sony hxr-nx5u nxcam and Final Cut

[Christopher Smith]

It’s great to hear you are that busy Eric. Especially in an oversaturated underpaying video market.

Christopher Smith
Senior Broadcast Specialist
Warrington College of Business Administration
University of Florida

[Eric Pensenstadler]

ya, that’s what I keep telling myself….

[Eric Pensenstadler]

FYI for anyone following this thread…

Good and bad – I’m 99% sure that the problem I had with the files taking many hours to L&T was due to a bad hard drive. I won’t go into details here, but the drive had issues and I was eventually able to transfer all the footage onto a new drive (as I said, I’ll help keep OWC in business!!)

That’s the good, but the bad is that when I tried to L&T the files from the new drive it also waited until the end and then crashed FCP – the only difference is that it didn’t take 12 hours.

I’m going to try to use DV Streamclip and see if that resolves the issue. I know many people speak highly of the program but I haven’t used it yet. I’ll report back.

Eric

[Eric Pensenstadler]

Alright, what am I missing here… Can anyone lend a hand regarding MPEG Streamclip?

I’ve downloaded MPEG Streamclip onto my MacPro OS 10.6.8. In reading the info for MPEG Streamclip nowhere does is say it is compatible with AVCHD files, and sure enough when I try to import one of my clips (from NX5U) I get an error message saying “unrecognized file type”. I thought that was the point of using this program to convert files from this camera?

Am I missing something or doing something wrong?

Thank you for your help, and happy Independence Day if you’re in the USA!
Eric

[Tony Micheletto]

My company just recently purchased a Sony HXR-NX70U camera. We are also using FCP 6.05 for editing. I took some test footage and am not having success loading into FCP. I attempted to use the log & transfer, but all the files are grayed out. All the current footage is in SD, as our clients are not ready to commit to HD, but we want to be ready when this happens. Any suggestions on workflow, so I don’t have to log & capture the old fashion way.

Tony

[Eric Pensenstadler]

Tony, I’m hoping somebody else will chime in here soon with more details, but if I remember correctly you do not use the Log & Transfer window with SD footage – only HD.

So that should give you some hope! With that said, I can’t remember the exact workflow for SD footage, but I think you can just import the mpeg files as you would any other files (Command I).

A word of caution for the future, it is my experience both hands on and from online research as well as this CreativeCow forum that Final Cut Pro does not like SD footage from digital SD cameras (cards). I know I had some big issues when I first started using the NX5U in SD mode with FCP 7. So much so that I shoot everything in HD now, even if the final product is regular SD DVD. Just a word of advice.

Try importing the clips the regular way first and check back to see if anybody else gave better directions.

Eric

[Tony Micheletto]

Thanks Eric, I will try some test footage in the HD mode. However, earlier I imported the files, which were already in mpeg format on the card, and ran into the following. First, I needed to render the files after placing in the timeline, no big deal. I noticed, the file contained only video, no audio. Huge problem! This process is what led me to all this online research.

Thanks again,
Tony

[Martin Curtis]

[Eric Pensenstadler] “A word of caution for the future, it is my experience both hands on and from online research as well as this CreativeCow forum that Final Cut Pro does not like SD footage from digital SD cameras (cards). “

From the PDF Sony NXCAM Product Workflows in Apple Final Cut Pro7(p.5) :

SD (MPEG2) Currently not supported in Final Cut Pro or QuickTime®

[Eric Pensenstadler]

Martin, and those following, I’ve seen those exact words too, but I shot a few events in SD when I first got my NX5Us and I can totally work with the footage in FCP, but admittedly there are some issues.

Take that for what it’s worth, maybe nothing more than not all hope is lost, but definitely just go HD from now on if possible.

Eric

[Eric Pensenstadler]

Hmmm. Not sure I can help much more unfortunately. I’m pretty sure my SD files did not need rendered, and they certainly had audio!

Can anybody else assist?

Eric