xdcam and Apple FCP
 

Can anyone confirm that FCP 5/6 works properly with xdcam-ex?
Downloaded Sony's Xdcam transfer 2.1 and as of yet have been unable to
get footage into FCP and the transfer program itself.
Can view the footage in the clip browser though, and also VLC.

It works fine with FCP6, no problems at all.

Paul.

My situation is same as Jan's. Something about the MP4s people have uploaded from the EX1 are NOT working with any of us FCP 6.0.2 users. Works in Clip Browser but will not import into FCP 6.0.2 with xfer 2.1

Paul, please explain what you are doing to actually get it to work on your FCP system so it can help other people in the community? We all are probably using the same downloaded files for this test since there has not been much footage from this camera posted as of date. I also assume we all are using the latest FCP version.

Gary

I was also unable to use any of the stuff posted before on this website. But I got the camera and now it works like champ.

I am using XDcam Transfer 2.1 and FCP 6.0.2

I will post a disk image of an actual card so you can mount it and play with the transfer software.

Just know that XDCAM Transfer 2.1 is NOT compatible with Leopard. Don't know if this is why some are having success while others are not.

-gb-

I've tried importing the uploaded files on my Tiger 10.4.11, FCP6.0.2 with xfer 2.1 and still can't get it to work.

The reason why this is important is that some of us may actually have to hand off files to an editor and we really need to know what to do to properly package the files. Apparently the MP4s with ClipBrowser is not sufficient.

Alright

www.thevideodepartment.net/EX1/BPAV.zip

Download file
Unzip file to desktop
Launch Xdcam Transfer 2.1
Click Add button lower left hand corner
Browse to the desktop (it will not allow you to select the BAV folder. That is fine)
Add desktop
The Transfer program should scan for and add the clip.

Mess with the settings. Sometimes I have to add an in point to the front of a clip before it will import.

It is a 15 sec clip of me with a backfocus chart and a colorchip chart.

This is a good example of the Auto focus. I had it on autofocus with peaking on and I waited to flip the chart until I saw the peaking go on and stay solid.

It WORKED! Thanks Chris!

After unzipping I opened FCP 6.0.2 on my Dual 2.3G5. Opened Import/XDCAM and used ADD to point to the desktop. It showed that Desktop had 1 clip. I was able to import that 1 clip without issue.

I went back to the clips that I had downloaded and I still couldn't figure them out.

Thanks for the download. I tried a couple of things with it.

it worked in my EX Clip Browser but the XDCAM transfer still can't read the BPAV folder.

Maybe b/c I still have FCP 5.1.4. Guess I need to upgrade!

I'm getting an EX hopefully this week. More to come then.

Running Macbook Pro 2.2 with Tiger

Yes, sorry I've heard EX1 is for 6.0.2 and up only.

Thanks Chris, worked perfectly!

I made a similar zip file as Chris. It has all formats but one since one 24p format didn't want to work in frame rec mode.

Its for testing the browser software and has the complete card structure also.

ex.bolanski.com

I've tried it on Leopard and it works fine. The only thing that doesn't seem to work is that XDCAM devices don't appear on the desktop.

The issue here is that for some reason with EX footage you can't import MP4's from the EX unless they come straight from the card. Although the guys above seem to have found a workaround.

That's one of the issues. The installer dialog warns of incompatibility with Leopard. I was beta testing 2.1 for about 3 weeks prior to release and it was good to go under Tiger. I'm running it now under Leopard. It doesn't correctly read the volume name assigned to the disc either.

-gb-

Rather an oversight given how close its release was alongside Leopard.

They need to add an export back to XDcAM disc too, and a duplicate XDCAM disc option for transferring between devices. This Mac incarnation is still lagging way behind the capabilities of the PC version.

Sorry wrong post.

Unzip file to desktop
Launch Xdcam Transfer 2.1
Click Add button lower left hand corner
Browse to the desktop (it will not allow you to select the BAV folder. That is fine)
Add desktop
The Transfer program should scan for and add the clip.


that method worked for me too. thanks.

vince

(Thanks for this thread)

This method worked good for me to.. just point the Transfer program to the 'parent' directory of the BPAV file.

It isn't fully compatible but I have got it to work fine, apart from the XDCAM disc names are incorrect. EX works a treat

Me too. I just felt it prudent to warn folks about potential issues that may crop up on top of what we already know. In all fairness, I am only using it with my XDCAM HD disc material, not the EX card based stuff. Having gone to the trouble to name all my discs for proper data management, I feel the disc name recognition issue is a problem for me personally.

-gb-

Sorry I didn't get back to you on this, I seem to have missed the thread since my first post.

I didn't see any issues with the two cards mounting on my desktop when connecting the camera, they appear automatically as soon as the camera is plugged in, turned on and USB mode executed.

Importing the footage from the cards is really easy in FCP. You just create a new project, then from the import menu choose Sony XDCAM... and then the Sony XDCAM Transfer app launches showing the two cards in the left panel and all of the clips in the main window. I didn't do any in-point or out-point marking at that stage, I simply selected the clips I wanted and pressed import.

After that the files import in to whichever bin you have selected to receive logged clips.

There were a couple of things I noticed...

Firstly, imported clips were transfered to my Movies folder and not the scratch disk defined in final cut - I didn't check to find if this is definable, I expect it must be.

Secondly, after importing clips into a bin in FCP, if I tried to go through the clips in the browser by double clicking them to view them in the viewer window a weird behavior starts to happen with the way the files are highlighted in the browser, it's almost as though the browser highlights the file above the one you clicked by mistake.

Lastly, like any other mass storage device you have to drag th drives to the trash before disconnecting the camera. This can be a bit of a pain as you have to do both drives. I did disconnect the camera once without doing so and the next time I tried to record some footage the camera asked me to 'repair' both of the sxs cards. The repair process was very fast though and all of the clips remained intact.

Paul