Hello,

I searched the forum and could not find anything related to this.

I filmed a project awhile back on a rented Canon XH-A1. Now the client wants files of all the original footage. I have these all on my hard drive saved in the capture scratch folder. These files play in quicktime with no problem on my MBP. However, if I copy one of the capture scratch .mov files to another mac (without FCP installed), only the audio loads in quicktime. This is also true of playing them on a PC.

I do not want to put all these files onto a single timeline and render them because then they will be difficult for my client to work with. I cannot re-import them from the tapes because then I would have to rent the camera again.

What format are the capture scratch files in? It says .mov but these will not play the video (only plays the audio) on other computers with quicktime installed. This makes me think that there is some special codec I am missing/my client will need.

If it means anything, I captured in 1080 24 easysetup via firewire from the XH-A1 into my MBP via FCP studio 2.

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate your help!

Matt, FCP was not only installed as an app, the installer also wrote some code into your QT codec which allows FCP and the QT player to handle your HDV QT clips, that is to show the MPEG2-encoded video track of the clips on your screen.
Unfortunately there is not such thing (codec) anymore you might copy to your client's computer together with the clips from the capture scratch folder.

However there is help round the corner: Calibrated{Q} XD Decode (http://www.calibratedsoftware.com/XDDecodeQ.html), a decoder both for Mac and Win.
Please note: It does decode ONLY. But everyone on most any other PC can see the copies of your files and not only hear them.

Hope this helps P.

Another option is to do a batch export from FCP (without putting them in a timeline). Do a batch export and use the Photo JPEG codec. If these clips are for review only, you can set the quality to 75% (a good compromise point between quality and file size for this codec) and export them to a new folder, then run those off to the client.

Mike: What file type does Photo JPEG create? MPEG-2? (I always wondered about this codec but have never tried it)

We use Flip4Mac WMV Pro for sending files to clients for review. But it wouldn't work in this situation. Sounds like Mike has the best solution.

Mike: What file type does Photo JPEG create? MPEG-2? (I always wondered about this codec but have never tried it)

My understanding is that it is similar to MPEG-2, but different. The Photo JPEG codec is intraframe (like MPEG-2), but does not use interframe prediction (which MPEG-2 does use)... thus no GOPs. It is an improvement on the Motion JPEG codec. You can get a pretty decent image at smaller file sizes (depending on the tradeoff between quality and size), which makes it a great offline editing format (which is why it is the default codec for all FCP offline presets) as well as previews.

When our VFX artists are working on their shots, the leads and producer often want to preview them in context with the edit. The client provides the (usually locked) edit on tape, DVD or uploads to FTP and I will encode it to a QuickTime file using Photo JPEG at 75% quality. Then I can cut the VFX shots into the edit in either Final Cut Pro or FrameCycler for them to preview. Photo JPEG is also pretty common place, so the artists (on Linux machines) have no compatibility issues with viewing the edit on their machines either.

Photo JPEG is a lossy format, thus it is NOT a delivery codec. But for offlines, references and previews it is great.

the HDV codec is installed into mac HD/library/quicktime . if the HDV componets are present on a machine, it will play HDV. however, PPC and intel machines have different versions installed and they are not cross compatible.

if they have FCP, they can edit the raw HDV files. just copy the capture folder over to their drive, thats it.

however, handing off of raw material to a client is never a good sign for the most part. its pretty much the signal you are being cut out of the loop unless all you were hired to do was shoot. if that is not the case, I would tell them no, its not possible. either way it sounds like they are walking away anyway because they are unhappy about something.