FCP 5.1.2 and XDCAM HD…

[Steve Eisen]

You should be able to use your easy setup and select XDCAM HD 1080i60, 1080p24, 1080p30 (35Mb’s/s VBR).

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Director-At-Large
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Tedjac]

The Easy Set-Up doesn’t contain any of the settings other than the Sequence settings. Nothing for Capture or Playback. I played around with using the HD-SDI output and selecting the XDCAM-HD compressor and it captures but the footage won’t playback in any of the timeline/sequence settings without really long renders. It sees the footage as MPEG-2… which I guess is what it is. Anyway…

[Sean Oneil]

You don’t capture XDCAM like you would a tape. You import the files similar to the P2 workflow.

Don’t capture over HD-SDI and recompress to XDCAM. That defeats the purpose.

[Tedjac]

What is the process for importing files into a Mac? Is this even doable? What is the bit rate of these files and how are they integrated into a FCP timeline? Is Mac software available that accomlishes the file importing as opposed to just capturing over HD-SDI?

[Steve Connor]

You are going about this the wrong way entirely, you need the XDCam HD transfer utility from the Sony XDCam site which is Free, you then set your firewire output on the camera or deck to FAM and hook it up.

Then when you go into FCP you get the option of XDCam in the “import” menu when you select this the XDCam Transfer utility opens and you can select which clips you want to import, this is a faster than realtime transfer and works very smoothly.

Then all the clips will work perfectly as long as they are the same datrate as yoour easy setup.

[Tedjac]

Thanks… I figured it out and it works great… does anyone know if Apple or Sony will be offering 35Mb/s CBR option anytime soon? The variable bit rate quality leaves a lot to be desired.

[Dave Jenkins]

it’s available in 5.1.2, about to try it.

[Andy Mees]

No. This is not a current or planned option (afaik).
XDCAM HD comes in 3 flavous, LP (18 Mbps VBR), SP (25 Mbps CBR) and HQ (35 Mbps VBR). For now, 35 Mbps VBR is as good as it gets. Properly shot footage looks absolutely superb on a true HD monitor.

[Tumblemonster]

The XDCAM utility doesn’t support 30p. Do I need an SDI card or can I capture the LP footage though firewire?

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

FCP doesn’t support HDV 30p so that’s why the XDCAM Transfer software says NO CODEC for 25 CBR / 30p. The Sony software checks which Apple codecs are installed depending on your version of FCP. With FCP 5.1.2, 25 CBR / 30p is the only one missing. See this post on the CineAlta HD forum and ask Apple to please add 30p support!