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Filed under: Cameras •Post Production •

How to Edit Canon 5D Footage in FCP

Canon’s new 5D Mark II DSLR with 1080p video mojo has been showing up in the hands of new users for the past few days, and the footage is hitting Vimeo faster than you can say “What’s a Scarlet?” One of the most pressing questions by Mac users is how to edit the compressed HD footage, which is captured as Quicktime H.264 files at 38.6 Mbits/sec. Reports suggest that FCP can edit the footage natively, but playback is likely to be choppy. That being the case, FCP users are recommending transcoding the footage into ProRes 422, for realtime playback and editing. ProRes is several times the bitrate of the MPEG-4 source files, but it should solve the playback issues.

An alert reader dropped me a Tweet this evening however, and he’s got a great workflow idea for those that can’t justify the additional disk space that ProRes transcoding requires. His workflow uses the free cross-platform MPEG Streamclip app to transcode the source files into the 35 Mbits/sec XDCAM EX codec, which can then be played back and edited in realtime in FCP. A tutorial video is embedded below…

How to Convert 5D Mark II H.264 Footage to XDCAM EX for Native Editing in FCP from Tyler Ginter on Vimeo.

This approach is reportedly faster than roundtripping through ProRes, and the disk space requirements should be less than the source files. That being the case, this obviously won’t be the most high-quality option for users (though the EX codec is no slouch). MPEG Streamclip also offers a few handy features that users may fine helpful. For instance, you can combine multiple clips into one stream on output. You can also set in and out points in a batch list, and just export the clip segments you need. It’s sort of a poor-man’s Log and Transfer for 5D footage. I’d liken it to Sony’s Log and Transfer software, sans a few automated features. It’s worth noting that Long-GOP XDCAM EX codec isn’t without it’s own gotchas, you may have to wait while your edit conforms upon output. However, it’s another option for those who wish to skip ProRes, and there are a few handy options in MPEG Streamclip to help ingest your footage.

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Great stuff! I’ve added this to the video tips section of the 5d mk ii wiki at http://planet5d.com

Posted by Mitch Aunger  on  11/28  at  08:34 PM

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question—
this is an OFFLINE solution, correct?
you have to go back to the original footage to do a final edit , right?
since this is a generation loss/ degradation….

thanks!

ps.. the playback of 1920x1080 h264 is jerky on older chip setups (like my dual G5) , but fine on the 4 core or 8 core machines i have tested with a sample file…

Posted by billS  on  11/30  at  12:00 AM

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No, I believe the intent of this solution is to present it as a viable offline solution. Yes, there is an inherent generational quality loss. No, I don’t think this will be a huge hit in quality. And for times when you need max quality, go with the ProRes 422 workflow. It’s just another option…

-MJ

Posted by Matt Jeppsen  on  12/01  at  08:27 AM

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Correction: I meant to say, “No, I believe the intent of this solution is to present it as a viable ONLINE solution.”

Can’t type today…

-MJ

Posted by Matt Jeppsen  on  12/01  at  08:28 AM

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Do you think this will work with Final Cut Express?

Posted by wayne eardley  on  12/02  at  05:55 PM

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I’m not sure, does FCP Express work with XDCAM material?

-MJ

Posted by Matt Jeppsen  on  12/03  at  10:44 AM

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This is a great demo, but why wouldn’t you use Compressor since it’s included with Final Cut Studio, has better integration and has a ton more features than the freeware?  You could easily create a droplet and put it on your desktop to convert all your H.264 5D files into XDCAM EX?  Plus, you can take advantage of all your CPU cores with Compressor, something I doubt Streamclip would do.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/06  at  10:17 PM

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