Sony FS700 AVCHD to Final Cut Pro 7

Essami

Essami

Well-known member
Hi,

I shot an hour of footage for a friend with my Sony FS700 that she wants to edit in Final Cut Pro 7. That's the only program she has and we want to do this the easy way and not spend any money. As it turns out Final Cut 7 does not recognize the AVCHD files and you'd need to purchase a converter to make it into prores.

I have a PC with Sony Vegas Pro 10. I can render the files for her but what format should I choose I want to maintain quality and not increase file size too much and so she can open them in FCP7?

Also I didn't know that AVCHD spans files. But I guess there's no problem with this? Should I render multiple files for Mac or join them into one?

Anyone with a simple solution for this? :)

Sami
 
Rarevision's 5DtoRGB software is free and simple way to transcode from AVCHD to ProRes. I think it also supports batch conversion. Only Canon and Panasonic cameras are officially supported, but I don't see any reason why Sony's .mts files shouldn't work. Worth a try! ProRes LT 422 (100 mbit/sec) or Proxy 422 (36 mbit/sec) are the most compressed flavors available.
 
Has she tried file>import>log and transfer? That is the most common and simple solution...

She can use Prores LT to avoid using too much storage for the trancodes.
 
Use the Log and Transfer method included in FCP7 as stated above. It takes a bit of time to put it in but it is worth it and works flawlessly. I use it all the time when I am not using my Ninja.
 
blofeld said:
Rarevision's 5DtoRGB software is free and simple way to transcode from AVCHD to ProRes. I think it also supports batch conversion. Only Canon and Panasonic cameras are officially supported, but I don't see any reason why Sony's .mts files shouldn't work. Worth a try! ProRes LT 422 (100 mbit/sec) or Proxy 422 (36 mbit/sec) are the most compressed flavors available.
Click to expand...

Be careful with 5DtoRGB if you're on a Mac with an ATI 1900XT graphics card. From personal experience, the batch version does not work with that graphics card, but the free / lite version does, which is really strange. This was confirmed by the owner of 5DtoRGB as well.

You pretty much need the Batch version because with the free version, you have to manually enter each clip repeatedly and it's very, very time consuming if you have 100 clips.

Clip Wrap work very well, but it is $50, but well worth it since the batch function work well. And it transcodes extremely fast.

With 5DtoRGB, you supposedly get the full dynamic range of the AVCHD footage because quicktime compresses it into the wrong range. The Clip Wrap people say that it's B.S. and it just degrades your footage, but from my own eyes, I have to side with 5DtoRGB on this one because the DR has a very noticeable increase when you run it through 5DtoRGB.

2 articles on the subject

http://www.eoshd.com/content/8076/how-mac-osx-still-screws-your-gh2-fs100-nex-footage-a-must-read

http://www.eoshd.com/content/8612/mac-avchd-gamma-issues-the-fix

You can also do the same thing in your NLE. So I just use Clip Wrap and do the DR change in Premiere.

I used to used FCP 7, but then I discovered Premiere CS5 and just the fact that you don't have to Transcode the footage saves you hours and hours of time and an insane amount of disk space. It's worth it to switch just for that reason alone. For me, I only transcode the footage when I pass it to clients because with Premiere you can work with the footage natively.
 
Thanks for the advice! We will give log and transfer a go! As long as the job gets done I think this sounds like a simple solution.
 
gene_can_sing said:
With 5DtoRGB, you supposedly get the full dynamic range of the AVCHD footage because quicktime compresses it into the wrong range. The Clip Wrap people say that it's B.S. and it just degrades your footage, but from my own eyes, I have to side with 5DtoRGB on this one because the DR has a very noticeable increase when you run it through 5DtoRGB.

2 articles on the subject
Click to expand...
With my one exposure to 5D-RGB it clipped and crushed levels horriably... i did not do the transcodes, so do not know what the DiT did in that case.. it was really horriable way to trash some good footage tho.. approach with caution / tests

The same footage re-wrapped with ClipWrap kept the full range intact and matches levels with the output of my Hyperdeck, both maintain full range,

Avid Media Composer maintains levels correctly on either OSX or Windoze.. making the articles statment that OSX clips and crushes comptely incorrect! The choice of software, notably software that uses the desktop Qt decoder (Preimer and legacy FCP come to mind) are the real the offenders... OSX is fine, the FS is fine

Those articles should not to taken a face value, the writer is far off the mark due to his reliance upon prosumer software, and lack of knoledge of what he writes about blinkering his vision.
 
Dermot, I definitely take what EOSHD says with a grain of salt. Like ANY article, you read it and do your own testing and don't take it at face value.

With that said, I've used 5DtoRGB a number of times and it never clipped or crushed levels, in fact, it did exactly the opposite. There is definitely a perceived widening of the dynamic range. According to 5DtoRGB, that is how the footage should truly look; according to Clip Wrap, it's degrading the footage, so not sure who to believe.

I know there is nothing wrong with the FS700 camera, but if Quicktime is the offender and does not properly display the entire dynamic range, then you have to figure out a way to fix it because for most of us, Quicktime is what we work with. Unfortunately Dermot, a majority of us are on Prosumer type NLEs like Premiere and Final Cut and most of us don't work with Avid Media Composer so we have to find solutions that work for us.

Since I believe you mentioned you are a colorist by trade, you probably have access to higher end tools than us; but we have to work with what we have and I'm not switching to Avid anytime soon because I'm used to the Adobe workflow, so I'm stuck with Premiere and have to make it work for me.

Both 5DtoRGB (unless you have the ATI X1900) and Clip Wrap work well, they just treat the DR in a different way.
 
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i think it comes down to software using the desktop Qt de-coder, or using a custom ( and non-RT) de-coder, i know Avid writes their own decoders and those are pretty accurate, but they need to be captured - even Avid uses the desktop de-coder for AMA (avid speak for linking to files and playing in realtime) and it has the same issues.

the clipwrapped AVCHD levels match;
1) levels on a scope sent from the Hyperdeck's HDSDI output, then captured into a finishing system as DPX uncompressed / full range, the only thing DPX does.
2)captured uncompressed / ProRez / DNxHD Qt's.
3) linked DNxHD MXF media from the Hyperdeck.

the only diffrences are the AVCHD's noise, softness and compression artifacts, levels match perfectly

if 5D-RGB displays diffrent levels or gamma - it might be the one applying a transform to the image?

I'll go do a test with 5D-RGB for my self, as i noted the only experience i had was a DiT messing it all up... Clipwrap maps 0-255 from the camera to 0-255 on the output of the software's decoder it would be hard for 5D to do much diffrent, it can't go wider than that.... maybe it maps 0-255 from the camera to 16-235 on the output of the desktop decoder and that would work well in PP/FCP... not accurate or a good thing if you work with full range already tho, and the opposte of what i saw - the camera's 0-255 with 0-16 & 235-255 thrown into the garbage... and then i look at it in a full range envroment... ouch...
 
Yes, Dermot, take a peek as I'm curious as to what you find out as you're technically very knowledgable.

Like I said, ClipWrap and 5DtoRGB outputs a very noticeable difference of the same clip. 5DtoRGB does appear to the naked eye as having more dynamic range, but the Clip Wrap people call foul. I'd like your take on it Dermot.

I read that the 5DtoRGB setting should be at
1) ITU-R BT .601
2) Full Range

Thanks
 
have tried to download both the 32 & 63 bit 5D-RGB windoze free versions, not getting a download link sent for either request.... i'll wait until Tuesday and try to find a email addy for them to wake them up & send me a link.

So i can't test this weekend, but it's not for my lack of trying.... i'm booked solid all next week. so i will double back to this the following weekend - maybe i'll have a download link by then.....

d
 
If your recorded AVCHD files are 60p, you won't get the videos to FCP 7 with Log and Transfer. L&T plugin can't recognise the nonstandard 1080 60fps format. As far as I know, Sony Vegas 10 or above can natively edit the clip. And I heard FCP X 10.0.4 or above also can support it.

If your file is not the nonstandard format and your computer system is not old, you will can easily use L&T plugin to transcode AVCHD to ProRes for editing in FCP 7.
 
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