I've been approached by a Director to cut a film which he will be shooting on location in italy (im in UK) he will filming with the new EX1 camera at 1920x1080 35Mb for asthetic reasons. From what I've read the newest version of MC soft allows direct import of this, which I was going to upgrade to anyway, so that's great !

Here comes the problem, he wishes to log the footage in italy and send bins over to me to start editing with the material which will be backed up as data on DVD-roms per week - 15 hours in total. He has a copy of FCP which apparently pulls in the footage with no problem. What would be the best workflow to make all this happen ? Can I use automatic duck  to convert his bins - how would I match up the media ? or should we convert the raw files to QT and look out an old copy of Xpress to give him if that makes bin compatability more easier

I'm used to working with physical mediums (Digi, DVCAM, etc...) and I can't quite get my head round this as I can see converting from raw EX files to QT and losing the TC and ending up having to eye match things and I havent seen the sony software in person - which apprently allows to converting to various other cross-platform formats - any help would be grately appreciated !

Final delivery is SD on digibeta. My setup is Certified Dell, Avid MC Soft & Mojo SDI.

Hi,

XDCAM EX 35Mbit is not supported it the current released versions. Support is planned for a release during the summer. So for a start, i guess it depends on when you are to do the job?!

If you do a search for XDCAM EX in these forums you'll find some workarounds, on how to use the material on the current versions of the software (it's not impossible, but time consuming)

A workflow suggestion:

If he does the conversion to QT (DNxHD), import the files in an Avid and logs the footage, he can just send you the same QT files as he's imported along with a bin. You can then do a batch-import of the files.

Cheers,

Kim

I don't currently work with XDCAM, I will before the end of the year.  If the only thing the director is doing is logging you would be better off using Sony's clip browser software - it should keep all the metadata intact.  The Sony clip browser apps are free downloads.

Here's a starting point:

http://www.sony.ca/xdcamex/software.htm

Also, stay on top of the Sony site for updates.

kh.edit:

XDCAM EX 35Mbit is not supported it the current released versions. Support is planned for a release during the summer. So for a start, i guess it depends on when you are to do the job?!

 I believe that was true before the most recent release of Avid Xpress Pro and MC soft.

The current release of AXP and MC Soft do support XDCAM EX and at full 35mbps. Please check out this thread:

Where is 35 mbps support for Sony EX1

However, I would think that an upgrade to MC3 would be great anyway, once available.

As for the problem in hand, I am wondering if it would be easier to use the Sony Clip Browser software on both yours and the director's machines and bypass FCP unless he is going to cut a little. He can send a copy of the original files to you in tact. Then you'll use the Sony Clip Browser software to import the footage untouched.

Visit this link to learn more about Sony's Clip Browser Software

Hope that helps.

Hi guys,

Spot on ! Thanks for the advice !

Puddy:

 

kh.edit:

XDCAM EX 35Mbit is not supported it the current released versions. Support is planned for a release during the summer. So for a start, i guess it depends on when you are to do the job?!

 I believe that was true before the most recent release of Avid Xpress Pro and MC soft.

The current release of AXP and MC Soft do support XDCAM EX and at full 35mbps. Please check out this thread:

Where is 35 mbps support for Sony EX1

However, I would think that an upgrade to MC3 would be great anyway, once available.

As for the problem in hand, I am wondering if it would be easier to use the Sony Clip Browser software on both yours and the director's machines and bypass FCP unless he is going to cut a little. He can send a copy of the original files to you in tact. Then you'll use the Sony Clip Browser software to import the footage untouched.

Visit this link to learn more about Sony's Clip Browser Software

Hope that helps.

I had read that too, has anyone tried/seen this using their own fingers, eyes, and your own footage ? I've got xpress pro so was just hoping I can do the MC upgrade to take advantage of this...

In terms of using the sony clip browser I haven't got raw test footage just an exported QT file which won't import. As I dont have anything to test the approach you suggest of using the raw footage from the cam, etc... (although I will try and get some direct from the camera). How does this work? -  does it create a project which reference of his log notes to the raw footage - how would I then export these to something that avid can read and I can use, like clips ?

kh.edit:

Hi,

XDCAM EX 35Mbit is not supported it the current released versions. Support is planned for a release during the summer. So for a start, i guess it depends on when you are to do the job?!

If you do a search for XDCAM EX in these forums you'll find some workarounds, on how to use the material on the current versions of the software (it's not impossible, but time consuming)

A workflow suggestion:

If he does the conversion to QT (DNxHD), import the files in an Avid and logs the footage, he can just send you the same QT files as he's imported along with a bin. You can then do a batch-import of the files.

Cheers,

Kim

In terms of doing a DNxHD export is that possible straight from sony's clip browser ? and also will the mojo SDI do a downcovert of DNxHD to SD on the fly ?

Thanks again everyone !

Cheers,
Al.

We demo'd an EX 1 a week or so ago, and shot 1920 x 1080 35mb. I was able to import the clips into our Adrenaline running 2.8.3, but was unable to get smooth full screen playback without transcoding them to DNxHD. We've since returned the camera, but will be purchasing one soon, so hoping that either 3.0 will smooth the EX1 process, or that I had made a operator error, and that the footage is able to be used without the lenghty transcode... which is a very good chance, since I was hurried and didn't do much research

the Images once transcoded are amazing though.. our 2 day test was enough to convince us we had to have one

Glenn

Hello,

How's the weather in the Scotland? Shot some fantastic scenary there last Christmas. Love the area around Callendar.

First of all, please note that I'm an armchair techie on the XDCAM EX format as I am going to acquire a PMW-EX3 when available and so don't have first hand experience, but I'll tell you what I know to the best of my readup knowledge.

The Sony Clip browser software is easy to use. You'll have your footage loaded up and on a menu you can wrap it as an mxf. (There was a video demo on the Avid website I saw but cannot find it) today. After wrapping it you can import it into Avid, and it's done.

I saw last night on the sony.co.uk website that there is a proxy media browser now available, I think for Vista. The page is actually for the PMW-EX3 camera, but scroll to the bottom in the right hand column the software is listed. Here's the link.

Someone who is becoming well-known about his EX kit is Philip Bloom. His website is a wealth of information and he does have Media Composer but I think he uses FCP most of the time. Check it out, some great video clips that will blow you away. (It did me).

Also there are two forums for the EX 1 (and EX stuff in general): dvinfo.net and dvxuser.com

Those resources should be a great help and perhaps posting on those two forums will open you up to more people playing with the EX format.

Hope that preps you more for your project and enjoy watching Philip's work, if you've got time. Actually, I think he uploads the original files too as 720p so you may be able to get hold of some and play. Just explore his website.

Have a nice weekend.

J.

Hey Puddy!
Weather is lovely at the moment, the sun has been out for the last few days (that'll be our spring/summer I guess) ! It's raining tonight now, It will be snowing next ! ;)

Philip's stuff is excellent, thanks for the link ! Here is a link to the video demo that you were talking about or one like it that I found from youtube...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Eo7Bw0gObrg

It looks pretty straightforward for me but I'll need to see what I do for the director to log on, perhaps use the clip browser as said, looks like I will really need to recce all this with things in front of me...

Best!
Al. 

Here is what you should do:

Background: MC Soft 2.8.3 supports XDCAM HD EX HQ (35mbit/s VBR) if it is rewrapped to MXF with Sony Clip Browser 1.1.

First of all. Dont let the director get anywhere near the original disc. Make a back-up of the disc and put it away in a dark safe place. This is ten times as important since this is your first tape-less project. If you *** up, you can go back to this disc.

Secondly. Make the director sit down with the copy of the disc and install Sony Clip Browser (latest version today is 1.1 but 2.0 is on its way). From this program the director can view all the mp4:s in a small window with timecode. BUT BEWARE. If he accidentally presses delete he can very easily delete the media from the disc. So when director have logged and send you the disc you Must compare the number of Mbytes on this disc to the one in a dark safe place. If it has less Mbytes on it someone have messed up and you should make a new copy.

At this stageg you should have the directors document with log and TC and a copy of the media disc. Open the disc in Sony Clip Browser. (If you have time make a copy of the disc first to play around with it without beeing afraid of making mistakes). Rewrap all the MP4:s found in the highest level subfolders to MXF and store them both on your internal drive and on an external drive (I always play it ultra safe when I am working with a new format). Import the MXF to Avid. Edit.

If you need to export to eg. Color Grading you can consolidate the media.

Good Luck

MojoJojo

Malmö, Sweden

First of all http://community.avid.com/forums/t/58600.aspx

regarding FCP importing the footage: I went thru the procedure and it's not that easy, the Sony clip browser is Windows only, in Mac You'll have to convert the footage using third party (free!) software, it's well documented however, google is Your friend, make sure to use some codec that is supported on both FCP and Avid, You may use the Render or the Scratch folder from FCP (depending by the route You choose to go from the different choices of workflow available for FCP) to import the files directly into Avid, again double check FCP is set to render with an Avid compatible codec; all that said I am not sure what will happen with metadata (especially TC); by the way, the weather is nasty in Italy. Good luck and please let us know how did You manage to mix FCP and Avid.

Commments on above post:

True. Sony XDAM EX Clip Browser does not support rewrapping to MXF on Mac. But you can simulate Windows on a Mac and run it from within it. ( I cant remember what Apple calls this ).

If you for some reason will import your footage into FCP here is a tip. QT from mac is not available for PC but PC QT is available on MAC. This means that you can install Avids LE Codec back on a mac to export. I am not sure this will help you. But the workflow I posted above does not include FCP.

You can install Windows on a dedicated partition of the internal drive of the Mac and boot to it, do the conversion to MXF there, park the files on an external Mac formatted drive using MacDrive to access such disk, reboot the Mac in OSX but after all this complicate procedure FCP won't import the MXF files! Tested on FC Studio 6 a while ago, perhaps a recent update or installing the Avid codecs may fix this. Also if the director wishes to work on location with FCP You can't force him to deal with Windows, not to mention that Mac addicts are not that computer literate and hostile to using Windows. So this is it, google search for/download/install ff2mpeg, mencoder, mplayer, those are excellent open source programs born on linux and ported to both Windows and Mac, download ff2mpegX, a Mac gui for the command line programs mentioned above, run it and convert to a format that both Avid and FC are compatible with, the software has a lot of options and transcodes to plenty of formats (I wish there was a gui for Windows too) so You'll have to run a few tests to find the proper workflow (I used it to merely import in FC with no need to be Avid compatible and therefore I do not have a recipe to output a crossplatform file, but it can be done) import in FC and do Your things; up to this stage it's been tested and it works, from now on it's my best guess so do not take it as gospel: use Automatic Duck to transfer the bins from FC to Avid and batch import those very same files. Search the forum for Automatic Duck or try to enquire in the Mac side of the Avid forums as there are people over there who are used to deal with FC/Avid issues.

MojoJojo, sorry I just realized that I wrote "First of all" at the beginning of my first post; I did not mean to quote You being sarchastic, it's been a coincidence.