Media Entertainment

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

XAVC to FCP 7: Sony FS7 XAVC File Structure and FCP 7 Workflow on Yosemite/Mavericks

Today’s lesson topic: Further understanding of Sony FS XAVC files and the best workflow to make FS7 XAVC recordings accepted by FCP 7 nicely on Yosemite/Mavericks.

Before we start the discussion topic in this page, let me give you the example to show you the related issues and cause why we need to convert our Sony FS7 XAVC to ProRes MOV as the easiest way to edit in FCP 7. In order to go through such similar issues, a professional XAVC to FCP 7 converting tool can be allowed in the following article. Let’s listen carefully.

Problems we may meet when importing Sony XAVC to FCP 7:
‘I have recorded some video clips with the Sony FS7 professional camcorder, the files are stored in XAVC format and with the resolution of 4096 * 2160, the videos are perfect, however, it seems pretty hard to edit such high definition videos on Mac FCP 7 for I cannot even open the files in the Final Cut Pro 7. It seems that XAVC files cannot be accepted by Adobe Premiere Pro, right? So any good suggestions? Thanks in advance’

Expand knowledge of Sony FS7 camcorder:
The PXW-FS7 XDCAM camera has an ergonomic grip design for easy handling and operability. The PXW-FS7 features a 4K Super 35mm Exmor CMOS sensor and support for shooting in 4K** 60p or Full HD at high frame rates up to 180 fps (frames per second). Selectable recording formats include XAVC, which supports 4K* 60p, Full HD 60p even in 4:2:2 10-bit recording, as well as the common MPEG-2 HD 422 format used by many broadcast stations around the world.

Pavtube XAVC to FCP Converter for Mac---Efficient way to edit our XAVC files in FCP 7.
To ensure users have the most comprehensive Ultra-HD 4K video editing experience, more and more video editing programs provide compatibility of XAVC and Sony itself also generates plug-ins. However, not all the plug-ins can be available with Sony XAVC footage to FCP. Here, have you heard of the Pavtube Video Converter for Mac, which is the professional that can handle all various videos in NELs for Mac users. Also, Windows version is offered here. Additionally, as soon as the upgraded windows version, this program can support the H.265/HEVC videos encode and decode nicely. Any interests in this H.265 encoder/decoder?

Details on how to convert Sony FS7 XAVC to ProRes MOV for FCP 7 on Yosemite/Mavericks:
Step 1:Import Sony XAVC files
Install and run the XAVC Video Converter on your Mac, then run it. Click on "Add", and browse your files; select all the XAVC files you wanna convert. If you want to combine all the files together for easy importing to FCP, please tick the box "Merge into one" on the main interface.

Step 2. Click on Format, and from the dropdown menu, here I recommend Final Cut Pro > Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov) as the output format. Then you can set the output folder as you want.

Notes: For other NELs? Such as iMovie, Adobe, FCE, Avid, etc? You just need to choose a proper video format like “iMovie and Final Cut Express -> Apple InterMediate Codec (AIC) (*.mov)” in the second step. For Avid Media Composer, choose “Avid Media Composer > Avid DNxHD(*.mov)” as output; For Adobe Premiere Pro, choose Adobe Premiere/Sony Vegas> MPEG-2(*.mpg) as output.

Step 3. Adjust Personal videos settings
Click the "Settings" button and customize proper video/audio parameters including Video size, bitrate and fame rate and mroe. Usually 1920*1080 video size and 30fps video frame rate are recommended for FCP editing. Well, if you prefer to work with 4K video, you can adjust video size to get 4K ProRes for FCP.

Finally, go back to the main interface, hit the ‘Convert’ button there, we easily start our conversion work. Next, transfer XVAC files to FCP 7 according to the ‘Open file’>>…’, we can enjoy our editing our files in FCP 7.

Related guides:

MP4 to FCP ǀ AVCHD to FCP ǀ MOV to FCP ǀ H.265 to FCP