Export XD Cam HD file from FCP.

[Steve Cohen]

You actually can edit with MXF files using MXF4mac (https://mxf4mac.com/) I haven’t tried it, but Jeremy Garchow recommended it to me a while back.

Besides that, I think that the specs I included were for an Avid system.
Lifetime uses Avid to edit in their facility and then they put them onto their Omnion server.

We are experimenting with them to be able to deliver our shows in a file format (no more tape), these are the specs they supplied me with.

Thanks;

Steve.

Steve Cohen

[Steve Cohen]

We’ll their export plug-in may do the trick.

https://mxf4mac.com/index.php/application-plugins.html

I just looked at their web site again, it’s been about a year that Jeremy recommended this to me.

I need to work with Lifetime a little more and I guess do some tests with them.

Thanks;

Steve.

Steve Cohen

[Jean-christophe Boulay]

Hi Steve,

Do you have the Sony PDZKP1 plugin? If so, you can get that setting… almost. If you don’t have it yet, get it here: https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcamexsite/resource.downloads

Using the appropriate output format while exporting though the plugin should get most settings correct. In this case, it looks like the “XDCAM HD422 1080i60 CBR” is the one. The GOP and bitrate will be correct. MXF only uses SMPTE 436M VANC so that’s good as well.

There’s something weird in your audio specs, though. 48kHz sample rate is perfect but “16 bps playback max sample size” doesn’t really mean anything in audio. I imagine it’s supposed to mean the audio should be 16-bit. The problem is that this MXF setup can only use 24-bit audio. The XDCam MXF formats that use 16-bit audio are the EX and non-422-HD and those can’t have 8 tracks, at least through the FCP export plugin. There’s an inconsistency there.

If you can confirm that the audio should be 24-bit audio in that XDCam HD422 file, you’re golden. If it really is 16-bit, you’re kind of stuck and can’t export that with the Sony FCP plugin. Every time I’m asked for such a file for broadcast, it’s always 24-bit.

IHTH,

JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com

[Steve Cohen]

Thanks Jean-Christophe.

That seems very helpful.
I think I’ve done as much as I can do on the Friday of a Holiday weekend (in the US) I can’t reach my technical contact at lifetime and my freelance engineer is tied up on another job until next week.

Thanks again;

Steve.

Steve Cohen

[Dennis Radeke]

If you have CS5 you can export OP!a files via Adobe Media Encoder. From FCP, I think you would have to two step it, but it’s still doable and high quality. FCP to ProRes then AME takes that file and exports the MXF.

[Andy Mees]

Don’t waste your time jumping through the Adobe hoops Steve (though its useful to know that the route exists, thanks Dennis) … just follow Jean-Christophe’s instructions. MXF clips conforming to the XDCAM HD specs can be exported directly from FCP using the File > Export > Sony XDCAM option which you get when you install the free XDCAM Transfer (or XDCAM Browser) software linked above … or you can get it here: https://support.sonybiz.ca/esupport
Cheers
Andy

[Steve Cohen]

Thanks Andy;

I agree it is always good to know 3 different ways to accomplish the same thing, but I’m going to look into Jean-Chris tophe’s suggestion a little further.

Besides it’s a free solution that’s always the best as long as the results are the same.

Thanks;

Steve

[Charles Viau]

I need to deliver a MXF Op1a Wrapper to a broadcaster

i did my MXF via XDCAM export in FCP and i did one with Carbon Coder on pc.

i tought everything was great till the broadcaster tell me:

“”But it has no timecode in the MXF header so it won’t cue and play on the video servers (this is really important). It has timecode elsewhere in the package and can be edited (ideally this would not be there is it can confuse closed caption insertion – relevant if the program is in the library and is subsequently played to air when captioning””

Ok, i will remove the timecode track in my Quicktime and re-encoding in mxf but …

Im seaking a way to implement the header of the MXF to add that timecode field ???

Any idea ?