Converting Sony F3 native files to FCP format.

[Jean-Marc Plante]

Help!

 

I am terribad at editing, but I've got footage I need to edit together. Problem is, I shot with a Sony F3, which dished out MPEG2 files, and I can't get anything to work in Final cut Pro or X. Is there any converter available that doesn't give you stupid limits or watermarks if you don't buy it?

 

Any help is crucial! Thank you

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Isn't it just log and transferr in FCP 7?

[Phil Rhodes]

I don't know much about FCP (I'm a Premiere guy) but I'd be astonished if it wouldn't handle MPEG-2.

 

However, in the worst-case scenario, you can use the free tool ffmpeg (apparently downloadable from ffmpegmac.net, but I can't test those builds as I'm on Windows).

 

A commandline such as this will turn more or less anything into ProRes.

ffmpeg -i "inputfile.abc" -c:v prores_ks -probesize 5000000 -profile:v 3 -vendor ap10 -q:v 11 "outputfile.mov"

Notes:

 

- Values of 9-13 are useful for "q:v". This allows adjustment of bitrate. Larger is less.

- Values of 0-3 (and possibly 4, I'm not sure) are valid for "profile". 0 equates to "proxy", 3 equates to "HQ". I'm not sure it supports 4444 yet.

- Audio can be tricky. If you get no audio, add -c:a pcm_s24le after the input file. This will convert anything to uncompressed 24-bit.

- Audio can be tricky again. If you get strange behaviour regarding FCP thinking it has two (or more) mono channels rather than one stereo channel, try adding -filter_complex "[0:a:0][0:a:1]amerge" after the input file.

- Be careful it hasn't adversely affected luminance encoding - check things look to have the right brightness, contrast and saturation. This is usually fine.

 

ffmpeg's prores encoder is probably faster than Quicktime's under at least some circumstances and I have not had any compatibility problems. This can be a convenient way, depending on your shell scripting capability, to perform bulk transcoding tasks. ffmpeg supports a huge variety of codecs and is generally worth having around.

 

P

[Freya Black]

The Sony F3 records in XDCam format.

I think you can find everything you need here:

 

https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcam/resource.downloads.bbsccms-assets-micro-xdcam-downloads-XDCAMSoftwareDownload.shtml#apps

 

Freya

[Freya Black]

ffmpeg's prores encoder is probably faster than Quicktime's under at least some circumstances and I have not had any compatibility problems. This can be a convenient way, depending on your shell scripting capability, to perform bulk transcoding tasks. ffmpeg supports a huge variety of codecs and is generally worth having around.

 

P

 

Theres also MPEGstreamclip on the mac which I think is FFMpeg based but has an easy to use interface.

 

Freya