Which NLE for XL2?

[Ralph Keyser]

What kind of compatibility problems are you talking about? I know of folks using Premiere Pro, Avid, and Final Cut with the XL2.

[Don Solomon]

Thanks for responding. The main problem reported has been full deck control on capture and printing to tape. Crash recording and printing have been reported by Avid users and the same for PPro, including inability to capture more than two audio channels. A number of users have said that they have had to revert to scenalyzer live to capture. Some have reported that they have been unable to use the camera as a deck at all. Part of that is because Avid does not officially support the XL2. I gather that FCP does support the XL2, but I am on a PC.

[Don Greening]

Hi Don,

How about this workaround: decide which NLE you want to use and find out what cameras it supports. Pay particular attention to the one chip consumer MiniDV cams (read:inexpensive) that are supported and buy a new or used one so you can use it as a VTR deck. Now all you have to do is load your XL2 tapes and capture away. I’m sure you already know that the media on your tapes can be played in any MiniDV camcorder without quality loss, so therefore it doesn’t matter that you’re using a really cheap one as a deck. Now you don’t have to use your expensive aquisition cameras as decks and wear out the tape transports prematurely.

I use a cheap Sony one chip camcorder hooked up to my Mac via firewire and I capture all my media with it just fine, including audio channels 3 and 4 from my XL2. The little Sony also plays the tapes from my GL2 and my Sony PD170 without issues.

Or you can get an entry-level professional deck like the Sony DSR-11 that is made for this purpose. There’s a ton of them out there doing duty with all the popular NLEs like the ones from Avid and Adobe, etc.

Just a suggestion.

– Don

[Don Solomon]

Thanks,

That is a very obvious possibility that I hadn’t thought of. I have a TRV900 that I can do that with.

[Lawrence Mcdonough]

Hi Don,
Did the TRV 900 solution work out? I have the XL2 and edit on an Apple G4 with Final Cut Pro. I load the tape media to my G4 with that Sony DSR-11 vtr deck. It all works perfectly. I have also loaded directly from an older consumer Sony camera with no issues on the G4. By the way, the XL2 is an amazing camera, the best part is being able to change lenses, but you will need a good budget!

Larry

[Don Greening]

Hi Larry,

I think Mr. Solomon is looking for XL2 issues with Windows based mid range NLEs, although it probably will help him to know that XL2/Mac issues are minimal.

– Don