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Canon XH A1 Import: Horrible grainy footage
Hopefully this the correct thread….
I’m using FCP X on my 27″ imac with a Canon XH A1. I shot a bunch of footage with plenty of sunlight. When I hook up my camera to my LED tv, the footage looks amazing. Colors are smooth and there is no grain.
However, when I connect my camera to my imac via firewire and import using FCP X, there is so much grain in the video footage that it is unusable. I did some research but haven’t found anything that pertains to my particular situation.
Perfect video on a TV. Horrible video importing with FCP X.
I tried different import settings but nothing works.
Please advise (and forgive if this is the wrong thread)
Johnathan Foster
“Trying to learn the ropes. Where are the ropes?” -
3 Replies
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i have a mac pro , canon xha1 and i capture all my footage using firewire input just like you are doing and im running Final Cut X.Now idid notice grainy video clips after or during capture/import, for some reason the video doesnt look great when previewing or editing but i can assure you that when you are done editing and render to dvd and play it on ur hd tv, you will be amazed by the clarity of your movie, im used to this process now. i would suggest a third party capture card and a good monitor,i switched to 2 24 dell ultra sharp monitors and they dont look so bad
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What you’re seeing relates to a couple of things.
First, X operates on a system where as soon as footage is imported, it grabs it and no matter the original type of footage nearly instantly creates a limited resolution viewable version and makes that available for you to edit.
This is great because you can get to work FAST.
Then it starts working in the background to transcode the footage into a better version for your editing purposes. How much work it has to do depends on the format it was originally shot in – and what format you’ve set your timeline to use. (X is optimized for ProRes, so many use that as the “native” timeline codec – and if so, all the imported stuff has to be transcoded to that before your timeline becomes “native.”‘
Also, X has a menu choice that lets you decide if you want “faster performance” or “higher quality display.”
All of this is just how X works. It brings in stuff – lets you get to work fast – then goes to work in the background to do the complex calculations needed to finalize things.
So it’s really common for people to get fooled, since they think that because their footage “looks odd” inside the software, that’s how it is.
To get a better idea of what your footage really looks like before rendering, park your playhead anywhere on your timeline and let X render out the frame to your display. This should happen rapidly and will show you the underlying quality you have set in your preferences better than a motion stream.
Hope that helps.
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In FCPX preferences (import) you have choices of creating optimized media and or proxy media. The proxy media is used for playback while editing. The XH A1 use mini DV so it must need decoding. I have an XA10, but it uses 24 MB/s AVCHD and I don’t need either proxy or decoding. I agree with the comment above, you probably need to go to Apple Pro Res.
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