XDCAM import to MC4 on PC

[Mark Spano]

I’d say if you’re using MC4, your best bet is to use AMA to see the XDCAM folder. Don’t bother with the XDCAM transfer software to convert footage – the AMA way is easier. Making sure you have the entire disc contents copied, launch MC4 and create a project in the format you shot (e.g. 1920×1080, 59.94i, etc.). Open the project and go to File>Link to AMA Volume. Point it to the folder where you copied the XDCAM disc. Choose Bin(s) Based on Subfolders and click OK. It will populate a bin with all of your XDCAM clips in yellow. You can edit straight from there if you like, or consolidate/transcode the footage if desired. My preference is to consolidate to my main media drive – MC4 rewraps the XDCAM media to MXF and stores it in the Avid MediaFiles folder.

[David Lewis]

Mark, Thanks for your response.

Took me of couple of tries, but it works like a charm!

If I have a lot of XDCAM files, might this get “heavy” to edit? If so what about Proxy Files or transcoding to DNxHD files. I’m not sure how to do that using the process you showed me.

Additionally, regarding your suggestion of consolidating and transcoding- When I transcode to MFX am I saving significant file size (as compared to Proxy Media or DNxHD).

These issues are still new to me.

[Hans Sieber]

Hi David,
just in addition to what Mark already wrote, you should not copy the media to a hard drive before either importing them into MC or opening it using AMA. Every XDCam disk has a unique UMID Number. This number makes it possible to identify the disk if you e.g. want to rebatch material from the disk for further use. By copying the disk to a drive you`ll loose that identification. So if you want to batch import the material in the future you have to be absolutely sure you`re inserting the right disk when batch importing. this may sound trivial but I had quite some issues with that. A network I`m sometimes working for tried to copy the XDCam disks to a central server in order to speed up the import time into MC. At one point they had a serious crash of their Unity and had to rebatch some projects. Unfortunately the editors had been very liberal with the disk labels which made it quite cumbersome to batch import the lost material. Mark is absolutely right with his workflow. Mount the disk via AMA and then consolidate the material to your hard drive. Using AMA you can skip sorting out the material in the not so comfortable PDZ software.

Hans

[Hans Sieber]

Hi David,
you just got ahead of me. After posting my reply I saw your response. If you want to work with the proxy files your workflow would be something like this: Import the proxies from your subclips bin on the XDCam disk, edit the show and then do a batch import of your cut. I would not recommend editing with proxy files. They are so heavily compressed that working with them is a pain for your eyes. Additionly to that the sound is recorded at 8Khz which makes it impossible to judge whether the sound is ok or not. Regarding your question of file size:
The Hires Clips are normally 50Mbit/s. If you are working for example with the MPEG50 resolution in MC you get the same file size as on disk. If you`re working in HD then the files will become bigger if you transcode to e.g. DNxHD120. The proxies are very small (MPEG4). Be aware that the proxies are square pixel. You won`t see the whole picture (on the sides) in your avid while editing.

Hans

[David Lewis]

Hans:

Terrific info, thank you!

A couple of responses:

1) On this shoot I had planned on taking the XDCAM material shot each day off the camera card/chip (not disk) and copy it over to my EFP laptop (onto a USB connected portable hard drive). I then take that hard drive and hook it up to my edit station (PC) and transfer the files onto a hard drive for editing. What you’re telling me, if I got you right, is that this process will lose the camera information. So now when I use AMA to bring the material from my hard drive into the AVID it won’t recognize the original material location?? So if I need to re-import the material from the camera card/chip later, it won’t match up as the same source material name if I do a batch import or “relink”?

2)Consolidation is something I’m used to doing after my final edits. Saving the show with handles for any possible tweaks etc. How does consolidation at the start of a project help me? I must be missing a value to how consolidation works, as this is the second time someone has mentioned it.

Thanks for your input.

[David Lewis]

Hans, once again thanks for your input.

And, of course it’s lead me to another question. I was told that the DNxHD format visual keeps about the same quality as XDCAM, but is a lighter file (the quality loss is more in tech specs than visual). If I got you right this time your saying that it also effects the pixel shape. I had planned to import my material at DNxHD 185 ( or 185x… not sure what the x version is). would this work?

[Mark Spano]

I’ll try to answer a bunch of your questions by telling you exactly what my workflow for this sort of material is. I work at a post house, so I usually just get material from the shoot and have to ingest, edit, and layoff. When this material is XDCAM, I usually get a drive with the contents of the XDCAM discs copied to it (keeping the folder structure intact). I have been lucky so far that most people in our industry understand the importance of keeping the structure. I take this drive and attach it to my edit system and open XDCAM Clip Browser. This will show me generally what’s there and what resolution/frame rate it was shot at. Close the Clip Browser, and open MC4, create project with the same specs as the XDCAM clips. Link to AMA Volume, point to the top folder which encompasses the separate disc folders, and have AMA create a bin per subfolder, keeping the name of whatever the shooter had. Yellow populated bins appear. Now here, you can edit from this, but I find that with a lot of clips and a firewire drive it’s just sluggish compared to my shared storage. Plus, if I have to have multiple editors using this footage, it will slow down tremendously. So before any editing takes place, I consolidate the footage bin by bin, relinking to the new media. This is why I do not worry about later relinking or losing metadata – the clips that are consolidated become the media I’m editing with, and Avid knows its relationship to the new MXF files it made from the XDCAM media. It also keeps a 1:1 relationship to the file size – however large the XDCAM media is is how large the MXF files will be, assuring that no unnecessary up-or-down-conversion happens. MC4 can work with XDCAM media as itself or as rewrapped MXF. Once consolidation is complete, I delete the references to the AMA media (highlight all in yellow (now marked *.old), then delete). Doing this also gives me added security that I now have two copies of the source material – one native XDCAM structure (on the client’s drive) and one rewrapped MXF (in my shared storage). The bins keep the names of the individual “discs” and all metadata from the XDCAM material is preserved. Eject the drive and edit away from the consolidated material.

In your scenario, if you really desire editing from proxy level material, I would create this from the consolidated XDCAM media. That way, there’s already a relationship to the media in Avid’s database and you can probably easily relink later.

I should say this is one man’s way of working with XDCAM on MC4 – but in my experience, it’s been fairly painless and solid.

[Kris Anderson]

I am currently doing a reality tv series with a huge volume of XDHD material in MC4. All I do is hook up the deck via firewire, import lo-res proxies (takes about 2-4 minutes per disc, cut sequence and then batch import for hi-res online. AMA only works well if you have the source discs connected or copied permanently so Avid can see them the whole time.

Try turning off AMA (you will need to re-launch MC after doing this) and use “import XDCam” function. Just another option for you.

[David Lewis]

Mark and Kris:

Thanks for your input. It’s great to hear how others are editing to get a handle on different techniques that apply to different projects.

One thing seems clear… the XDCAM material I edit HAS to be on my hard drive for best/quickest editing… Mark indicated that a portable firewire connected drive might be sluggish.

So far that’s great for me, as I will be importing all the XDCAM files onto an internal hard drive for editing.

Am I right to assume that having the material on an internal hard drive eliminates the need for Proxy files? Or will the Proxy files be more effective in doing an off-line cut to be redigitized in higher resolution (batch digitize, I believe) with used XDCAM material.

Another question. If I do consolidate, I make straight copy of the footage, creating new media on the hard drive. Do I change it’s codec, from XDCAM to MXF or DNxHD? If I do is there any significant quality loss?

Again, it’s terrific to hear the various styles of editing and the variety of ways problems are managed.

Thanks,
David

[Mark Spano]

[David Lewis] “Am I right to assume that having the material on an internal hard drive eliminates the need for Proxy files? Or will the Proxy files be more effective in doing an off-line cut to be redigitized in higher resolution (batch digitize, I believe) with used XDCAM material.”

I haven’t used a proxy workflow so I can’t say for sure, but I’ve edited with the consolidated XDCAM footage on an internal SATA 3Gbps drive as well as the shared storage (10Gbps connected EditShare RAID) and both are very responsive without the need to go lower res. XDCAM footage is long-GOP, 25-50Mbps full-raster. If you’ve ever edited with HDV or MPEG2-IMX, you can probably expect similar responsiveness and layer count. I am making an educated guess here – if you’re still considering proxy workflow, wait for others here to chime in.

[David Lewis] “Another question. If I do consolidate, I make straight copy of the footage, creating new media on the hard drive. Do I change it’s codec, from XDCAM to MXF or DNxHD? If I do is there any significant quality loss?”

Consolidating will not change the codec, it only changes the wrapper. It’s basically a two-step process under the hood – one: extract the “meat” of the footage files (XDCAM codec video/audio), two: copy it into an MXF wrapper that can be tracked and used native in MC4. No gain or loss of size/quality is incurred. Footage shows up as XDCAM footage in the bin, same as the linked media, only now it’s in your Avid MediaFiles folder as MXFs.

If you transcode instead of consolidate, then you pick a new codec to re-encode the media to (such as DNxHD, 1:1, etc.). This is basically three step process – one: extract the “meat” of the footage files (XDCAM codec video/audio), two: convert XDCAM codec to new codec, and three: wrap into MXF. The advantages of transcoding to DNxHD that might be realized are: editing with I-frame media instead of long-GOP media is less taxing on the CPU (better responsiveness), and you may have more latitude with pushing color effects. You will not lose quality, but you also will not gain quality. For example, going from a 50Mbps XDCAM codec to a 145Mbps DNxHD codec won’t get any better looking than the original 50MBps, but is enough bandwidth that this “recompression” isn’t noticeable (especially with the awesome DNxHD codec).

For me, I usually go with consolidate over transcode for a few reasons. It keeps the same file size – if you go to DNxHD 145, you will more than double the file sizes from the original XDCAM media. It takes less time to consolidate than it does to transcode – my editors look at AMA and salivate, and it’s all I can do to enforce a consolidate-first imperative. Transcode would just take a bunch more time, and I am willing to sacrifice a little performance hit for a chunk of time in the edit.