What’s your experience with xdcam/ex in Adobe PrP?

[Jim]

I’ve been working w/ XDCam EX and PPro (CS 6) for about 6 months. Works great, very stable. No transcoding; fewer files to archive; and as an example of efficient work-flow, I’m able to playback 1920×1080 streams w/ MB Looks in real time.

Enjoy.

[Ryan Holmes]

I agree with Jim. I’ve been working with XDCAM footage since CS5.5 and it’s so smooth in Adobe (compared to FCP). No more time spent transcoding to ProRes, just grab the BPAV folder and copy it onto your RAID. PPro will see the BPAV folder, parse the XML file and just show you the mp4s without any clutter.

If you do want to transcode you can use Prelude (which will run everything through Media Encoder) without any issues. PPro and XDCAM = easy!

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Michael Hendrix]

Same here, no problems. DSLR stuff is even better. I have always noticed the footage go a touch softer in FCP transcode, so the ability to work with original footage is great.

[Nevin Styre]

I’ve had a job earlier this year that had issues with XDcam HD footage not being recognized in PP or prelude(tested discs from multiple cameras). Both mac or PC on CS6 gave me errors trying to import the files, xdcamEX cards worked fine but xdcam HD discs would not work on PC unless I installed the demo of calibrated xd decode(which shouldn’t be a requirement) and I never got them working on mac PP. Xd decode demo has a watermark so rather than buy the plugin for the 1 day job our fix at the time was ingesting to prores on an avid mac. I can’t say if it is the norm, just my not so smooth experience.

[Jim Watt]

We’ve edited about a dozen 1 hour shows shot on a mix of XDCAM EX, GoPro and DSLR cameras and it works great. The GoPro footage for some reason or other is a little hinky in PP, so we use GoPro CineForm studio to transcode it. Not always, but the clips play smoother on the timeline. Used both XDCAM EX timeline and Pro Res.

Jw

Producer/DP, HD series, “Discoveries…America”, “Discoveries…Ireland”, “Discoveries…Spain”,
“Discoveries…Argentina”, Discoveries…India”, “Discoveries…Asia”, “Discoveries…Africa”

[Dennis Radeke]

Nevin, I would say that optical disc performance is an area that we can definitely improve upon but not reading them is not an issue. If you ever get a gig like that again (optical discs), copy them to a HD first and then all should be good. If you did that and you still had problems, I’d ask where the media originated (camera or other).

For the original question – I often use XDCAM as my main type of ad hoc demo media for Premiere Pro and Prelude demos – I’ve always had good results with it.

Dennis – Adobe guy

[Dennis Tzeng]

I’ve been editing with over 60 hours of XDCAM footage from both the optical discs of the PMW 350 and SxS cards from the EX3 mixed with Canon 7D DSLR footage on Premiere Pro CS5.5 and CS6 for the last two years for the Producer Guild’s Produced By Conferences and haven’t had any major problems.

I’m on the PC side so perhaps that helps?

Dennis Tzeng

[Russell gregg Stanley]

Thanks Dennis, sounds great.

perhaps you could lend a hand.

I have a similar project, 3 x EX3 mxf footage running 50i, and 1 x canon 60D, 1 x 7D.

What is the best sequence setting for running and editing all of these in Premiere?

many thanks, Rusty