Following advice passed on from Sony (by Obi Lidobe/Ejukene), I installed latest Mac versions of Sony XDCAM support software [from www.sonybiz.net/EX under Tools/Downloads], namely:
- Final Cut Pro XDCAM Transfer v2.9.0
- Clipbrowser v2.5
- SxS Device Driver
- XDCAM EX Log&Transfer Utility v1.0
- This set of items presumably constitutes the “separate plug‑in from Sony … required to enable (the XDCAM EX) features”.
Tried using FCP to see if the new XDCAM EX features are now available:
- FCP: FCP >Easy Setup: The nearest obvious template was “XDCAM HD”. But does that cover “XDCAM EX” or only their older optical disk based XDCAM ?
- FCP: File > Import > Sony XDCAM Transfer
- Transfer: required setup of cache folders etc. Default was on personal area of Mac HD. Chose instead to put it on my RAID: [/App-Specific/Sony XDCAM Transfer], with subfolders /Cache, /Import, /Export Scratch. Can change these later on under [Sony XDCAM Transfer > Settings]
- Transfer: File > Add Sources. Can select multiple files. Can access NTFS-captured files in original Sony (BPAV) folder structure. Automatically queues job to build thumbnails (only does that, doesn’t convert the files to anything yet).
- Transfer: Thumbnails appear. Can multi-select them.
- Do [Transfer: (Files) > (RtClk) > Import]. This generates equivalent QuickTime (“.mov”) files to the Import folder you specified earlier under Settings. QUESTION: Does one have to define such settings individually for each project? How best to organize their location? The size of this equivalent file is almost identical to that of the original “.mp4” file (in the EX’s BPAV folder). Presumably it is the same codec (data), just re-wrapped. QUESTION: Would it be better to import them to ProRes (since this – unlike the XDCAM EX format – is a non-GoP format)?
- Incidentally, the [Transfer: (File) > (RtClk) > Export Clips to Folder] option generates equivalent “.mxf” files, again broadly the same size, prompting for the destination folder. QUESTION: Is this intended for foreign NLE’s such as Avid or Vegas rather than FCP? Is it “export” in the sense of “from FCP to outside world”?
- As a result of the [Transfer: …Import] operation, “.mov” files exist in the Import folder (as defined in Settings) and also they are listed in FCP’s Browser (top-left pane).
- FCP: Drag one of these files to Timeline. Prompts: “Not the same format – change?”. Say YES. So I guess my doubts about the appropriateness of the HDCAM HD template were justified. QUESTION: What format is it now then?
- FCP: (Sequence) > (RtClk) > Properties: 50fps, 1280×720, Compresor = (XDCAM EX 720p50 (35 Mb/s VBR) ). QUESTION: Does that imply that when the Sequence is rendered (as in getting rid of the “Needs Rendering” red line), it is rendered to this same format? QUESTION: To reduce generational losses (in this highly compressed format), would I be better off setting this to be ProRes, and if so then what format? Presumably if the original clips had been imported to ProRes, I would have been automatically prompted for that Sequence setting when I dragged those imports onto the Timeline (from FCP Browser).
- Also presumably the ProRes approach would benefit external (to the FCS system) workflows e.g. enhancement in VirtualDub (via the Windows read-only version of the ProRes codec, just a “Dec”oder). In that scenario, the external Windows app would have to write to some other broadly equivalent format such as Cineform. Is there a Cineform decoder for Mac? If I had it, would the [FCP: File > Import] or some other way be able to import (convert to FCP-friendly format) that format? Not just a case of re-wrapping but re-compression. Would I have to use Compressor in principle – and is it capable of it in practice?