New FCP P2/MXF Native?????
- Thread starter f5freddyj
- Start date
Barry_Green
Moderator
Well, the world outside of FCP is a DVCPRO-HD and MXF native editing world. Everybody else already does it, and most have been doing it for years. Only FCP refuses to play along.
And they never will, by the way. Apple will never support any native format other than Quicktime. They will always and forever demand that all other formats be converted to Quicktime first.
Well, you can do more than dream, you can get there today. Either use an editor other than FCP, or, if you really want to stick with FCP, use one of the "helper" applications that deliver native MXF/DVCPRO-HD editing today. Raylight, MXF4QT, or Calibrated MXF Importer. Any of those will get you where you want to go.
You can work in an AVCIntra native timeline now without conversion.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Without conversion to ProRes, but you still have to convert the files from MXF to Quicktime.
Other editors don't require that, they work with the MXF files (or m2ts files, or m2t files, or any other camera-native file format) as-is. FCP requires the file format to be converted, always.
Other editors don't require that, they work with the MXF files (or m2ts files, or m2t files, or any other camera-native file format) as-is. FCP requires the file format to be converted, always.
"Well, you can do more than dream, you can get there today. Either use an editor other than FCP, or, if you really want to stick with FCP, use one of the "helper" applications that deliver native MXF/DVCPRO-HD editing today. Raylight, MXF4QT, or Calibrated MXF Importer. Any of those will get you where you want to go."
Barry, this might be off thread topic, but which of those three handlers would you recommend for handling MXF natively in FCP?
Barry, this might be off thread topic, but which of those three handlers would you recommend for handling MXF natively in FCP?
Barry_Green
Moderator
I don't use FCP so I don't have a firsthand recommendation. I've heard from folks who are quite happy with the Calibrated MXF importer, guys like Shane Ross and Kevin Railsback. And I know folks who are very happy with the Raylight metadata implementation, guys like Art Aldrich who use the metadata to make multiple-camera shoots much easier to handle in post. You'd be best off asking one of those folks what they think, as they work with the tools every day.
Umm hey, so i've been looking in a couple threads to figure out where to ask this question. I can't keep looking or i'll fall asleep. So here it is. Is there any benefit to converting from P2 DVCPRO HD to ProRes??? and if so when. Before Edit. or After Edit. I'm doing a lot of Color Correction and apparently ProRes holds up well. but i read that DVCPRO also does a good job. Is anybody able to make this clear. Thanks heaps.
NoahK
Hottie Mod
Not before you're done editing. If you consider DVCPROHD as your 'offline' you can edit away on that. You wouldn't get any more quality out of it by putting it into a ProRes box because what's lost in the initial camera compression isn't coming back. That said, once you get one or two generations away from ingest, that's when a format like ProRes makes sense and that's how the FCP workflow is designed.
You can for example complete an initial edit in DVCPROHD, Send to Color and then complete color-correction to uncompressed or ProRes. Or even Media Manage a completed edit to ProRes before even going to Color- say if you're heading to other applications for post-work. You can always start from the get-go and make everything ProRes right away but I think it's a bit of a waste of hard drive space, DVCPROHD is a great editorial codec.
Noah
Color works just fine with DVC-PRO-HD Quicktime non interlaced BTW. DVC PRO HD is a very good Codec, and you will not suffer much generational loss if you don't recompress every frame in a project you can stay in DVCPROHD all the way to finish with Apple Tools. ProRes is something I would use if a highly compressed or very i/o bloated codec was on the ingest side, like AVCHD and for the former RED 4K. The only thing I dislike about it is the pixel aspect.
The only unfortunate part is the interpretation of this codec between Windows Quicktime and Apple Quicktime so it makes it harder to port to multiplatform, once in QT format wrapper.
The only unfortunate part is the interpretation of this codec between Windows Quicktime and Apple Quicktime so it makes it harder to port to multiplatform, once in QT format wrapper.
No, it simply unwraps the mxf video and audio and rewraps in QT.
I was kind of curious to see if anybody knows if the pseudo-native use of MXF's in FCP (downloading the P2 CMS and then re-linking audio in FCP) is affected by the new version. I'm working on a documentary right now and because I've had some errors transcoding I decided to go this route. I'd like to get the upgrade but no point if it's going to screw up my current workflow.