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Footage in Different Formats in Same Sequence?
I’m making a video that uses footage from two different cameras. One is a Canon T3i and I will convert the H.264 footage into ProRes 422 for editing in FCP. The other camera is a Canon Vixia HF R21, but it seems the only way to import the footage from it is to use iMovie, and iMovie only imports using Apple Intermediate Codec. So My questions are:
1. Is there some other way to get the footage directly off the camera and convert that to ProRes? I can get the footage from the T3i using EOS Utility and download the files in their original H.264 format for converting, but the Canon Vixia doesn’t open in that program.
2. If I import the footage using iMovie, and then convert the Apple Intermediate Codec files into ProRes, is the quality any worse than it would be if I was able to convert the original camera files to ProRes directly?
3. Does it even matter if I use both ProRes and Apple Intermediate Codec in the same sequence in FCP?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can give me some help!
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7 Replies
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I’m not familiar with the Canon Vixia HF R21 but can you use MPEG Streamclip (a free program) to convert them to quicktime? What type of file do they create?
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Use CLIPWRAP2 (https://www.divergentmedia.com) to convert it to ProRes to match. iMovie and AIC codec will degrade the image.
Shane
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Hi Stephen. I’m not exactly sure what format the footage is in the Vixia. I know it’s HD 1920×1080 and records in some setting called MXP, which is it’s highest quality. I just don’t know how to get the footage from it without using iMovie, which then converts it to AIC. I can’t open the camera in the finder or use MPEG Streamclip to open the files. That’s why I asked if it was okay to use iMovie to import the files to AIC, and then use MPEG Streamclip to convert them to ProRes.
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Shane,
Are you telling me Clipwrap will recognize the files in my camera? I can’t even access the MXF files in the Finder window. The only program that recognizes the files in the Canon Vixia is iMovie, so I asked if it would be okay to convert the AIC files that iMovie makes into ProRes. -
AIC is an old lossy legacy codec. So if you convert to that and then to ProRes you will degrade your images.
mxf files need other software to read and transcode as they are unlike H264 files from a Canon DSLR. As SHane said, Clipwrap is such a conversion program.
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Michael,
I understand that. But will Clipwrap even recognize the MXF files in the camera? MPEG Streamclip and Pavtube Mediaconverter don’t, so does Clipwrap recognize the camera footage similar to iMovie? -
I don’t know as I haven’t seen footage from that particular camera.
https://www.calibratedsoftware.com/MXFImport_Mac.asp
They have a list here. Also search this forum as the answer for your specific camera might come up.
You can always download the software and try it in demo mode.
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