Ian Cook
Forum Replies Created
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the 50 Mb codec is an HD format, not an SD format.
FAT mode allows you to match to XDCAM EX camcorders (EX1, EX3 etc)
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For SD you will be using the same codec in either mode but it’s probably better to do UDF mode anyway. The file will be a standard XDCAM .mxf file and you will not have to deal with any issues recording long file. In FAT mode there is a 4 GB file size limit so long recordings get segmented into sequential video clips.
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UDF and FAT refer to the file systems used on the media. XDCAM originated on optical disc media which uses the UDF file system. XDCAM EX came a bit later as a solid state recording format and used the Fat32 file system. When you select UDF or FAT you are formatting the card in one of these file systems and using the respective video format associated with it.
In real world terms UDF = HD 4:2:2 50 Mbps recording, a codec that was originally only available on optical disc XDCAM models. This is a very high quality record format with a higher data rate and higher color sampling than the EX formats, which are limited to 35 Mbps and 4:2:0 color sub sampling. The Mbps value refers, generally speaking, to the data rate of the video. Higher data rates = more information = better resolution, detail and color.
The UDF driver is a file system driver for reading what is essentially an optical disc file system on solid state memory. Without it you can still transfer files but the speed will be very slow and the media will be read-only.
Ian Cook
Sony Broadcast and Professional Services -
It won’t allow you to change it to ‘XDCAM EX’ until you get to the level on the card where the BPAV folder resides. The selection only works when it sees a valid camera archive.
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It’s only in EX/FAT mode that each clip and its related metadata files reside in their own folder. In UDF/XDCAM mode (requires SxS or XQD media), all the clips are placed in one folder.
You should still be able to see all the clips at once if you use Premiere’s Media Browser instead of File–>Import. The Browser can be set to ‘File Directory’, in which case it works like Mac OS Finder/Windows Explorer or it can be set to recognize camera archives in different file based formats. Leave it set to ‘File Directory’ until you get to the Sony folder, then set it to ‘XDCAM EX’ and you will see all your clips in one place:
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The NXCAM format only supports 2 channel audio. Do you know what camera was used? I’m curious re how they were monitoring and thinking that they were getting 4 inputs into the camera.
Ian Cook
Sony Broadcast and Professional Services -
Sorry, I always forget to add my signature. Yes, I work for Sony. The media guys do charge for this but it’s something nominal like 25-50.00. Call and ask for Francisco Gonzales. He is my go-to for this kind of thing and will take good care of you.
If you want to try repairing yourself (not recommended) here is the link for HD Video Repair:
https://grauonline.de/cmsimple2_6/en/?Solutions:HD_Video_Repair_Utility
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You should contact Sony Media, they will likely be able to restore. 877 440 3453. You may be damaging the files with off the shelf software. That said I have had some luck using the HD File Repair application. To really check the .mp4s you’ve recovered, try importing them to a new location using Content Browser. If you get an ‘unsupported file’ warning you will know the files are damaged. Again, if you really need the clips it is better to let our media technicians restore them.
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Glad it’s working out. Clipwrap keeps the files native and does not transcode– this is why we like it. It will also join spanned clips so you can import them as individual files. A lot of our users prefer to use ClipWrap as there have been so many issues with AVCHD implementation in FCP 7. It’s much better in X, which also has the rewrapping function built-in (you can also transcode to ProRes on import if you choose to).
Cheers-
Ian Cook
Sony Broadcast and Professional Services -
these are known and expected issues that you can get around by doing the following:
-For the excessive import time, upgrade to FCP 7.0.3. There was a bug in early versions of FCP that caused it to not recognize the PCM audio. The long import times are due to FCP getting stuck in a loop trying to decompress already uncompressed audio. The import time is literally 10x what it should be with PCM audio. This was fixed in 7.0.3. Alternately you can set the camera’s audio format to the legacy ‘Dolby’ setting in the audio menu.
-The crashes on long clips are due to FCP running out of memory as it caches both the original spanned clip and the enormous ProRes file. Once the growing ProRes file reaches 80-100 GB FCP will crash without warning. You can get around this by sub clipping and importing the long records in smaller chunks.
-You can’t get around the transcode requirement using Log and Transfer. MPEG Streamclip is one option but we’d strongly recommend ClipWrap instead. It puts a QuickTime wrapper around the original file, making it importable. It’s much faster then Streamclip and doesn’t convert the video. The resulting file can be media managed to ProRes or whatever supported format you want within FCP or Compressor.
