FCP Workflow XDCAM vs PRORES

[Daniel Clark]

I’ve had issues with XDCAM.

I worked on a feature doc, and we shot on the Sony EX1. When we started, we obviously converted to XDCAM, but during the edit, we started adding tons of motion graphics, archive footage, and (would-be) overlays.

XDCAM isn’t great as an export for motion graphics nor is it a good format for converting archive material. And it doesn’t seem to carry an alpha channel, so that makes things difficult at times.

In my experience and opinion, ProRes is cleaner and stable, but some people here are having the opposite feeling. It also takes up nearly twice the space (so I’d suggest ProRes LT if that makes sense to others).

Good luck!