the canon utility, not l&t to first create a virtual disk, edit out the bad shots, and then L&t in using that add on.saves the time in transcoding every bit.
Alf
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