Uncompressing EX1 footage?

C

Caesius

New member
Hello,
I recently shot some footage on the EX1 and am looking to edit in FCP. My only experience handling footage thus far has been with the Canon 7D, so I'm a little lost.

As expected, after transferring the footage from the card to my computer, the quality isn't a head turner -- I figure it needs to be uncompressed, as I do with 7D footage (to ProRes). I'm not sure what to uncompress it to, so I tried ProRes HQ just to give it a shot, and the new clips are identical to the source clips.

My only reference is that it looks like 7D footage before it's converted to ProRes -- there's a bit of grain and it's just low quality.

The files are .mov (MPEG HD) and the resolution is 1920x1080.

Anyone know how I can uncompress the files, or maybe was the transfer from the camera incorrect? I used XDCAM Transfer to grab it off the card.
 
Hello,

The quality SHOULD be a head turner. With all this talk about big sensors people forget just how good the images can look out of the EX1. To get the footage into FCP there is software from SONY called XDCAM Browser and XDCAM Clip Browser. They both install together. Once installed you can use the clip browser for, well browsing and marking in/outs. Then go into FCP and you will find XDCAM Browser installed in the FCP import menu. You should be using this to import the footage. It's not real intuitive, but basically you select the in and out points if you wish. I usually just take the whole clip. Then look for a button called register for Final Cut. That is the equivalent of an import button. It can take a little time to import it, but the quality is very high.I believe the software is available on SONY's site.

Also look into updating the firmware. But take your time and make sure you understand the process before you do the firmware upgrade.

FCP will set the proper settings once you drop the first clip onto the timeline.

Any camera can look terrible or great depending on the person shooting, composition, lighting, etc. Make sure that you are using the SONY approved method to get the footage in.

Hope this helps.

Alan
 
FYI, any time you recompress footage - which is what you're doing when you convert it to ProRes, you'll lose image quality. This is true for both the 7D and EX1 footage. Moving footage from a highly compressed codec (ie, H.264 or XDCAM EX) to a less-compressed codec (ie, ProRes) degrades, rather than improves, the quality of the image. The reason why people convert their footage is because ProRes is less processor-intensive during the editing process.
 
Caesius said:
Anyone know how I can uncompress the files, or maybe was the transfer from the camera incorrect? I used XDCAM Transfer to grab it off the card.
Click to expand...

Caesius, the XDCAM files do not need to by "uncompressed". You'll be much better off using the XDCAM EX files just as they are. I've been editing XDCAM EX for more than 4.5 years and I have never needed to use ProRes. But even if you do decide to transcode to ProRes, the quality should still look just as good, but your files sizes will be inflated by at least 4x with no benefit. You won't do any harm transcoding to ProRes, but there's no benefit either unless your entire workflow is structured around ProRes. Take my word for it, XDCAM works great with FCP7.

Eric's advice is on the right track, but outdated. You should download and install Sony's newer program called XDCAM Browser 2.0. That utility will allow you to preview, archive, and organize your original clips. Be sure to SAVE YOUR BPAV folders as your archive!!

From within XDCAM Browser you can use the "Import to FCP" menu function to rewrap the XDCAM MP4 files into .MOV files that FCP will like. This is NOT transcoding or uncompressing because it does not change the video file at all. It basically just changes the MP4 extension to MOV without touching the video file itself. Okay, it's a little more complicated than that because you can't rename the file manually and have it work, but that's basically all it is doing. It is extremely fast and lossless.

Once you have used the "Imported for FCP" command in XDCAM Browser 2.0, you can then go to FCP and import those MOV files into any FCP bin and use them like you would any other clip. The quality should look great! If not, then you have done something wrong with your shooting or workflow and you'll have to go back to square one and do some troubleshooting to figure out where you went wrong.

Need more help? http://www.vortexmedia.com/DVD_EX1.html

The bottom line is get the concept of "uncompressing" your footage out of your head. The EX1 ain't no 7D!

Good luck.
 
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XDCAM that has been transcoded to ProRes looks visually identical to the original XDCAM file, but the size of the ProRes file will 4 to 6 times larger than the XDCAM file.
If you want to call that "compressing it further" then go ahead.

Besides, it doesn't matter anyway, because if you read my post I am not advocating transcoding to ProRes. Just the opposite. I keep 100% of all my footage as native XDCAM. The point I am making is that if you DO decide to transcode, you won't be harming the quality of the footage. If someone disagrees, I would challenge you to prove it.
 
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