Editing Canon 5D Mark II Footage in Avid Xpress Pro

[Scott Cumbo]

I can’t help you out with the workflow question. But if I had to guess you will probably have to import the QT that the camera produces.

creativecow is manly a FCP board. Go to the Avid forums for avid questions.

Scott Cumbo
Editor
Broadway Video, NYC

[Terence Curren]

You will have to import the QT as has been mentioned.

As for the state of Avid, Yes they charge for customer support, but that is because they provide. Apple doesn’t really support FCP in a professional way.

Yes they have been arrogant and it cost them a huge market share, but they are under new management and things have been changing for the better for years now.

Finally, most camera owners don’t have an expensive piece of pro gear like your Canon 5D. If you Google cameras the 5D will be way down the list. I would bet most schools don’t have them either. Most students won’t be using a 5D unless they have rich parents. Does that mean the 5D is doomed?

Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca

[Roger Cassidy]

Thank you – Scott & Terrence – for your responses. I will try out the standard import.

Just to clarify, we actually invested in the 5D2 to produce documentary films after seeing the incredible footage it produces. It doesn’t hurt that it is an incredible camera too. So in the sweet spot that I am – non-profit – and perhaps among other semi professional videographers, Canon 5D2 is going to be become very popular soon.

Good to hear that Avid has a new management. Hopefully that means a 21st century user interface soon to backup the incredible back-end capabilities.

[Stephen Ellis]

Did you ever manage to get footage imported into the Avid correctly?

I am very interested in purchasing this camera, like you for documentary work and would be very interested to know your experience with it in post.

[Roger Cassidy]

Yes, it was straightforward import and I managed to edit the footage and also successfully encode it to both HD and SD in Sorenson. However, I have not yet converted this to a DVD to see how it will play. This is my first time working with HD and I hear that there are a lot of nuances and tricks to learn. There are some tutorials on vimeo.com but all of them focus on FCP.

The Canon 5D2 produces amazing HD footage. You must have read that the downside is the lack of full manual control on the aperture and shutter speed. However, folks are now coming out with some tricks to control the aperture setting (see vimeo again). However, for a standard documentary without any fancy effects, I think this would be great fit. Especially if you don’t want to attract a lot of attention – you could be immersed in a crowd filming without anyone paying much attention and still get great footage without proper lighting if you have a fast lens. And another great side benefit if you have to produce a SD version is that SD compressed from HD looks much better.

Feel free to ask me any more questions you might have…

[Brooks De wetter-smith]

Roger,
I’m wondering if you were successful in burning a quality DVD after using Avid an Sorensen on the video from the Canon 5D Mark II.

I recently bought the MII and love it. Plans are for a documentary that combines both stills and video from the MII. From your earlier posts, I assume Avid allows for both photos and videos in the same time line. Any further thoughts before I take a plunge in editing software on a PC?

Brooks

[Roger Cassidy]

Hello Brooks, I have not yet burned a DVD – but since Sorenson gave decent output (some loss of colors in encoding as always), I don’t see a problem in creating the final DVD. As far as Editing Software on a PC, it depends on your needs. If you are planning to produce many documentaries/films, then you should stick to the two industry leaders: 1. Avid MC (very steep learning curve, more powerful). They are also offering some cool deals right now to catchup on the prosumer market with FCP. or 2. FCP (easy to learn and “cool factor” with perhaps less functionality at the very high end). FCP is probably also a little cheaper. Quicktime is also native to FCP, so it won’t convert the files unlike in Avid.
Else look at the all-in-one suites like Avid Liquid or Sony Vegas.
Goodluck!

[Gilly Barnes]

Hi-

I just read your post regarding the use of your Canon 5D Mark 2 footage. I wanted to ask you what project settings you chose in the pulldown menu of Xpress Pro 5.8 when creating the project to edit with 5D footage. I ask because my shooter told me that the 5D shoots at 29.97fps and there is no setting choice that corresponds in the pulldown menu (1080/29.97fps). I picked 1080i/59.94 and it came in and played fine, but when I exported a QT “same as source” it played at 15fps. I need to deliver a full res, 29.97 file so I am not sure what I should do. Thoughts?