Working with 60fps mp4 clips in FCP 7

e_bones wrote:

Is there a way to import them using log and transfer?

No. These frame rates for this kind of media did not exist as a standard when FCP7 was abandoned by Apple.

I know I need to convert these files to Pro Res,

Yes.

when I attempt to use them in FCP, it doesn't recognize the frame rate nor the start end time of the clips in the timeline.

Do the converted files match the timecode of the original MP4s?

When you used the clips in Premiere, did you modify the clip framerate to obtain slow motion? If so, FCP (prompted by the XML) will be looking for clips with a native framerate that matches how you used them in Premiere.

MtD

A lot of these posts coming up lately...shooting with that exact camera, at 120 (or as they state, 119.88fps) and trying to use them in FCP 7 or Avid MC. Someone else said they were able to convert the 119.88fps to ProRes via Media Encoder, and then used Cinema Tools to slow it down. You sure you can't modify that frame rate to match the master?

And yes, FCP and Avid can get by with less RAM because you need to convert the footage to an editing codec that they understand...ProRes or DNxHD. Doing that lessens the need for RAM or processors because they are easy to deal with codecs. AVCHD...XAVC-S....H.264...those are complex codecs that need to be decoded on the fly as you edit, and that takes a lot of processing power and RAM. 8GB is not enough. Adobe is able to cut native, but only if you throw tons of resources at it to decode, including that RAM, processors...and graphics card processing either by CUDA or OPEN CL.

So you either need a souped up machine to deal with this footage in Premiere Pro, or you need to convert all the footage to manageable editing formats for FCP Legacy or Avid. Or you can see if FCX can deal with this...it doesn't need quite the resources PPro does, and does convert footage in the background to ProRes while you edit....

In addition to Shane's comments, the format that camera records in is an extremely compressed, computationally intensive codec. It will stress any but the most robust systems. You computer has to bring up the footage, and "unpack" it 120 times a second as well as deal with any other tasks at hand. Converting to an edit friendly codec - such as Pro Res, removes that burden on the CPU, but will create much larger media files so that some of the burden is now switched to the speed and bandwidth of your media drives.

The benefits of converting the source footage to ProRes are apparent in both FCP7 and Premiere as well. You might try converting some of this high frame rate material to ProRes and once converted, see if you get better results in Premiere. I work in Premiere almost all the time, and convert most all my source footage to Pro Res prior to commencing the edit.

I also took some 120 fps clips from my A7s and was able to easily transcode them to Pro Res at 119.8 fps via Adobe Media Encoder. Just create a new preset specifying maintaining the source frame size and frame rate in Media Encoder.

MtD

ProRes 4444 60fps...that's a VERY high data rate. TO play that back you need a fast RAID of drives...at least 2...and an eSATA or Thunderbolt connection. USB3 won't play that back smoothly, nor will firewire. H.264, 60fps 1080P? That's quite a lot to decode for playing back...which is how Premiere does it...decodes that complex format, thus why it needs lots of RAM and processing power and GPU...it needs a lot of resources to decode.

ProREs 422 would be better, but even iwth 60fps...need a faster drive and connection.