Sony F55 Mac Workflow: Converting XAVC footage for FCP/iMovie/FCE

Summary: This article outlines how to import Sony F55 XAVC into Mac FCP, iMovie, FCE programs for smooth editing. Keep reading for a brief how-to.

Sony PMW-F55 is a professional-grade camera with an 8.9-megapixel 4K-enabled image sensor. With Sony F55, you can record Full HD XAVC clips 240fps RAW 2k and 60fps RAW 4K recoding onto the AXS-R5.This article is mainly to solve the Sony F55 recordings to FCP, iMovie, FCE importing problems. As many users get Sony F55, more problems are coming up: some of them have the need to import Sony F55 XAVC to FCP or iMovie, FCE, Adobe, Avid for editing on Mac OS X, but they always meet some issues.

As far as I know, XAVC is an open recoding format that was introduced by Sony. It allows for a wide range of content production including intra frame recording and long group of pictures (GOP) recording. XAVC is produced by two CineAlta cameras Sony PMW-F55 and Sony PMW-F5, which is not the preferred format by Non-Linear Editing system(NLE) FCP, iMovie, FCE included. To avoid these problems or limit, it will be better to transcode Sony F55 footage to a more editing-friendly format, such a FCP’s Apple ProRes, iMovie/FCE’s Apple InterMedaite Codec.

Now I share the guide with you how to convert XAVC footage to FCP/iMovie/FCE friendly format using Brorsoft Video Converter for Mac. With it, you can effortlessly encode/re-encode XAVC intra footage shot from Sony F55 for smoothly importing and editing in various non-linear editing systems (NLE), including Final Cut Pro, iMovie, FCE, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer and more. And there is no need to worry about the quality loss.

How to Losslessly Convert Sony XAVC to FCP/iMovie/FCE on Mac

1. Download, install and run the XAVC Video Converter for Mac; click "Add Videos" icon to load your source XAVC videos from XDROOT folder.

2. Click on the “Format” bar and choose a best editable format.

a. Select Final Cut Pro > Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov) as the output format for Final Cut Pro 6/7/x.

b. For editing Sony XAVC in iMovie or FCE, choose iMovie and Final Cut Express > Apple Intermediate Codec(AIC) (*.mov) as the output format.

3. Set proper video/ audio parameters. Click the “Settings” button and set proper video/ audio parameters. You can reset set the video size, bitrate and fame rate. If you would like to use default settings, simply skip this step.

4. Hit the convert button, it will start converting XAVC from Sony F55 to Mac compatible format immediately. Soon after the conversion, just click “Open” button to get the generated files for natively editing in FCP, iMovie, FCE perfectly.

Source:

http://hanycam-hd-clips-ingesting.overblog.com/2013/11/sony-f55-workflow-converting-xavc-footage-from-sony-f55-to-fcp-imovie-fce.html