Mac/PC friendly XDCAM workflow

[Tyler Hiteshew]

Sorry, maybe “viewable” was the wrong word. “Usable”, maybe? Something Macs and PCs can read/write to. I’m hoping for a solution that’s EX3 native to minimize transcoding in the workflow, i.e., MXFs in FCP or XDCAM EX MOVs in AE on a PC.

[Tyler Hiteshew]

Yeah, something native XDCAM is what I’m hoping for. Transcoding is a time consuming step I’d rather bypass, I’d rather not re-encode footage anyway due to quality loss. And, unless we make a quality trade-off, transcoding requires encoding times of more than 7min/1GB and more than triples the file size.

[Craig Seeman]

Each NLE has its own needs MXF, MOV, MP4.
The BPAV is your master and each NLE will need to re-wrap as needed (no loss).
As mentioned CalibratedSoftware will allow MP4 in FCP.

I have no idea what your workflow is but simply give the BPAV to whoever needs it and they should be able to do whatever they need. All the same codec. Just different wrappers for the various NLEs.

[Paul Allman]

Hi – I am using Clip Browser but I am puzzled by one thing: in the export menu, there are choices besides MXF for NLEs etc., such as small h264 files — but none of these, including the Native DV option, retains the Time Code. Is there a way to get the time code into those smaller movies, so one could edit these in a portable set-up with less storage, for matching back to hi res at a later date?

thanks – Paul

Paul Allman

[Craig Seeman]

Even the export to DV doesn’t retain time code. There’s no way to do it in ClipBrowser AFAIK.

With CalibratedSoftware’s plugin I can put the MP4 in a compression app (Apple Compressor, Telestream Episode) and make Window Time Code burn ins. I could probably carry the time code over to DV in Episode but I haven’t tried that yet.

[Noah Kadner]

Actually only FCP is a re-wrap. Avid, Premiere Pro and Vegas are all able to drag drop XDCAM. So using the Calibrated importer for FCP when working in a cross-platform environment is the simplest way to get it done.

Noah

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[Craig Seeman]

Avid doesn’t need MXF for NLE?

If Avid can handle EX MP4 directly then we are moving to a wonderful new world. I’m pleasantly surprised with this info.

BPAV Rules!