System requirements for transfer
 

Do you need an intel-based Mac just to transfer the SxS cards to an external hard drive?

I ask cause a friend shoots footage on the west coast and needs to send it to her editor on the west coast, but cannot give up her memory cards since she needs to use them to shoot while editing is going on.

Her editor has a Mac Pro setup, but she only has an old Mac.

*she isn't editing the footage, only transferring it so that she can send an external hard drive to her editor.

I've used EX1 with G5 Mac and it works fine. XDCAM Transfer Tool works on G5 as well as Final Cut Pro 6.0.3.

You can copy the BPAV folder to hard drive "by hand" but DO NOT touch the contents of the BPAV.

Only the Sonly Clip Browser doesn't run on PPC Macs. Basically you don't have the ability to split a 16GB into 8GB folders if you want to archive on DL-DVD.

There's no reason why you couldn't copy the BPAV to external hard drive or DL-DVD to deliver to someone else. On Hard Drive do create/name a separate parent folder for each BPAV. If using DL-DVD on PPC Mac you'll probably have to limit yourself to 8GB cards since you can't split folders (done with Clip Browser). The other option is use XDCAM Transfer tool and rewrap to MOV and transport those however you'd like but the person using them MUST have FCP 6.0.2 or FCP 6.0.3 on Mac (G5 or Intel).

My EX1 works with Final Cut 5...Why?
 

Craig, I've seen this in other places on this forum and I'm puzzled. I have Final Cut 5.1.4. I've been editing some files the last couple of weeks that were switched live and recorded onto a PDW-1500 XDCAM Deck. Coincidentally it was during that time that I decided, partly from researching on this forum, to purchase an EX1. I was having no trouble bringing the XDCAM files into my Final Cut 5 and editing on them but, because I was reading that the EX1 was only compatible with Final Cut 6, I was anticipating having to upgrade once my camera arrived, thinking there must be some difference between the way the EX encodes its files from the PDW-1500 Deck.

I was still thinking this until about five minutes ago when I installed the XDCAM transfer software, imported some clips and loaded them into Final Cut 5. All of the XDCAM EX setting appear under Quick Time Settings in the Sequence Settings dialog. I've rendered and downsampled the XDCAM files (from the deck) to SD DVDs with decent, though not yet perfect results and I expect I will also be able to do so now with the files from my camera.

I'm actually very happy about this because it gives me some time before I have to upgrade to Studio. At this point, I'm inclined to wait until the next version (hopefully with BD support) since I currently have an educational version that isn't eligible for the upgrade price anyhow. I really wasn't looking forward to shelling out a grand, just to be able to edit my clips.

Am I missing something? Do I have the magic copy of Final Cut 5 that works when it shouldn't. I haven't worked with XDCAM files in Final Cut 6 so maybe I don't know what I'm missing. Any others able to work with their EX files in Final Cut 5?