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Friday, March 11, 2016

H.265 & FCP X: HEVC/H.265 to ProRes for FCP X on Mac

HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding, sometimes called H.265) is not new video compression format or people, and is the successor of H.264. It could offers 50-75% more compression efficiency compared to H.264 video, while retaining the same visual quality.

"I heard that Apple issued a new update support for H 265 codec for FCP X. But why my newly updated FCP X can not support H.265 videos? How can I open H.265 videos in FCP X without any issue? Is anyone here know the efficient workflow?"

Recently on the forums there are many users have encountered the HEVC H.265 to FCP X importing and editing programs, most of them can’t load recorded HEVC H.265 videos to Final Cut Pro X, and they don’t know the effective way to solve this issue. 

As we know, not all the video formats are well supported by final cut pro X, from FCP X official product page you will know that the native supported format of FCP X is Apple ProRes codec MOV format, the other formats will not be natively supported by FCP X.

Just as showed above, in order to import HEVC/H.265 to FCP X, you will need to convert HEVC/H.265 to Apple ProRes codec MOV which is FCP X supported format. Pavtube Video Converter for Mac(best H.265 converter for Mac Review) has pre-set FCP X compatible format such as ProRes 422, ProRes 422 HQ, ProRes Proxy, ProRes 422 LT, ProRes 4444, it able to provide most reliable and professional H.265 solutions to FCP X issues.

In general, it provides hundreds of output format presets, besides Apple ProRes for FCP, it also provide DNxHD for Avid, MPEG-2 for Adobe Premiere, AIC for iMovie .etc. Apart from H.265, this ideal converter is also available to deal with other video formats including MTS, MXF, MOV, XAVC, MKV, AVI .etc.

The trail-before-purchase is supported, just feel free to try it:

          

The following two suggestions may be of some help to you:
  • When converting video to Final Cut Pro oriented format templates(e.g. Apple Prores), please ensure that your computer has Final Cut Pro installed, otherwise the converted files will have audio only without image.
  • If you are using FCP X, please make sure you have installed ProApps QuickTime Codecs, or you may get files with sound only without video.
How to Get H.265 Supported in Final Cut Pro X

Step 1: Add H.265 footage to the program.

Launch the software on your Mac computer, click "File" menu, select "Add Video/Audio" or "Add from folder" to import H.265 footage to the program.



Step 2: Choose output format.

Click "Format" bar, from its drop-down options, move your mouse to "Final Cut Pro > Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov)" to select it as the output file format.



Read the difference of ProRes. 

• Apple ProRes 422 – Higher quality than Apple ProRes 422 (LT); 
• Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) – Keep original video quality for editing in FCP X; 
• Apple ProRes 422 (LT) – Get a smaller file sizes than Apple ProRes 422; 
• Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy) – SD levels – 480i/p and 576i/p. Used in offline workflows. 
• Apple ProRes 4444 – Edit and finish 4:4:4 material. 

Actually, different Apple ProRes codec corresponds to different needs. Here you can refer to this article "Differences among Apple ProRes codec". 

Step 3: Customize output ProRes parameters.

Open "Profile Settings" window to adjust the output video codec, size, bit rate, frame rate, audio codec, sample rate, bit rate and channels.



Step 4: Convert H.265 Video to FCP X.

Hit the convert button under the preview windows, the program will start H.265 footage to Apple ProRes MOV conversion for Final Cut Pro X.

When the conversion is completed, run FCP X and import the ProRes codec footage for post production workflow.

If you are running on Windows,for other windows NLEs please get Pavtube Video Converter.

Also see:

Many companies have already begun to use HEVC for streaming 4K content:

Netflix has begun to use HEVC to stream 4K content to few 4K TVs equipped to decode HEVC. Leading television manufacturer like LG, Samsung, Sony, Vizio, Panasonic and Toshiba will manufacture TVs with HEVC support and those TVs will be able to stream 4K content.

Amazon has amalgamated with few other studios like Warner Bros, Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox and Discovery for streaming 4K content using HEVC.

Streaming service M-go has also announced the same via an app for Samsung TVs.

Some smartphone like Sony Xperia Z2 has included HEVC support to shoot 4K video.

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