I am not sure if this is right place since it involves both Mac and PC.
My colleague capture the concert footage in FCP that we shot together.
He moved the quicktime files to my hard drive and by using NTFS for Mac, I put footages to my hard drive and trying to use that in my PC using Adobe Preimere Pro CS3.
I can't even play the footage in normal quicktime, it says I am missing a codec and leads me to apple website, but I don't know which codec is missing!
Please help me on this. I am trying to build my demo and I really need to use this footage as soon as possible.
Thank you so much ahead.

sincerely

JJ

EDIT: It was shot by Canon XH-A1 in HDV24P mode. When I looked up the info of the file, it said HDV1080i24P.

No easy solution. Either you open on the Mac and re-export everything to ProRes or Animation codec, then move over to the PC. Or you re-capture the original tapes on a PC.

Noah

I'm not sure if you can use HDV quicktime files on pc. What should work is asking your colleague to convert the HDV quicktime files to ProRes quicktime files.
Apple released a windows playback codec for ProRes a couple of weeks ago. You can download it from their website.

Winfried

My partner and I had the same problem with cross-compatibility.
I would recommend the cineform codecs as that really fits into our work flow and we can now exchange files with no problem.

Thank you so much for your advices.
Noah & Winfried : My wife has a Macbook and I can watch no problem there. Is it possible to change on hers at all? Her Mac does not have FinalCut, though... Is Final Cut only way to change the format of the media? I used iDVD to make DVD, but can't be ripped to my PC because, again, is says I am missing codec.
Thanks again.

JJ

To re-encode you need the ProRes encoding codec. That is installed (only) with Final Cut. Once that codec is installed, you can convert in Compressor (or in Final Cut, or even in QuickTime player....).

I know this isn't exactly what you're asking, but I think the answer is to use m2t files from the very beginning. Capture using something like HDV split which will get the original transport stream off the tape. From there you can 'convert' to .mov for FCP (using MPEG streamclip or HDVxDV) or leave them in m2t for Vegas or Premiere.

I have read that Sony released a plugin so m2t files can be used in FCP, but I haven't tried it.

As far as I've found, the 'native' m2t format requires the least amount of converting back and forth. Personally, capturing an HDV tape to a Quicktime .mov, then converting .mov files to ProRes422 and then converting to some .avi format doesn't seem like the straightest road to travel. If m2t is all of the information right off the tape, it would be nice if there was some way to use it in any NLE without all the re-encoding.

This is interesting. There's a relatively new program called ClipWrap which will 'wrap' the m2t files in a QT wrapper and allow them to be used in FCP. ClipWrap (http://www.clipwrap.com/)

This is long overdue. I'm still not sure it solves your current problem, which is trying to get the quicktime files you've already captured to work in a PC environment, but ClipWrap seems like a step in the right direction overall because it allows you to use the m2t transport stream from the tape in FCP. With something like HDV that's already so compressed, I just don't like the idea of re-encoding into different formats multiple times. Beyond the hard drive space and time it requires, it just doesn't seem like a good idea to recompress an already very compressed set of images. With something like ClipWrap, it looks like you don't have to.

Everyone,

I truly appreciate all your help. I agree that changing the clip's format numerous time would surely decrease the quality of the footage...which I don't want it to happen.
I actually opened up iMovie HD and covert the clip to DV-NTSC format and it actually turned out OK. I didn't even know what it does until my wife read some manual for her MacBook and told me I should try that. When I opened up the application, I had no hope at that point, but it turned out to be the right solution.
Yeh~!

JJ

PS. didn't work. footage ended up having errors or all screwed up.. I am just gonna ask him to let me borrow the tapes for a day or two.. : (