Need a Video Converter:

[Joe Marler]

[Ray Sherman] “…I also plan on exporting native 4K when not in a mixed format envirement…”

If you need 4k export you have two options, both of which will preserve the full 4k resolution for a crop/zoom:

(1) Edit the 4k material in a 1080p timeline (aka project) as described above, then when you are finished, copy/paste the entire timeline into a 4k project and export from that. Otherwise you can only export at the 1080p max project resolution.

(2) Edit 4k material in a 4k project and export from that at 4k. Editing performance won’t be quite as fast but if you are using proxy it likely won’t matter — it will be fast enough.

[Ray Sherman] “My 4K media is MXF H.264. With that being said, do you feel that I should rewrap my 4K as well or just use it native in FCPX?”

Provided you have installed Apple Pro Video Formats 2.0.5, FCPX should be able to handle MXF OK: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1898?locale=en_US

However MXF media cannot be imported “in place” from a copy of the original card structure. You can theoretically copy the .MXF files outside the structure and import it in place from that location, but that is considered a poor practice and risks losing valuable metadata.

The other option is rewrap the MXF using EditReady which should combine the metadata from the folder tree into the resultant .mov file. You could then import from those .mov files using “leave files in place”. Any workflow decision should be thoroughly tested and verified before adopting it for production.

[Ray Sherman] “If I convert the m2t media to ProRes 422 LT and/or ProRes 422 Proxy, will I be able to to optimize the media in FCPX to ProRes 422? Please correct me if I’m wrong but, wouldn’t I be degrading the media upon the conversion therefore, making it impossible to bring it back to it’s native quality in FCPX? “

You don’t need to externally transcode .m2t media to ProRes before import. You only need to rewrap it with EditReady, then you can import it with “leave files in place” and — optionally — create proxy or optimized media. If the material is 1080p you probably don’t need either proxy or optimized — you edit the rewrapped .m2t files (in .mov format) directly, with adequate performance and quality.

Because your .m2t media is 1080p, proxy would be fairly low resolution, so in that case IF you needed better editing performance (which I doubt) it might be better to create optimized media either during or after import. In theory you could do that directly from the .m2t files without rewrapping them first. However I don’t trust anything FCPX does with bare AVCHD files. Even though it is an extra (albeit quick) step, I would always rewrap any AVCHD content (whether bare files or not) using EditReady.

[Joe Marler]

[Joe Marler] ” rewrap the MXF using EditReady which should combine the metadata from the folder tree into the resultant .mov file. You could then import from those .mov files using “leave files in place”. Any workflow decision should be thoroughly tested and verified before adopting it for production.”

In line with the above, note that while EditReady in general supports rewrapping of MXF media, it does NOT support this from a Sony PXW-FS5. The rewrap seems to run but the resulted rewrapped files cannot be edited with FCPX or played with Quicktime. This is technically not a bug with EditReady but Sony is using some kind of special codec variant which can only be interpreted by Apple Pro Video Formats 2.0.5 if run against the original camera file. Note the FS5 is not listed as a supported device by Divergent Media: https://www.divergentmedia.com/devices/supporteddevices

This again illustrates why you must thoroughly test any workflow using the exact cameras and codecs before making an investment and committing to production.

My documentary team recently shot 2.4 terabytes of 4k H264 material in one week. Fortunately it was using camera media which FCPX can import with “leave files in place”. I would never use a camera (like the FS5) which FCPX cannot import with “leave files in place” AND cannot be rewrapped with EditReady. This isn’t a knock against the camera itself, but when you scale up workflow to large volumes, it must be supportable.

Interestingly Premiere CC 2017 has no problem importing 4k MXF material from an FS5 and with Premiere it’s always “leave files in place”. So if shooting huge amounts of MXF material from an FS5, Premiere would have a significant workflow advantage, even if both FCPX and Premiere had to create proxy files. With FCPX the import would have to copy all that to the library or you’d be stuck with a science project trying to figure out is it safe to remove the bare MXF files and import in place.

[Ray Sherman]

[Joe Marler] “If you need 4k export you have two options, both of which will preserve the full 4k resolution for a crop/zoom:

(1) Edit the 4k material in a 1080p timeline (aka project) as described above, then when you are finished, copy/paste the entire timeline into a 4k project and export from that. Otherwise you can only export at the 1080p max project resolution.

(2) Edit 4k material in a 4k project and export from that at 4k. Editing performance won’t be quite as fast but if you are using proxy it likely won’t matter — it will be fast enough.”

Great advice……. Never thought of that.

[Joe Marler] “Provided you have installed Apple Pro Video Formats 2.0.5, FCPX should be able to handle MXF OK: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1898?locale=en_US

However MXF media cannot be imported “in place” from a copy of the original card structure. You can theoretically copy the .MXF files outside the structure and import it in place from that location, but that is considered a poor practice and risks losing valuable metadata.”

[Ray Sherman]

Thanks Joe for all the advice……….. I just downloaded Apple Pro Video Formats 2.0.5 and your right, you can’t leave files in place. My 4K media is in a contained in the original card structure. I imported the entire folder and played back a couple clips natively which seemed to play fine. Of course this is straight up without any plugins, effects, chroma keying, etc.. I do want the best output when it comes to my 4K media therefore, I will try the things you mentioned on a few clips at a time once I’m up and running. I saved all the info. that you have given me and I can’t tell you enough how much I appreciate your help. A huge THANK YOU goes to you for taking the time in explaining the steps needed along with your advice. Ray

[Ray Sherman]

Ok guys…….. Here’s another one for you. I came across a large amount of .avi media that needs to be converted as well. I know FCPX will accept .avi but, wouldn’t it in your opinion be best to convert it all to .mov before importing it into FCPX for editing? If so, do you have any suggestions for the best converter for this since EditReady won’t ingest it? I’ve tried the free one through Apple App’s called Free Video Converter but, the quality was terrible compared to the native .avi file. As always, your help would be most appreciated. Thanks, Ray

[John Rofrano]

[Ray Sherman] “I know FCPX will accept .avi but, wouldn’t it in your opinion be best to convert it all to .mov before importing it into FCPX for editing?”

QuickTime is the native container for Mac and Audio Video Interleave is the native container for Windows so I would recommend that it is best to place them in a native QuickTime (mov) container for best compatibility.

[Ray Sherman] “If so, do you have any suggestions for the best converter for this since EditReady won’t ingest it?”

What codec does the AVI file use and does QuickTime support that codec? If yes, you want to look for a program that will just re-wrap. If no, you’ll need to transcode.

Have you tried Apple Compressor 4? I have DV Widescreen AVI files that I drop into Compressor and select the DV/DVCPRO NTSC template and check the box that says [x] Enable video pass-through and it simply re-wraps the DV video into a MOV container. No quality loss at all.

So it depends on what codec you are dealing with.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[Ray Sherman]

Hi John, Thanks for the reply……..
[John Rofrano] “What codec does the AVI file use and does QuickTime support that codec? If yes, you want to look for a program that will just re-wrap. If no, you’ll need to transcode.
Unfortunately, I only have .avi clips not in a container. In addition, it’s all 720×480 non-widescreen. Looks like I’ll have to transcode.
I do not have Compressor as of yet, if you believe Compressor would do the trick without any quality loss, I’ll go for it. Thanks again for all your help, very much appreciated. Ray

[Ray Sherman]

Hi John, Thanks for the reply……..

[John Rofrano] “What codec does the AVI file use and does QuickTime support that codec? If yes, you want to look for a program that will just re-wrap. If no, you’ll need to transcode.

Unfortunately, I only have .avi clips not in a container. In addition, it’s all 720×480 non-widescreen. Looks like I’ll have to transcode.
I do not have Compressor as of yet, if you believe Compressor would do the trick without any quality loss, I’ll go for it. Thanks again for all your help, very much appreciated. Ray

[Ray Sherman]

Sorry about the double post 🙁

[Ray Sherman]

I did some digging and found out the camcorder used was a JVC GR DVL9500 tape based consumer handicam. I looked up the manual https://www.instructionsmanuals.com/u2/pdf/camara_video/Jvc-GRDVL9500-en.pdf which didn’t have any good info. in regards to specs. The media is non-widescreen 4:3 720×480 .avi and it appears to be interlaced. I tried some free converter trials off the internet which produced poor quality. It would be nice if Apple’s Compressor had a trial to try but, I didn’t see one. I would just like to re-wrap the media to .mov for FCPX but, I haven’t found anything yet to do so. I’m currently at a loss in regards to what to do. Once it’s figured out, I’ll certainly let everyone here know. Thanks, Ray