[Tim Allison]

I don’t know if this is the way it is SUPPOSED to work or not, but as we’ve used closed captions, we’ve discovered that the “embed in output file” feature is codec specific. For example, it works just fine with MXF files. I’ve never gotten it to work with MOV files. Today, we tried to make .scc sidecar files to go along side of MPEG-2 files. Every single .scc file was 22 bytes in size, and appears to be empty when opened. I don’t have a clue what is going on with this.

[Tim Allison]

No…captions were not available on a ProRes file when viewed in Quicktime Player.

[Tim Allison]

Thanks. I had a vague recollection of hearing about something like this at NAB this past year. Now I know exactly what it is.

[Tim Allison]

…..and the way to find those easy Adobe Encoder presets is to look under the somewhat cryptic “MXF OP1a” item under the “Broadcast” folder. What the heck is OP1a, anyway? 🙂

[Tim Allison]

Thanks for the response, but it brings up another question. XDCAM Transfer is a Sony software program that is primarily used to import XDCAM material into Final Cut Pro. It re-wraps the original XDCAM.MXF file into a XDCAM.mov file because FCP cannot work with native .MXF files. Here’s the question: does Premiere Pro care whether the media file is .MXF or .mov? Is there a performance difference in Premiere Pro for one file type vs the other?

XDCAM Transfer and XDCAM Browser both give us some needed capabilities. They allow us to log our XDCAM optical disks, and write this logging information back to the XDCAM disk. That’s importnt. After the logging is finished, these programs allow me to select only the “good” takes, and move them from the XDCAM optical disk to a folder on my media drive. If Premiere Pro doesn’t care if the video file is .MXF or .mov, then I’m good to go.

[Tim Allison]

You’re being just a touch arrogant there. We just bought an EX3, but before we bought it, Sony sent us a demo unit. Guess what….the demo unit had a cracked plate. It happens.

Because of that cracked plate on the demo unit, we ordered a base plate adapter from DM Accessories. I have no way of knowing if we would have ever cracked the mounting plate on our camera, but I am very certain now that we won’t have any such problems. The DM Accessories adapter plate is rock solid.

[Tim Allison]

So….if I understand you correctly, I can format an XDCAM disk in a PDW-U1 drive, which would give it a User Data Folder. Then, I can copy my BPAV folder into a sub-folder inside of this User Data folder. Once this copy is made, I can use XDCAM Transfer to log and import footage into Final Cut Pro.

Is this correct?

[Tim Allison]

Now I’m more confused than ever. So you will know how to address your answers, we edit on Final Cut Pro. As for decks and drives, we have both F75 decks and PDW-U1 drives available for use.

Let’s say I shoot on an EX camera, and drag and drop my BPAV folder from my SxS cards onto an XDCAM-HD disk. I understand that doing this will basically turn that disk into a data disk, instead of a video disk.

First question: will either Clip Browser, XDCAM Transfer, or Log and Capture within FCP, be able to read this new data disk to allow us to view and log clips, and then import only the “good” clips that we want to use into our project? What about comments and notes we want to make in the logging process? Can any notes be attached to the individual clips?

Second question: how much of the 23 GB capacity of that disk will be available to store this data? Can this “generic storage area” utilize most, if not all of the disk? Or does this greatly reduce the storage capacity of the disk?

Finally, how good of a job does Clip Browser do in transcoding the EX clips into a 420 codec? We haven’t noticed any major issues when transcoding ProRes422 video into the XDCAM 1440×1080 codec. Is this something we would have to do on a clip-by-clip basis, or can we “select all” and walk away from the computer for a bit?

[Tim Allison]

Well crap……what fun is that? 🙁

[Tim Allison]

Ben,

What codec are the rushes in when you receive them? Can you make your FCP timeline that codec? That should save you from rendering all of that original video/footage, and if you really need a ProRes final product, just render out a ProRes version of your final edit.

It just seems to me that the only reason you would have render ALL of your original footage would be if FCP didn’t offer the ability to edit in whatever your native codec is.