Delivering Mac Formatted Hard Drive XDCAM to PC editor

[Craig Seeman]

[jonathan carr] “I have shot around 100GB of footage on my EX1 for a short film. It has been ripped off the SxS cards and converted into Quicktime Movie files that can be read on my Macbook Pro. This footage is stored on a Mac formatted portable external Hard Drive (iomega). The original SxS cards have now been wiped. “
So you’ve erased your camera masters by not making BPAV backup I understand?

[jonathan carr] “I now need to transfer all of this footage to my editor, who works with Avid on a PC. Can anyone suggest to me the easiest and safest way to make this work. Obviously, my hard drive is not formatted for use with a pc. And if I moved my footage elsewhere, and reformatted it for PC, I assume it would not be read by the Hard Drive. “

So you’ve erased your camera masters by not making BPAV backup and therefore erased the “easiest” way to transfer all of this footage to your editor. That’s kinda like burning down the house and then asking for the fire extinguisher.

[jonathan carr] “Also, once I do manage to get the files to him, I’m hoping there will be no compatibility issues. As I said above, the files are XDCAM converted into Quicktime Movie files. “

So you’ve erased your camera masters by making BPAV backup and hope there’s not compatibility issues on an NLE that does not support EX in .mov wrapper.

First your editor may need to purchase the CalibratedSoftware EX MOV plugin for non FCP systems. You’ll have to make sure Avid can use the plugin so your editor may need to download the trial.

You can copy the EX MOV files to an NTFS hard drive but you’ll need to use something like MacFuse or if you use HFS+ (Mac) formatted drive, your editor will need to use something like MacDisk for Windows.

BTW I know of no facility or school that teaches video/film that would allow someone to leave its halls allowing someone to ever think it is OK to erase the masters.

[Roger Hendrick]

I use Paragon Software’s NTFS For Mac plugin. It allows read/write access to NTFS drives at native speed on the mac. It’s been rock solid for me where MacDrive on the PC was the cause of a couple of drive corruptions. Almost all of my studio’s portable hard drives are NTFS and since Mac’s can always ‘read’ NTFS, I can comfortably send drives to clients and colleagues.

Roger Hendrick
The Airship Factory
http://www.airshipfactory.com
HD Video Production – Blu-ray Authoring

[Noah Kadner]

I almost wouldn’t bother- sending the QT files to a PC editor means they will have to do an offline edit and you reconform back in the Mac. Never, ever erase the SxS masters. Those are your negative, the QT is just a ‘print.’ And now you have lost a generation of your footage you can only use in FCP. On a PC/Avid it all has to be converted to another format… What a pity.

Noah

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[Craig Seeman]

Calibrated software plugin might work but it’s a crap shoot.

[Clint Fleckenstein]

Is this your only copy of the footage? So, like if something happened to that external drive you’d be toast?

“Tapeless” workflow has some inherent risks and pitfalls, and I think you’re setting yourself up for some hard lessons. Not understanding your camera and tossing the BPAV folders in favor of a proprietary format is the first step in a long, bumpy road of learning if you don’t get a few fundamentals right first.

Cf

[Roger Hendrick]

Yes, the Calibrated{Q} XD Decode plugin *should* work. I totally spaced over the fact you don’t have the BPAV files… You could transcode to proxies, hand those over and then re-conform back in FCP from an EDL…

Roger Hendrick
The Airship Factory
http://www.airshipfactory.com
HD Video Production – Blu-ray Authoring