Monday, June 4, 2018

How to Edit Sony 4K XAVC S with FCP

You can get high bit rate of 4K 100Mbps through use of the XAVC S format via Sony/Panasonic/Canon camcoders. As for post shooting, the 4K video content from the camcorder can be played back directly on a compatible 4K television through the supplied HDMI cable, or in super-sampled Full HD when connected to an HD TV. How about working them with Final Cut Pro?

Import Sony XAVC S to FCP with Sony Plug-in

As we all know that the XAVC S format record by Sony UHD camcoders is mainly designed to deliver 4K video signals with a resolution of 3840x2160, it is not an the native video editing codec for Final Cut Pro. To fix the workflow of XAVC S with FCP, sony has created a special plug-in for Mac which helps to provide support for XAVC S in FCP allowing viewing and editing capability. However, most people complain that the process to install plug in is very complicated, more worse, the plug-in some times don't even work at all.

Alternative way to ingest 4K XAVC S to FCP

If you are looking for a fast and fluid workflow of 4K XAVC S with FCP, the best way is transcoding 4K XAVC S to Final Cut Pro professional editing codec - Apple Prores 422 codec, a post-production format designed for pristine quality and high-performance Final Cut Pro real-time editing. In addition, if you Mac is very old or not has the capability to handle 4K video, it would be much better for you to compress 4K Prores to 1080p prores to fix video play backs choppy issues.

There is professional solution in hand called Pavtube iMedia Converter for Mac (to get Windows version), which enables you to directly wrap Sony 4K XAVC S to FCP  Apple Prores Codec in different file types.

If you computer is old or slow, or you just want to do some rough editing, you can select to output "Apple Prores 422(Proxy)(*.mov)"or "Apple Prores (LT)(*.mov)"format to save more space and bandwidth. However, if your Mac version is powerful enough to handle multicam and high-resolution video, even the 4K video and you are going to do many effects editing work with FCP, you'd better choose to output "Apple Prores 422(*.mov)"or "Apple Prores 422(HQ)(*.mov)"for better performance.

How to to encode and compress 4K XAVC S to 1080P Prores for FCP?

Step 1: Import 4K XAVC S videos.

From "File"drop-down option, select "add Video/Audio"to add source 4K XAVC S video files to the program.

Import 4K XAVC S videos.

Step 2: Select output file format.

Click "Format"bar, from its drop-down list, select "Final Cut Pro"> "Apple Prores 422(*.mov)"as your desired output file format.

Choose Apple Prores 422 format

Step 3: Adjust video parameters

Open "Profile Settings" window, you can edit video codec, resolution, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate. channels here. To keep the output video resoltuion as 4K, just set it as 3840*2160; to compress 4K to 1080p, you can change the resolution to 1920*1080.

compress 4k proes to 1080p

Step 4: Convert 4K XAVC S to Apple Prores format.

Go back to the main interface and press the "Convert"icon on the right-bottom to start Sony 4K XAVC S to Final Cut Pro Apple Prores process.

When the conversion is done, you can easily import the converted video to FCP  for furthering professional editing.