Summary: These days I’ve been trying to figure out how to get VLC to recognize Canon/Panasonic/Sony MXF recordings, how to play MXF on VLC player, but there is no-go. Can anyone kindly shed some light on this issue?
Material Exchange Format (MXF) is an open-standard container or a wrapper format for digital audio and video media. There are many camcorders use MXF format, like Sony XDCAM series, Panasonic P2 series and Canon XF series. Unfortunately MXF is not an easy format to handle both on Windows and Mac.
VLC media player is the most successful free open source cross-platform multimedia player in Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols. There are still many people encountered problems when playing MXF with VLC.
“I am using VLC to play some MXF files on Mac. The files play fine but it seems I cannot seek. Whenever I try to click to a position on the scrollbar the video will freeze and jump to the beginning. I am wondering is this a known issue?”
If you tried to play MXF with VLC on Mac, you may probably run into the same situations as mentioned above because MXF is incompatible with VLC. To be able to make MXF files viewable on a Mac through VLC, you are suggested to transcode MXF to a format that is suitable for your VLC media player:
Container formats: 3GP, ASF, AVI, DVR-MS, FLV, Matroska, MIDI, QuickTime File Format, MP4, Ogg, OGM, WAV, MPEG-2 (ES, PS, TS, PVA, MP3), AIFF, Raw audio, Raw DV, MXF, VOB, RM, DVD-Video, VCD, SVCD, CD Audio, DVB
Video formats: Cinepak, Dirac, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, H.265/MPEG HEVC, HuffYUV, Indeo 3, MJPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, RealVideo 3&4, Sorenson, Theora, VC-1, VP5, VP6, VP8, VP9, DNxHD, ProRes and some WMV.
Audio formats: AAC, AC3, ALAC, AMR, DTS, DV Audio, XM, FLAC, It, MACE, Mod, Monkey's Audio, MP3, Opus, PLS, QCP, QDM2/QDMC, RealAudio, Speex, Screamtracker 3/S3M, TTA, Vorbis, WavPack, WMA (WMA 1/2, WMA 3 partially).
As shown above, you can convert MXF to H.264 MP4 for VLC smoothly playing. This requires third party software like Pavtube MXF Converter for Mac (review). With it, you can do the conversion work with fast speed and high quality preserved. If you are running on Windows operating system, you can refer to the equivalent version- Pavtube MXF Converter.
Other downloads:
AppStore Download: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pavtube-mxf-converter/id502807634?mt=12
Amazon Download: http://www.amazon.com/Pavtube-MXF-Converter-Mac-Download/dp/B00QID8K28
Cnet Download: http://download.cnet.com/Pavtube-MXF-Converter/3000-2194_4-76177789.html
Below is the simple guide about how to play Canon/Panasonic/Sony MXF on VLC Player:
Step 1: Backup your MXF files to hard drive. Install and launch the corresponding program. Drag and drop MXF files to the software. You can import multiple files at once thanks to “Add from folder” button.
Step 2: Click the drop-down list in the format line to get the format box. Then choose “HD Video>>H.264 HD Video (*.mp4)” as output format.
Step 3: You can adjust the parameters by clicking “Settings” button, choose the resolution, bitrate, frame rate and etc. as you want.
Step 4: You can preview to check the final result. Once you are satisfied with it, click the “Convert” button to start converting Canon/Panasonic/Sony MXF files to H.264 HD Video MP4 for playing on VLC player flawlessly. It will take you a little while.
Conclusion: Once the conversion process shows in 100%, click “Open” to get the output videos. Now, you can smoothly play Canon/Panasonic/Sony MXF on VLC player without any issues.
Further Reading:
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