XDCam EX and FCP5

[Craig Seeman]

FCP5 doesn’t support the XDCAM EX codec even wrapped as .mov.
It might support Apple ProRes. You’d need to transcode for that.
FCP7 might still be available from Apple by Phone only if at all.
Alternately they’ll have to consider updating to FCPX, Avid, Premiere Pro or another current NLE.

[John Sharaf]

Perhaps it too obvious, but if they have a capture card, they can always bring in as base-band video, although this defeats the benefits of file based media and ties up the camera (if used for playback) and cards for an additional amount of time; but might provide a stop gap until they do decide to upgrade their FCP system.

JS

[Noah Kadner]

Yeah wrong editor for XDCAM EX footage- you would need something modern. FCP7, FCPX Avid, Premiere, i.e. anything but FCP 5 which is definitely not capable of dealing with this camera directly.

Noah

Call Box Training.
Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and Panasonic AC160/130.

[Ian Cook]

FCP 5 is very old an only has the XDCAM SD codecs and the 25 Mbps HDV codec. This is the same codec used for EX @ SP 1440; if you happened to shoot in that codec you can rewrap to QT and he can edit. The 35 Mb HQ 1920 codecs were not added until v6. You’d need to convert everything to a format he can use, perhaps DVCProHD or Apple Intermediate. I don’t think 5 even has all the ProRes codecs.

Another long shot possibility is perhaps using a recent version of iMovie with the Calibrated Software EX Essentials bundle. But it would have to be iMovie 9 or higher, I believe.

[Jim Masi]

Thanks very much for the responses.
Jim Masi
BearHand Production

Jim Masi
BearHand Production
http://www.bearhand.com