MPEG-4 h.264 and Final Cut

Hi,
welcome to the forums,

actually the search tool of this forum gives you access to thousands of posts about converting non editing formats into one.

Use it.

ProRes is the codec I suggest you use with FCP, AIC in FCE.
How to convert?

Compressor, Quicktime or batch convert using [MpegStreamclip|http://www.squared5.com>

Luca


Message was edited by: gogiangigo
Amended after remembering (Thanks Ian) that you are still on FCE but moving to FCP

In FCE you only have one choice . . . . Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC).

Provided your camera shoots AVCHD and you have FCE 4.0.1 together with an Intel Mac, the conversion will be done automatically and in real time during the Log and Transfer process.

As Luca says, when using FCP, ProRes may be marginally better, though you can also use AIC if you wish.

Don't expect any fantastic improvement from ProRes, as depending on your workflow etc., you may never notice the difference.

Message was edited by: Ian R. Brown
Amended after seeing that Luca had pipped me to the post with his answer!

What's an ACMT?

I doesn't shoot AVCHD. Guess they didn't want to join the consortium. It shoots an MPEG-4 variant that's very close to it.

Tom Wolsky wrote:
What's an ACMT?

Apple Certified Macintosh Technician.

There's a CD-Rom in your package if you bought it new, it contains software to download your footage to your HDD. I'd start there.

I'll just wing it and ingest into iMovie, convert with MPEGstreamclip and see how I go.

Your method uses two recompression cycles. Not good.
Why not just transcode directly in MPEG streamclip to the codec you need?

Have a look at [this|http://www.secondchairvideo.com/?p=694].