I shot a bunch of HDV 1080i/30F footage on my Canon XH A1 for a client. They now want me to ingest all the footage into FCP and export out m2t files onto their hard drives that they mailed me. I shot this on tape not on a Firestore so the files aren't in native m2t, I'll have to convert them I guess.

They suggested using Cineform and the 14 day free trial through their website. Has anyone used this to do what I am referring to?

I'm just wondering the process of converting the files etc. BTW I am running FCP 5.1.4 and the latest QuickTime. THANKS!

Any update on this?

when you shoot in HDV with any camera, what you got on the tape is m2t.
i do not see why you should convert it.

The files need to be transfered from tape to a hard drive as M2t files.

I have not tried this yet but here is a thought. I used to edit with premiere and Cineform so I think I have this right. You should be able to capture this as you would in any HDV project in FCP. The you take the Self-contained mov's to the Hard drives that the client gave you and then on there side they import the files to the HDlink ( which handles Quicktime files now) and then convert them to the cineform codec. I am going to go and test this now. I still have my Premiere and Cineform box running. I will let you know if this works or not.

Sorry I ran a test and no luck on this simple fix. I would just run the 15 day trial and give your client the Cineform files. I think they would thank you in the long run.

My 2 Cents

Thanks for the reply

I downloaded the trial version, hoping this will work...

After DL - On my test exporting out QT the files show as Cineform HD/2k/4K

Not m2t

Giroud knows his stuff and is correct.
its already the way you want the files.
From what I could tell from my limited knowledge of HD,
Cineform is usually to be used as an intermediate codec
to aid in the transfer of hd footage to sd finished product.
If its the raw material they want on the hard drives capture the
footage in the normal way and throw the .m2t files onto them.
Let them worry about everything else.

Understood, But I am on a Mac and using Final Cut Pro Studio - I have no way of capturing and copying the original M2T files to the client hard drive.

The client (producer) asked to have these files transfered to their drives as per the contract. (maybe this point is moot by now, as I have not heard back)

Oh right. fair enough, D'oh.