Support for Canon MXF from xf100 in FCP X?

I'm making good headway with PP5.5 Watching the MXF feed straight into PP5.5 is nice.

But I'm enjoying the FCPX timeline editing experience more.

I suspect that many people will make the same choice as you, especially with PP5.5 at half price. Worth buying just for Encore to be able to do some nice Blu-ray authoring.

Apple made a strategic mistake not getting all the camera manufacturers in to the FCP X launch. They will lose a lot of pros and top-end amateurs.

Still, Apple will make a fortune out of the consumers and prosumers with FCP X so I guess they don't really care if they lose a few during the transitions.

Regards

Peter

Well, after 12 hours flip-flopping between two systems, Premier Pro 5.5 and Final Cut Pro X, the jury has come back in with their verdict.

It's a very clear win to Final Cut Pro X.

I spent 6 hours on each system, doing exactly the same task, a simple storyline edit, some opening, closing and lower-third titles, some simple transitions, a music track and a bit of narration, exported into a Blu-ray format.

I did manage to complete all tasks with both systems. But, with FCP X, I managed to do about half of the whole project, about 19 minutes of finished output. With PP5.5, I only got about the first five minutes done, and even that does not look as polished as the FCP X results. I found PP5.5 to be a bit kludgey and heavy going, constantly struggling to find where something had to be done.

Once you get into the paradigm, FCP X is a very nice editor. Everything quickly becomes quite intuitive. Putting the timeline together is exceptionally quick. FCP X is a bit deceptive. It's simple interface gives an initial impression that it can not do much. After FCP7 with its myriad of buttons and menus, the first reaction to FCPX is that it is too simple. But once, you have your head around its modus operandi, you find all these nice surprises. Like, it is a very good sound editor with some precision tools. No need for Soundtrack Pro because most (all?) of what you need is inside FCP X.

It'll be nice when SmartSound can get their FCP plug-in working again so can round-trip the music bed - that'll save creating all the markers twice. The color correction works OK - managed to bring some underwater footage back to a reasonable blue. The Motion templates are clever and save a lot of time with titles.

So, my decision: hang in there with FCP X doing the pre-import transcribe to ProRes, nag Canon to get their plug-in done, and move towards fully embracing this new system as my primary platform.

But, I will use Adobe Encore to author Blu-ray disks...

Regards

Peter

Read this Article: Convert Canon XF 100 MXF to Apple ProRes 422 to FCPX

I talked with one of the Canon professional video support people last week. He had been in touch with their software development team. He told me that updating the XF plug-in for FCP X has been given "emergency" status in their development priority system. Which means we should be seeing an upgrade soon.

In the meantime, anyone with FCP7 can continue to use the Log and Transfer function to ingest and transform MXF footage into ProRes format for import into FCPX. I've now completed 3 projects using this method and it works fine.

Regards

Peter

here's a question: has anyone tried using Adobe Media Encoder?

I got a tip from someone who had recently purchased a Canon XF100 and FCP X... he has had success converting the XDCAM .mxf files to .mpeg-4 Pro422.

but for the life of me I can't get the same result.

before I even start transcoding, my CS5.5 Encoder shows the source file as: "No Video" -ala black screen.

I have my fingers crossed because I believe it's all just a matter of getting the right settings...

anyone else wanna give it a try?

Mitch

Did the person who gave you that tip also manage to succesfully convert the audio in those .mxf files? Others _have_ been able to get video to come in, but with no audio.

I'm just hoping that "emergency" priority on the Canon plug-in means that it'll be done within weeks (rather than months).

-g

OMG, I think I got it...

everybody check this out... (if this works, click my "Like" button -it'll make my head swell).

watch the vimeo vid at:

http://vimeo.com/25762963

you'll need to update your codexs, then d/l 3 or 4 different utilities from Sony restarting your Mac each time...

finally, run the XDCAM Transfer app ("add source" is your .mxf file, and "import" actually OUTPUTS a .mov to a Sony folder in your Movies folder).

I got a freakin' 1920x1080 .mov in FCP X... and I'm finally able to get to WORK!

btw... Canon? did you see? that's SONY pulling your *** out of the fire here.

Mitch

Peter Walker4 wrote:

Still, Apple will make a fortune out of the consumers and prosumers with FCP X so I guess they don't really care if they lose a few during the transitions.

Regards

Peter

Peter,

Apple makes relatively little profit (if any) on software after development costs. Apple's software is designed to sell hardware, which is where they make their real money. I'm sure FCPX will sell a lot of hardware.

pancenter-

Unfortunately, using the XDCAM Transfer app from Sony will butcher the sound, turning it into unusable digital noise. Works great for video-only clips though.

Have y'all been sending Canon emails asking nicely when they're going to have an FCPX plugin for MXF files?

Canon Support - 2 <carecenter2@cits.canon.com>

and

customerfeedback@cits.canon.com

Argh... it's been over a month now. This plugin can't be _that_ complex to create with the FCPX SDK, can it?

Thanks to Daniel Houghton in Bowling Green, Kentucky... we now have a working solution to this problem.

His blog entry about this: http://tinyurl.com/3gu3m83

Now back to figuring out all the new details of FCPX and not having to worry about how to get MXF data into it.

-g

This Adobe Encoder process will work but, if you are looking to capture at the very best quality, you might need to be careful that you don't squeeze some of the quality out of the MXF files during the mp4 conversion.

If you have FCP 7, I think that you'll get better quality import footage by using FCP 7 (with the Canon XF plug-in) to transcribe directly to ProRes HQ, then import that into FCP X. That process is working for me.

In any pre-transcribe process you lose the camera's meta-data.

I suggest that, if you use any of these pre-transcribe processes, you should use the Canon XF utility to do a back-up of the original files to hard disk so, when the XF utility is updated for FCP X, you can re-import the original footage in full quality.

Regards

Peter

I agree with that.

Adobe Encoder not acceptable for HD quality.

Another solution : I tryed Aunsoft (I bought the soft) to transcode the MXF in ProRes 422 (HQ or not) : the quality is correct but there is 2 problems :

- the soft bugs with Lion : after transcoding several clips (it could be 2 or 10...), the soft turned off.

- The transcoding is veryyyy veryyyyyyy long so, as you are oblige to stay in front of your computer waitting for the soft turned off, transcoding many clips takes too many time to be supportable !

The solution with FCP7 seems good but how can I get a FCP7 as I just bought the FCPX on the App Store ?

I sent a message to Apple but I did'nt get any answer.

Best resgards

Alex

I also tried using Aunsoft - and it took way too long to convert - which is why I ended up returning FCP-X and purchased Adobe Premiere (after they dropped the price to 299). I understand many of the users on this forum were FCP-7 users so they still have access so they can convert files using the log and capture option.

Good luck

Randy

Hi,

It looks like Canon are somewhat slow to move on this - I went ahead and created a tool of my own, as the only options would be to use FCP7 or one of the $35 options that are currently being spammed across every single board on the internet ;-)

Check it out here: http://pika.dk/?p=406 It's fast, free and lossless - although, it may be tricky to get up and running for the first time 😝

right.

and why am I hesitant to click on this link???

webfandango