Support for Canon MXF from xf100 in FCP X?

Question... I JUST purchased Final Cut Express. I havea Cannon XF and I have that same plugin software...I downloaded it butit doesn't to appear to have worked. I used the same software atwork..except work computers use Final Cut Pro... How did you get yourCopy of Express to recognize your MXF files... or any files that camefrom your Canon XF for that matter?

Question... I JUST purchased Final Cut Express. I havea Cannon XF and I have that same plugin software...I downloaded it butit doesn't to appear to have worked. I used the same software atwork..except work computers use Final Cut Pro... How did you get yourCopy of Express to recognize your MXF files... or any files that camefrom your Canon XF for that matter?

***?!?!??!!

This is the best that Canon and Apple can do? Doesn't Apple provide specs to their developers so that they can -- heaven forbid -- create supporting plugins?

Couple of comments to the thread above - Final Cut Pro plug ins do not appear to work with Final Cut Pro X - in fact I can't even find the directory where to install plug ins for FCP-X.

WRT to Canon and Apple working together, I am mainly a still photographer who is just starting to do video - I use Nikon (D3/D3X) and Aperture - I can tell you that 1) Nikon's s/w is lousy - camera companies typically do not know how to build good s/w 2) trying to get Apple to keep up w/ the RAW file structures for new cameras is difficult - if you are an early adopter, you typically have to wait to get RAW support.

I'm not surprised that Canon and FCP don't work, from Canon's perspective Avid and Adobe work natively with their MXF files - so "what's the problem"...

I can only hope that at some point Apple will acknowledge that the Canon XF series cameras are "real" and will build in native file support for them - in the meantime - I have to use a conversion s/w which totally slows down my workstream.

I do not do this for a living so for now it's an inconvenience - I feel sorry for working pros who may have purchased FCP-X (although I suspect most pros wouldn't switch s/w on day 1 of a release).

FYI - my day job is working in a s/w development division of a large engineering company - I do know something about s/w quality and release cycles in a commercial/engineering environment

FYI:

I have inputed via a Canon Vixia HV40 (HDV tape) and from a Canon SX1is( still & AVCHD video).

No problems.

Russ Andris

Totally different beast. This threat pertains to the codec used on the Canon XF 300, 305, 100, and 105. These are professional camcorders that I assume would be supported by Final Cut Pro.

Speaking of which, I certainly hope that camera support in Final Cut Pro doesn't become fully baked into the OS as was the case back in the early days of Aperture. I can only imagine what a pain it'd be to have to wait for OS 10.7.8 to finally get native XF support!

I fully expect the XF300/305 to be very popular very quickly due to the BBC acceptance - so hopefully Apple will put out an update quickly to natively import the MXF files (unless they want to lose more market share to Adobe and/or Avid)

Playing around with FCP X for the first time today, I have managed to get some MXF clips from my Canon XF100 into FCP X.

I used the Canon utility to get them into a folder on my MacBook Pro (called "MXF Import").

Then I used a conversion program FoxReal Video Converter for Mac.

In the conversion settings, I set the target to Apple ProRes 422, set the size to "original", quality to "high" and frame rate to 25 (original footage is 1080p25). Audio I set to 48KHz / 384 Kbps. Target folder: "MXF Converted".

A couple of minutes later I was able to import the .mov files from MXF Converted into FCP X. At first glance, the converted video looks OK and plays OK.

This will be a work-around until Canon releases an update to the utility that will allow direct import into FCP X.

(Need to pay $35 for a FoxReal license to get rid of the FoxReal logo from the converted video)

Regards

Peter

Thanks, Peter. This was helpful.

I'm willing to give FCPX a shot if there is a workaround for now. I will try this out. I hope the video is as clean as it starts out.

I assume a plug in will eventually come out. Would it work for the Canon XF300? I assume it would. I just bought the camera less than a year ago. As for now I will be staying with FCP 6.0.6

Brian

Hi all,

So... I found the way:

Go to file - import from camera (or command + I) - not as a FILE!!!

It'll open a camera window.

On left bottom click "Open Archive"

From that choose the location of your MXF file. PLEASE NOTE: You have to select the entire folder that contains "Content". If you try to import the MXF file by itself it won't let you select it!)

Hit "Open"

The window will bring in the MXF files for you to select.

Select the files you'd like to import or clcik "Import all".

Even though you won't see it in this window, FCP X will import it and convert it in the background.

You can close the window, as FCP will keep converting the files.

To track and view status, click the small circle (on the left in timecode window above the timeline and under the preview window), and it'll open the status window.

I hope this is helpful - I was looking for the solution for a while, found it in Larry Jordan's training video (larryJordan.biz)

Best,

Omer

Following your instructions Omer, when I hit "Open" I get the message "'<folder>' contains unsupported media or has an invalid directory structure. Please choose a folder whose directory structure matches supported media."

So, what am I doing differently?

I had two kinds of files, One of them was MXF raw file and the other . Mov from HVX200 camera. I got the same message when I tried to open the .Mov from the camera import. Try to import as a file, and again, as a folder and not an indevidual file. It worked for me - hope it'll for you too.

Best,

Omer

Nope, doesn't work for me. Same error as Deadly_B.

I've tried every which way to try to import directly into FCP X.

In any case, the Canon XF100, or any of their MXF cameras, is not listed among the supported cameras for FCPX so I am surprised that it is working for anyone.

Omar, you must be doing something special to make it work for you.

My temporary work-around is to log and transfer into FCP7, transcoding to Apple ProRes HQ format in a .mov wrapper. Then I can import those files into FCP X. Not fast, but it'll have to do until Canon updates their plug-in.

Regards

Peter