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Is anyone importing MXF files from Avid successfully?
I’m back in the ‘trying out FCPX’ workflow again… I kind of like it as an editor but have a lot of Avid MXF archive that has useful metadata (embedded in clips and in terms of subclips and sequence selects).
Seems like we are moving towards PPro, which is fine, but as I’ve got to deal with the archive & metadata anyway, I’m going to give FCPX a chance again too.
First up, straight import brings atomised files separately (file for V, file for A1, file for A2 etc etc). Not unexpected but a pain. These are consolidated clips so lots of the audio will be separate, but likely to be stereo pairs at least.
I can merge stereo pairs (synchronise clips) via timecode if I modify one to be Left and the other to be right – but this is a pain to do individually. And I have to pair audio then synchronise video to get V A1 A2 correctly connected. The common video properties are also incorrectly identified as 720P, rather than 1080i when synchronising (I assume it thinks audio is 720P and 2 audios are more important than 1 video).
Secondly the import fails to import lots of the files – in the import dialogue they are incorrectly identified as having 0 duration.
Thirdly is there any way of getting to the useful metadata that is in the MXF (EVS metadata that shows up in Avid)? Any third party apps.
If anyone is doing this on a large scale (rather than just a few clips) I’d love to hear about the methods and gotchas.
FCPX is also giving me a spinning beach ball on occasion and ejecting the attached USB3 disk (with an OSX ‘disk not ejected properly’ warning).
I’m going to carry on with some testing, including AAF workflows (probably via Resolve), but anything that will lead me in the right direction greatly appreciated
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5 Replies
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Can’t help with the MXF stuff but…
[Trevor Asquerthian] “FCPX is also giving me a spinning beach ball on occasion and ejecting the attached USB3 disk (with an OSX ‘disk not ejected properly’ warning). “
What OS Version are you on? I feel like I read somewhere that what you’re describing was an El Capitan bug…
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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
Yep, El Capitan – does it outside FCPx too now though, so maybe it’s just the left USB3 port. Currently having more success with right hand port.
Still no answer on anyone using Avid MXF archive with any success?
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So of the three Avid alternatives (FCPx, PPro, Resolve), Resolve is best so far at importing AAFs from Avid. These are linked media AAFs rather than consolidated or embedded for the moment (just to keep it simple).
PPro does a good job but has lots of offline media.
Resolve so far seems to have everything online and in the right place.
FCPx can’t import AAFs, but an export of the xml from Resolve DOES import – but only links to video in timeline.
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Hey Trevor,
as you must know by now, FCPX will only take in properly op1A mxf,
as opposed to op-atom mxf which is the format used by the avid.
Your question got me interested so I did a quick search
as it seems you’ll really want some 3rd party app
to do a conversion between the two formats
and found this:
https://www.mog-technologies.com/solutions/developments-tools/mxftools/
Seems the mxf component suite has tools for rewrapping op-atom mxf into op1a,
and maybe also for advanced metadata handling.
The price is not mentioned though,
so you’ll have to write them to get more info.Hope it helps,
keep us posted on your findings! -
FCPX does seem to work with OP-Atom MXF files from Avid (these are DNX120) if pro video formats v2.0.3 is installed, together with the LE versions of the Avid codecs.
Currently having issues where installing Media Composer v8.5 (and thus the PE version of the codecs) breaks this functionality. Didn’t have MC on this build before so I don’t know if it is a v8.5 issue or just a PE version of the codecs issue.
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