Anybody editing Canon HF G10 footage with FCP X?
Not sure if this should be in the software section, I guess admins will bump if needed. Want to hear from anyone with firsthand experience ingesting, editing and finishing a video project using the Canon HF G10 AVCHD camera and Final Cut Pro X. We're a small, high-end design studio and are making the move (finally) to HD. We have both FCP 7 and FCP X - I'm finding it hard to find definitive answers or experiences of using this camera on online forums. Can anyone shed some light? We've been hearing very good things about this camera, but it's always about the hardware - need to know if this will be a good investment with the software we want to use before we commit to purchase. Thanks in advance.
Comments
http://armdevices.net/2011/01/15/can...le-recordings/
Final Cut Pro X can't import .mts (AVCHD) files directly but it does have the ability to import folders of AVCHD files if they are in the correct structure.
What you can do as a backup with AVCHD files though is rewrap them to standard MPEG4 clips. If you download one of the .mts files above and then get the following two apps:
rewrap2m4v:
https://public.me.com/catservant
clipgrab:
http://clipgrab.de/en
Put clipgrab in the applications folder. If you drop the .mts file onto the rewrap2m4v app, you will see it turns into a .m4v file that opens in Quicktime. This can be used directly in Final Cut Pro X. It may mess up when it tries to render it though as I don't think rewrapped MP4 files are standard so I'd recommend that you transcode .m4v files in Compressor or Quicktime Pro to ProRes before using in Final Cut. You can use ProRes LT to avoid using loads of space and if you are just authoring online or to DVD, consider using 720p as your file sizes will be significantly smaller and quicker to process.
The Canon should be a very nice camera. The color in the footage looks great - one of its competing models, the Panasonic TM700, which has similar features including mic and heaphone jack seems to have a color balance issue in daylight and also uses AVCHD anyway. The Panasonic looks like it has better image stabilisation but the Canon wins hands down on color and Final Cut X has auto rolling shutter and stabilisation filters anyway to help out.
Definitely get Compressor if you invest in Final Cut X though and there's another app called ClipWrap as an alternative to the above two pieces of software for handling AVCHD.
There are links to raw samples of G10 footage here:
http://armdevices.net/2011/01/15/can...le-recordings/
Final Cut Pro X can't import .mts (AVCHD) files directly but it does have the ability to import folders of AVCHD files if they are in the correct structure.
What you can do as a backup with AVCHD files though is rewrap them to standard MPEG4 clips. If you download one of the .mts files above and then get the following two apps:
rewrap2m4v:
https://public.me.com/catservant
clipgrab:
http://clipgrab.de/en
Put clipgrab in the applications folder. If you drop the .mts file onto the rewrap2m4v app, you will see it turns into a .m4v file that opens in Quicktime. This can be used directly in Final Cut Pro X. It may mess up when it tries to render it though as I don't think rewrapped MP4 files are standard so I'd recommend that you transcode .m4v files in Compressor or Quicktime Pro to ProRes before using in Final Cut. You can use ProRes LT to avoid using loads of space and if you are just authoring online or to DVD, consider using 720p as your file sizes will be significantly smaller and quicker to process.
The Canon should be a very nice camera. The color in the footage looks great - one of its competing models, the Panasonic TM700, which has similar features including mic and heaphone jack seems to have a color balance issue in daylight and also uses AVCHD anyway. The Panasonic looks like it has better image stabilisation but the Canon wins hands down on color and Final Cut X has auto rolling shutter and stabilisation filters anyway to help out.
Definitely get Compressor if you invest in Final Cut X though and there's another app called ClipWrap as an alternative to the above two pieces of software for handling AVCHD.
Thanks so much! Really helpful info. Makes me feel a lot more confident about this prospective purchase.