Converting MXF to AVI

S

Sv Bell

New member
OK guys, I am going into production for my next feature film in a matter of weeks. Right now I am sitting with my director of photography, who will be shooting the footage on his HVX, in HD. However the film will be edited in SD, so I need to convert the HD, MXF footage into SD, uncompressed AVI files. I am editing on a VideoToaster.

I tested some utilities, those of Raylight and MOG Solutions, but they are not flawless - and pricey in the case of MOG.

What I have in mind is to buy a license of FinalCut Pro Express HD for the Mac Mini I have, and use that software to convert the footage to SD AVI. Does anyone know if FCP Exp. HD can do that easily? Is the conversion process fast?

:dankk2: for your help guys!

sv
 
why edit in SD???
If you like Newtek....check out Speed Edit. And Serious magic has a MXF to AVI or QT wrapper.
Don't edit a feature SD, that makes no sense.
 
Editing in SD for distribution in SD makes sense. There is less overhead on your system, so you will get better response and performance in your NLE.

I recommend Raylight. You can convert the MXF files to Raylight AVIs, and then use your NLE to downrez them to SD (an app. that would do this in a batch mode would be helpful, of course). You could then delete the Raylight AVIs and keep the original MXFs in case you ever want to re-edit in HD.

EDIT: From what I've read, Serious Magic's codec only works in lossless mode-- there is no "lower quality" for editing mode -- with Raylight, you can edit in a lower quality for better performance, and then render in full quality. This is very, very useful.
 
Well we shoot HD but edit in SD because, as Twisted Lincoln pointed out, we release the film direct-to-video in SD. However, all the HD files are kept in case someone, somewhere, wants to have a HD version of the film for distribution. And in SD, the Toaster is realtime, renderless, I am a spoiled boy now, and I can't live without a renderless environment. :beer:

I gave Raylight a test, but sadly it is not fully compliant to the Toaster, I always get a reversed fields problem. I'll check SeriousMagic, that seems promising...

sv
 
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