From PC to FCP help needed
 

Just shot the project for the client on EX, asked the editor what format he needs, he told me MP4 if OK, I gave him MP4s straight from the BPAV he can't open it ;
I am PC, he's a MAC FCP, I burned DVDs on (naturally) PC, what's the right way?
many thanks!

You should not have taken the MP4's out of the BPAV folders. You need the entire BPAV folder and it's contents for FCP. Unless you have the original BPAV folders you will need to use the Clip Browser to recreate them by using the clip import function to import the MP4 files into a new BPAV folder.

The FCP editor will then need the Sony Transfer Tool software to import the clips into FCP. Once the transfer tool is installed from within FCP you go "File" "Import" "Sony XDCAM" to open the Transfer Tool and import the clips.

Buba, you have two choices. One approach is to give your client the entire BPAV folder(s) (using Clip Browser to make the copy) and then let them use the Sony XDCAM Transfer 2.9 to read the files on the Mac. Secondly, re-wrap the video from the BPAV folder(s) into .mov formats so the client can use the EX footage on their Mac video editing system. Cheers! Thanks Alister, you beat me to the reply :-)

FCP can use the mxf's as well, i've given my colleague mxf's plenty of times.
I'm on a pc, he's on a mac/fcp.

Paul.

How exactly do you this?
I´m curious as we always copy the BPAV folders between the PC and Mac. It would be great to get logged files directly

When i first had my EX1, i used to rewrap to mxf as i transfered, i use vegas so i have no need for the full bapv folder. Nowadays i transfer the whole bapv becuase that way i can give the client the whole bapv.

Anyway, back to the early days, i shoot weddings with my colleague, he uses mac/fcp, i use pc, so i used to import/rewrap at the same time from the card onto one of my external drives, then i used to just copy the mxf files onto my little usb portable hard drive and take it round his house, then he'd just plug it into the mac and copy/paste (or whatever mac people call it, sorry i'm not mac literate).
My colleague has since bought an EX1, he then discovered fcp doesn't need mxf, but that's the way we did it in the early days. Nowadays i just give him the sdhc card and collect it a few days later.

A hard drive formatted on a pc can be read on a mac, but not written to by a mac, so it's ok for taking footage off the hard drive, like we were doing.
A hard drive formatted on a mac cannot be read or written to by a pc.

Paul.

Thanks Paul. I was aware of the hard drive possibility as we have used them to transfer BPAV folders back and forth.
I didn´t know that I could use the MFX wraps so I will try this out with my colleague.

BIG thank you to everyone!

Format the hard drive using Fat32 and it can be read and written to by both Mac's and PC's. The only issue is the largest file you can have is 4Gb. However as the EX uses Fat32 so you won't get files over 4Gb from the camera.

MXF for NLE can be used for both FCP and PC's but it's a slightly odd format that can't be stuck on either an EX SxS card or a XDCAM ProDisc for playback. I prefer to keep things in a standard format that can be played back by some form of hardware.

Lets hope that one day we get a firmware update that allows us to record MXF's with our EX's.