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sony hxr-nx5u nxcam and Final Cut
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I have had much trouble working with the memory unit from this camera, the HXR-FMU128. The camera is in Atlanta, and I am in NYC. The client sends me the memory unit to edit. I must 1st say, that we are editing 2 hour stage shows (5 of them), so apparently from reading this thread, that makes a big difference. Copying the footage via USB to the internal takes forever (as in days). Log and Transfer does not work for FCP v7 with the memory unit. It is not recognized by my FCP log and transfer. I tried iMovie, and the footage was very choppy with lots of dropped frames. Premiere CS 4 did not work, either. I was finally able to transcode the footage using Toast 11. It was taking 18 hours per 2 hour program, and the footage looked soft when transcoded to Pro Res 422.
I was thinking that part of the problem was that the MPEG 4 HD footage was too compliant to Blu-Ray specs. I have edited the AVC footage from Panasonic cameras with FCP with no problems. The Sony footage is different, even though it is AVC. I have a Sony Blu Ray player, that has a USB connection. I tried connecting the memory unit to the Blu Ray player, and plugged the memory unit into the Blu Ray player and it works really well. I was able to use the remote to navigate through the footage.
So I hooked the HDMI out to my Black Magic intensity card, and was able to digitize the footage into FCP. Really weird to use the Blu Ray player to digitize the footage (Don’t tell Sony or they will probably do something to make it not work anymore.)
I believe the problems are rooted in Sony’s desire to control copy right on its Sony Pictures films. If you are doing long form productions, well then you must be bootlegging films, right? So they intentionally make it so it won’t work very well. It is an extreme conflict of interest for Sony to sell equipment AND be in the production business. -
Carl wrote: Copying the footage via USB to the internal takes forever (as in days).
I’ve never had that problem…. until now. My workflow is to dump the cards onto an external drive and then Log & Transfer into FCP. So far this has worked with no problems and the time is a little less than real time (a 1 hour video may take approx 45minutes to L&T).
However, I am currently log and transferring a stage performance that is one continuous clip 1:25 in length (one hour, 25 mintues). It is currently going on the 10th hour and is about 80% complete. I don’t know whether to stop it and start again or let it finish and see if it transferred ok or not.
Why would it be taking this long, particularly when it has not taken this long in the past?
Ok, one note I should mention is that this is the also the first time I’m L&Ting on my new iMac vs my MacPro – but this new iMac should be every bit as fast and powerful if not more than the MacPro. If you want to know the specs I’ll check and post.
Thank you,
Eric -
Eric, I would try restarting it. I just L&T a stage performance on my Macbook Pro and it was less than real time for the transcode to ProRes. I’ve also done some L&T on an older iMac with no problems but that was a shorter set of clips. If your external drive is USB 2.0, that could be the problem. I usually only L&T to the internal drive then use the external as a backup copy later overnight.
Christopher Smith
Senior Broadcast Specialist
Warrington College of Business Administration
University of Florida -
Thanks for the advice Christopher… but it doesn’t matter now! After 12 hours it reached the end, then crashed FCP! 🙂
I can see the file in the capture scratch (130gigs), but it is unreadable both by QT and FCP.
I’ll just try again and see what happens.
FYI, external drive is FW800. Original files from card are stored here and I’m attempting to L&T onto iMac internal drive.
Eric
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OK, I see now. I’ve never done off of an image just directly from the card ready. Maybe your image is bad. Have you already erased the SD card?
Christopher Smith
Senior Broadcast Specialist
Warrington College of Business Administration
University of Florida -
Yes, the card was erased after I confirmed it was on the hard drive. I thought that was the point of dumping it onto a drive first! 🙂
Uh oh. What do you mean the “image is bad”?
Eric
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That’s just a guess on my part that the image may be bad. Typically what I do is log and transfer directly from the card into my FCP project on my internal raid drive and then I’ll image the card on an external drive as a backup. I also hold onto the card for a few days before erasing it but I have 6 cards so that isn’t a big deal for me to do that. I typically like to have the footage in two different locations just to be safe before formatting the card. Your method is fine but I would always double check your backed up files before erasing the sd card.
Christopher Smith
Senior Broadcast Specialist
Warrington College of Business Administration
University of Florida -
Don’t stop it. It takes that long to transfer. I think it is just Sony trying to keep people from copying their feature movies.
Also, remember that my problems were because I was using the SSD hard drive.
But if you hook up the drive and edit with Premiere CS 5.5, everything works wonderfully. I edit straight from the drive, and only render out the final edit (no copying the footage). I make BluRay discs with the link to Encore DVD. The drive works just fine with that work flow. and my 2 hour show renders to BluRay in about 4.5 hours. Really weird, but I am happy it does not take days. This workflow will not work with CS4. -
Thanks for your feedback Carl, but I have to say “but” to two things. First, it has never taken this long before, and second, it did crash FCP after 12 hours and then made the file unreadable. I have more footage (not quite as long) still to attempt to L&T from that same show/card so that might help shed light on things. The good news is that the info is there on the original file (ie, the file on the harddrive dumped from the card). The file is 30+ gigs. So hopefully it’s not corrupt and I can salvage it. I’ll report back, I just haven’t had a chance to deal with it yet.
Eric
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Perhaps “lesson learned” the hard way. Maybe I do need to L&T the footage before reformatting the card and not just dump it onto a drive. The problem for me right now with that is that I’m at about an 8 month waiting period for editing the projects. In other words, if I shoot a video today it might be 8 months before I edit it. I’ll just have to keep OWC in business and keep buying more drives!
Eric
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