Will FCPX support XAVC-L?

Hi there

The short answer is yes, you can work with XAVC-L files in FCPX. However, it requires a specific routine in order to make it run smoothly.

First, you need to be running Final Cut X 10.2.1 and your Sony PXW-X70 needs to be running on firmware version 2.00.

It isn’t possible to import directly from the SD card, as the folder structure on the card somehow confuses FCPX. To make it work, you have to take the folder “XDROOT” on your card and copy it into an empty folder on your hard drive. It is very important that nothing else but the XDROOT folder is in this new folder on your hard drive.

Once this is done, you will be able to import the footage from the folder you created on your hard drive into FCPX.

WWould it be possible to post a screen shot of the folder structure? Were there more than one format on the card?

There is only XAVC-L footage on the card

For what it is worth, using the normal FCPX import process, I am ingesting XAVC Long GOP files into the "media storage location" of the FCPX library from the "XDROOT" directory on the SD card which is plugged into the SD card slot on an iMac. At least for me, I do not have to copy any file structure from the SD card. I have FCP 10.2.1 and Sony X-70 firmware ver. 2.0. I haven't tried it with any existing AVCHD files also on the card, but it is my understanding from others that if there are other formats on the SD card that it may not be possible to import the XAVC files.

You are absolutely correct, sayhibob.

Thanks for the clarification

Thank you. Interesting that there's an AVCHD bundle in the folder structure.

Since I installed the 4K update on the Sony x-70 (Ver 2.0), I can still successfully import XAVC-L (HD) clips directly into FCPX (10.2.1) as I described in the post above. However, for some reason, I am unable to directly import the XAVC -L (QFHD) 4K clips. I can however, read and transcode them using Catalyst Browse. The transcode options in CB include ProRes, but only at highest resolutions of HD, not 4K. However, CB will transcode the 4K clips from XAVC-L to XAVC-Intra at 4K resolution, which seems to be the only way that I can get the 4K clips into FCPX. The resulting XAVC-Intra files, still *.mxf, at least in my tests, are 5X bigger than the original XAVC-L files. But they do ingest normally into FCPX. Thus far, these clips seem to edit nicely and I have no need to create ProRes optimized files.

When I attempt to import the 4K camera native files directly into FCPX from the card using the FCPX import screen, the audio track is visible, but the video appears as an unintelligible green screen. All of my attempts to directly connect, archive, and copy PRIVATE, XDROOT directories, etc., around as alternatives have proven fruitless. As I said, XAVC-L clips of the HD variety are ingested perfectly since the Ver. 2.0 update. These HD XAVC-L clips also co-exist comfortably with their QFHD cousins on the card in the same private/XDROOT/clip directory, and their presence or absence seems to make no difference in helping solve the 4K import conundrum.

I have also tried re-updating the ProVideo Formats as well. That seemed to make no difference.

If anyone has successfully ingested the 4K clips from the card, I hope that they can share their success story.

Regin_t wrote:

There is only XAVC-L footage on the card

Click on the M4ROOT folder.

Click on the Clip folder and that is where you should find your video files.

Way OT:

How is CSI: Cyber David?

Folder Structure
(Minimum Req. for XAVC Long GOP)

XDROOT

- Clip (where the actual video is in)

- Edit (empty folder)

- MEDIAPRO.XML (file can be empty, but it has to be there)

- Sub (empty folder

I just tried this on an iMac and on a MB Pro 15 (both OS X 10.10.4, FCP 10.2.1) with .MXF files (XAVC Long GOP) and it works.

The .MXF files are from a Sony PXW-X70.

It's also beneficial to position the XDROOT folder in an otherwise empty folder but it also works without doing that.

Anyone stumble upon the "right" answer? I've been trying to ingest 4K footage from my Sony PXW-X70.

I tried everything suggested in this discussion. Nothing seemed to work.

Now, I only recorded two short clips in 4K. (They both play well in the camera.) What kind of work flow will I adopt when I record LOTS of files / shots?

Can anyone help?

I went ahead and contacted Apple Pro Apps support. Spent a half hour with them. Currently, there is no support for ingesting 4K files from Sony PXW-X70.

I uploaded some camera files / camera card .dmg from my Mac. (From my Sony PXW-X70.) Apple engineers will presumably look at them as part of their upgrade. So... hopefully we'll see support for these particular Long GOP files in the next upgrade.

PROBLEM SOLVED!

FCPX 10.2.2 offers native support for XAVC GOP-long. (2K/4K) I just tried it. It works!

I'm still having a problem with importing and playing some .MXF footage. I have a batch of clips, some of which will import and playback correctly (that is, audio and video), but some only import and playback as audio. By using VideoSpec, I determined that the clips that are importing and playing back correctly use MPEG-2 as a codec. However, the clips that are NOT playing back and importing incorrectly are using "Uncompressed: BI_RGB" as a codec. Those seem to be the only difference between the one group of files and the other. Has anyone else experienced this problem? I would appreciate any help!