ASK & DISCUSS
INDEXSONY EX3 files for mac
12 years, 9 months ago - Amy Mathieson
Hi Shooters,
Would be great if someone could tell me how to convert Sony EX3 files to Quicktime so that I can read them on a mac and edit. At the moment there are 4 metadata files ending .SMI .PPN . XML and .BIM all in a BPAV folder. I downloaded Sony clip viewer but that doesn't work.
Any advice gratefully received Thanks
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12 years, 9 months ago - John Baker
There is also a new Sony plugin for FCP X that will import and wrap XDCAM. You didn't say what you were editing with. XDCAM transfer is an older that has import plugin for FCP 7.
Response from 12 years, 9 months ago - John Baker SHOW
12 years, 9 months ago - Ryan Hooper
Rob is right, there are conversion software specific to XDCam on Sony's website. If that wont work, download Mpeg Streamclip for free. Whatever you decide to do, I would advise convertering them to Apple ProRes 422, will save you a heap of trouble. If you have Compressor you may be able to do it in that, but if you can't watch the files back on QT, you not be able to do anything with them in Compressor either. Media Encoder will take them in also, if you have that.
Response from 12 years, 9 months ago - Ryan Hooper SHOW
12 years, 9 months ago - Alex Martin
I think this is it
http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcam/resource.downloads.bbsccms-assets-micro-xdcamex-downloads-LogTransferUtilityAppleFCP.shtml
Response from 12 years, 9 months ago - Alex Martin SHOW
12 years, 9 months ago - Peter Ward
Note that in order to edit or convert XDCAM on a Mac you will need to have a professional editing program installed, in which case you can just use whatever transfer/import method your editing applications offers (assuming any required plugins are installed); AMA for Avid, Media Browser in Premiere Pro CS4+, Log and Transfer for FCP 6/7 and "import" for FCPX. If not MPEG Streamclip won't help since it relies on codecs installed by other applications on the system therefore will lack the XDCAM codec you need in this case. And Sony's software won't help either since it's just rewraping to .MXF or .MOV but the codec remains XDCAM and can't be edited in say iMovie or Premiere Elements.
By the way, the video/audio stream is the .MP4 file. The metadata is essentially discarded unless you're wrapping to MXF for Avid Media Composer use.
Response from 12 years, 9 months ago - Peter Ward SHOW
12 years, 9 months ago - Connor Snedecor
"XDCAM Transfer" was the name of the Sony software I used to use, which is free, and as a side note, I don't think it's at all necessary to convert them to ProRes once you've "transferred" them to .mov wrappers using the Sony software. Unless the EX3 can shoot in some other weird format I never came across? Everything I ever dealt with from EX3 was SxS cards full of XDCAM EX 50Mb/s, which is perfectly fine to edit natively in FCP7 (and probably FCPX and Premiere as well), once you've converted from the card structure using XDCAM Transfer. And if you have Avid you should be able to mount the clips folders as AMA volumes with no conversion.
Response from 12 years, 9 months ago - Connor Snedecor SHOW
12 years, 9 months ago - Kirk Watson
As folk say get XDCAM Transfer from sony or XDCAM Browser (good for looking through your clips and getting from camera to mac). Then in FCP goto import----Sony XDCAM and it will open up and then bring in the clips you want.
Response from 12 years, 9 months ago - Kirk Watson SHOW
12 years, 9 months ago - Robert McGowan Camera-operator-london.co.uk
Use Sony Transfer software try version 2.5.1 it transcodes the files into .mov's - I'm not sure if VLC player can play back .smi but you can try, its great for Playing back the .mp4 in the BPAV folder.
Response from 12 years, 9 months ago - Robert McGowan Camera-operator-london.co.uk SHOW