Suggestions on Importing 4K Videos in FCP 6/7/X

 If you are a 4K fan and fond of editing in Final Cut Pro 6,7 or X, fortunately, this paper about 4K may help you a lot.

Today, the TV industry supports two HD formats; often referred to as 720p (1280x720 pixels) and 1080p (1920x1080 pixels, Full HD). All our HDTVs come with Full HD resolution but content – movies, TV shows, games etc. – is 720p in many cases. There are, in other words, two sides of the equation: our screen and the content. Both are important but the truth is that content is often the bottleneck. Here is a short overview of the typical resolution classes for content.

  

SD: DVDs, standard TV channels.
HD 720p: Most HD TV channels, some streaming services.
Full HD 1080p: Blu-ray, some streaming services.

Ultra HD is the next step on the resolution ladder. It also goes by the name UHD or 4K (4K is actually a movie theatre format but the name is often used for Ultra HD). Just like the HD standard, which covers both 720p and 1080p, Ultra HD covers 4K (also called 2160p) and 8K (also called 4320p). As you might have noticed by now the naming methodology is not straightforward and the industry likes to refer to things in different fashions. Again we can offer a roughly outlined overview.

Full HD = 1920x1080 pixels = 1080p = 2K
Ultra HD = 3840x2160 pixels = 2160p = 4K
Ultra HD = 7680x4320 pixels = 4320p = 8K
 
Can’t edit 4K videos in FCP6/7/X?---Causes and Method.

Causes---If you have learned from Apple official [uel=http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/]site, we know that Final Cut Pro(FCP X 10.1.) has been updated for the next-generation architecture in the new Mac Pro, providing unprecedented performance when editing and monitoring 4K video. Final Cut Pro X natively supports 4K ProRes, Sony XAVC and REDCODE RAW. However, the old version FCP X or Final Cut Pro 6/7 like many editors use 1080p as primary delivery format and will continue to do so for a long time.

Method---If you want suggestions of smoothly importing 4K MTS videos in FCP, you are advised to convert 4K video to ProRes for a further editing. With several types of Apple ProRes, 4K video converter can smoothly work well. 
Overview the features of Mac 4K video converter:

---Turn 1080p/720p MKV, MOV, MXF, MTS, AVI, MPG, VOB to compatible format for free playback, editing, uploading and burning.
---Output ProRes/DNxHD/DVCPRO/AIC and other codec for NLEs on Mac
---Get various audios/videos for free playback on popular devices
---Powerful editing functions (e.g. trimming, cropping, adding watermarks, add video effect, etc) For more here

Main Steps for starting converting 4K videos here:

Load your 4K files with item’ Add videos’ or ‘Add from Folder’

 

Five main Apple ProRes formats for 4K videos. Final Cut Pro>>Apple ProRes codec

 

Additional ‘Editor’ with ‘Trim, Crop or Subtitles’, etc.

  

Set your output video and audio easily by ‘Settings’ button.

 

Once the conversion process shows in 100%, click Open to get the output videos and create a project and start editing 4K video in FCP 6/7/X with light speed. At the same time, welcome to give us other suggestions or questions in comments.

Related:

• Talking the Best 4K Ultra HD Video Converter
• Comparision with Blackmagic 4K and Panasonic GH4
• Import Panasonic GH4 4K Videos to DaVinci Resolve 9

Comparision with Blackmagic Production Camera 4K and Panasonic Lumix GH4

This paper can teach us the individual characteristic between Blackmagic Production Camera 4K and Panasonic Lumin GH4.

As impressive footages from both the Blackmagic 4K Production Camera and Panasonic Lumix GH4, most cinematographers and indie filmmakers would like to edit the footage in editing systems.

 

Both of two products are creating quite a buzz in the indie-filmmaking community. But how do they compare to each other? In the following article we take a look at test footage and differences between these two cameras.

The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K

Features:

Premium Quality, compact solid metal design. It is precision engineered for quality in an incredibly small size.
Large Super 35 Sensor. With a large Super 35 size sensor you get familiar framing and behavior from the lenses you already own! The sensor features a global shutter so  you get perfect panning and with minimal crop factor you also get beautiful wide angle shots from your wide angle lenses.
EF Compatible Lens Mount, supports the world's best lenses. With the EF compatible lens mount you can choose high quality optics that are designed to take advantage of the large Super 35 size sensor with minimal cropping.
Easy to Use Touchscreen. Use the capacitive touchscreen to access menus to change settings such as recording format, shutter angle and more! Double tap the screen to zoom into the image for fast and accurate focus.

Offering the sleek design of the original BMCC with 4K resolution, the highly anticipated Blackmagic 4K Production has got early test footage shows that the quality is every bit as beautiful as its predecessor.

The camera, which just started shipping, has been plagued with release delays over the past year. Blackmagic CEO Grant Petty says that the delay is caused because the company needed to “replace a bunch of the software in the camera that handles the sensor calibration and image processing“ What’s more, generally speaking, the formats Blackmagic 4K output are uauslly MXF, XAVC, MTS,M2TS. Not compatible with many editing software.

The Panasonic Lumix GH4

The GH4 is not quite as cinematic as the BMCC, partly due to it’s MOV compression, as opposed to BMCC’s RAW recording. That being said it is still producing high quality footage that rivals even the most state-of-the-art DSLRs (we’re looking at you Canon Mark III)

The mirrorless GH4 doubles as a still photography camera when it’s not taking 4K footage. With an updated sensor and 4K compatibility, the GH4 offers DSLR lovers a camera for the modern age. Preliminary footage of the GH4 shows its capability and we are impressed.

Features:
Panasonic Lumix GH4 design and controls. The Panasonic Lumix GH4 will be immediately recognizable to anyone who's used the earlier GH3 as it shares essentially the same body and controls. 
Panasonic Lumix GH4 lenses. The Lumix GH4, like all Panasonic G-series cameras, is based on the Micro Four Thirds standard co-developed by Olympus and Panasonic, which means it can use any lens designed for this system.
Panasonic Lumix GH4 viewfinder and screen. The Lumix GH4 employs 100% electronic live-view composition and is equipped with a large viewfinder and a 3in screen which tilts vertically.

Additional suggestion: In order to make two camera videos be more compatible with most software for editing or play on PC. We here also offer you a professional converter for you ! Pavtube HD Video Converter for Mac.

To some editing systems :FCP, Avid and Premiere.
To some devices: Windows PC or Tablets

More:
Import 4K MXF Recordings to Final Cut Pro X
Ways to Load XDCAM MXF Files to Avid Media Composer

Two Efficient Ways to Load Sony XDCAM MXF Files to Avid Media Composer

Can’t find a way of loading Sony XDCAM MXF files in Avid Media Composer for editing? Here we may tell you some efficient solutions.

 

From a Sony user ‘I can view the footage fine on a normal browser but cannot find a way to get the mxf into avid and I have not found anything on the forums here and am confused by the mass of info on the web. Could anyone post me to offer me a solution.Thanks a lot!’

As non-active video files to Avid Media Composer, we all know that it can’t be worked well. Cause the professional editing software, it has its own best supported format—DNxHD MOV. If you want to edit your mxf files in Avid, you should do some changes of your original footage. Do you agree that? So now we just got the problem is how to convert mxf files to mov that supported by Avid. Surely, you’re right, a kind of MXF plug-in we can take as a helper, and anything else? Yes! Also, we can use Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate to transcode our format. Both of these methods are offered for you here.

Method 1. Sony XDCAM MXF Plug-in.

At first, Using the Sony XDCAM EX Clip Browser software, select a memory card or drive where the EX media is stored. The clips load and I can play them in the viewer. Decide on the clips to use in the Media Composer and select File, Export, MXF. Choose a location for the files and click Start. The clips are quickly rewrapped as MXF files, like the files from an XDCAM™ HD camera.

For the second, Now in the Media Composer, select File, Import. The import box opens. Navigate to the folder where the MXF files are and select them. The files are added to the Media Composer very quickly, because they aren’t actually being imported. Instead, the clip information is being created in the bin and the media is being copied to the Avid media files folder. Once the clips are in, I’m ready to edit and combine them with other clips in my project. And that’s how you use media from an XDCAM EX camera with the Avid Media Composer.

Comparing to this method above, we all can see a big bug that it only be used with Media Composer 3.0 / NewsCutter 7.0 and it is a bit more expensive for common people. Maybe the following method would be better.

Method 2. Professional MXF converter. 

A tool can help you convert Sony MXF files to DNxHD MOV format for editing smoothly in Avid Media Composer. There is also a discount here if you want to buy.

Step 1.Load your Sony MXF files and preview in the window to make a sure.

 

Step 2. Choose correct format as ‘Avid Media Composer>>DNxHD (*.mov)



Step 3. More ‘Settings’ for you, just click the button.

 

Finally, don’t forget to click’ Convert’ to wait for your output videos .

In all, you can take a try of both methods above we mentioned, Please leave some comments if you want. Wish you enjoy a good day!

Other guides:

• Why Avid DNxHD MXF Not Loaded to FCP X?
• Convert MXF files to MKV/AVI/MOV/MP4/MPEG/WMV/FLV on Windows/Mac

 

Two Ways of Importing Premiere Pro CC DNxHD MXF Files to Avid Media Composer

 Wanna some tips of loading Premiere Pro DNxHD MXF files to Avid Media Composer? Here are two pieces of suggestions for you, just follow my steps.

As professional editors, we all have a knowledge of how to edit different video files in compatible editing software. But sometimes we got some issues in transcoding different  video formats. Just as you see below:’ After editing my MXF video files in Premiere Pro CC, Why I failed to import them to Avid Media Composer for further editing?’ 

 

For more editing functions you like in Avid, here offers you two main way to import MXF files from Premiere Pro to Avid Media Composer. MXF AMA Plug-in and Pavtube MXF MultiMixer/iMixMXF.

Method 1. Avid Plug-in for you---Avid Op1a MXF AMA Plug-in.

1.Download Avid’s Op1a MXF AMA plug-in. Media Composer 7 may already include this plugin.


2.Once installed, load your Premiere MXF files via AMA into a project bin in Media Composer.

3.When all files are loaded, select them, right click, and select consolidate.

4.The consolidation process will copy/consolidate your Premiere MXF files into proper Avid MXF files within Avid’s MediaFiles folder, as well as give you the option to delete your Premiere MXF files if you plan on a permanent hand off.

Method 2. iMixMXF---a professional MXF video converter for you. Not only be compatible with Avid Media Composer, but also for some other editors like FCP,iMovie. Additional Steps of starting using are here for you:

Step 1.Download MXF converter correctly and import your DNxHD MXF files.

 

Step2.Choose output format ‘Avid Media Composer’>>’Avid DNxHD(*.mov)’.

 

Step 3. A ‘Settings’ button also offered for you.

 

At last just ‘Convert’ to make it work.

Frankly speaking, comparing with two methods above, you’ll find the plug-in above will be limited by our updated system. On the other hand, MXF video converter has a better stability. How do you think?

More:
Make Avid DNxHD MXF Load to DaVinci Resolve Possible

Get Apple ProRes Encoded on Windows PC by Redcine X Pro and FFMPEG

If you run a Windows system like most users do, you must have trouble in encoding Apple ProRes on Windows PC. Now you can read the following article for a help.

As a Windows system user, we can’t avoid receiving some edited Apple ProRes codec videos from FCP --- a professional editor produced by Apple Company. In fact, we all know that Windows PC can’t accept these types of videos, they are incompatible with each other. So what should we do to encode Apple ProRes on Windows PC?

 

Today, I’ve found an alternative workflow that is semi-automated and cheap using FFMPEG---This is a command line encoder and decoder for many video formats including ProRes (or more specifically, a version called FFMBC with extra features for broadcast formats) and a neat Python script to bridge it with Redcine X Pro, or any other batch media encoder like Adobe Media Encoder or Sorrenson Squeeze. 

If you want to transcode multiple files without supervision, or at least minimal supervision, maybe it’s a good choice for you.

Step 1. Download the RedToProRes. Open it up in Komodo Edit and look at the settings area. You’ll need to edit this gingerly. Do not remove the r or the single quotes, but edit your path to FFMBC. What follows is mostly command switches for FFMBC: 16 threads is acceptable on a quadcore machine, the input which is filled in automatically, the ProRes codec and profile .You can encode Proxy, LT, Standard, HQ, and 4444.

Step 2. Install Blackmagic Design’s 10bit Quicktime codec

Step 3. Open Redcine X Pro and create the following export preset with these compression settings.

 

Step 4. Start your batch, then double-click on the Python script

 

Step 5. After the encoding is finished, create an export preset in Redcine X Pro with the file format Avid AAF & MXF. Click Setup and select ALE Only and ignore the codec quality. Process the same batch of files in the previous step. 

 

Step 6. Open QtChange and on the left click Source Folder. Find the folder containing your ProRes files. Next click Use ALE Data and load the ALE file we created in the previous step .Then that’s are all set!

 

Additional Notes: Although this two encoders are free and able to encode Apple ProRes on Windows PC, there are still some advantages we need to pay attention to:

1. The operation of encoding codec is complex for our primary users.
2. This two encoders’ version can’t be always compatible with update of our Windows system so we can’t ensure it can work all the time.
3. Safety is not guaranteed, right?

Here we also recommend you another Apple ProRes for Mac called Pavtube Mac HD Video Converter. Some basic steps are also offered for you here. If you want know more abot various kinds of video formats converted to Apple ProRes by this Mac Video Converter, such as MXF, MTS, MP4,MOV, etc. Other items maybe you don't know:

1. Some simple editing you can also do here:'Trim''Crop''Subtitle'etc. 

2.'Settings' button also offered for your output format.

  

Some related guides:

• Apple ProRes Specifications
• Working with Apple ProRes Codecs
• Edit 2014 World Cup MXF recordings in FCP X  
• Work with Sony F55/F5 XAVC in FCP/iMovie/Premiere/Avid MC