What does a user (my client) need to play the .movs I've given him that were transcoded by FCP on import from my original XDCAM files?

He has standard QT player on PC, but doesn't have an edit app or QT Pro or QT MPEG2 Playback component, and gets a msg that "Additional software is required for Quick Time to playback this media. It may be available from the Quick Time Components page..."

There seem to be a couple of ways to go.
Calibrated software Calibrated Software (http://www.calibratedsoftware.com) has a solution which should have a free Demo but costs about double Quicktime Pro if you want to actually use it.
Upgrading to Quicktime Pro might work and is only $30 but I haven't confirmed this. There might be other solutions out there

What does a user (my client) need to play the .movs I've given him that were transcoded by FCP on import from my original XDCAM files?

I haven't found or heard of a player that a PC can use to play back XDCAM EX .mov files after they've been converted from the native .mp4 files. Quicktime for Windows will not work because the EX .mov codec resides with Final Cut Pro and not with Quicktime, Pro or otherwise.

However, your client will be able to view the EX native .mp4 files (from the BPAV folder) on their PC using the program VLC Player for Windows. It's available here:

VLC Media Player Free Download - Uberdownloads.com (http://files.uberdownloads.com/software/video-player/VLC.html)

Or you can provide your client with the free Sony Clip Browser software (for Windows) which will also play back the native .mp4 files contained within the BPAV folder.

You can point your client to this page for the free Clip Browser software:

SONY XDCAM EX (http://www.sony.ca/xdcamex/support.htm)

- Don

I haven't found or heard of a player that a PC can use to play back XDCAM EX .mov files after they've been converted from the native .mp4 files.


As Daniel points out above. CalibratedSoftware's plugin will work on any Mac that doesn't have Final Cut Pro on it and it'll work in Windows too.

It'll allow Quicktime to play back the EX .mov file.

And for those who use Final Cut, CalibratedSoftware is releasing a plugin that will allow FCP to use MP4 directly so you want to rewrap to mov to begin with.

BTW FCP can already save an EX timeline to MP4 so you can save to MP4 if your client can handle that wrap/container of the EX codec.

Cheers - I know he can download ClipBrowser, and view original files, probably the best route.

Maybe I'm missing something here (I'm surprised Craig didn't suggest this), but can't he just download the XDCAM EX Codec from the Sony Microsite?

Sony | Micro Site - XDCAM EX (http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcamexsite/resource.downloads)

EDIT: Now that I look at the site, I don't see the codec available for download. So maybe I'm wrong. But there's got to be another way to get it without buying FCP or the CalibratedSoftware solution.

Craig: They talked about Calibrated's upcoming new software. No more unwrapping the MP4's into MOV's. Just start editing directly in FCP. This is going to speed up the workflow quite a bit I think.

Craig: They talked about Calibrated's upcoming new software. No more unwrapping the MP4's into MOV's. Just start editing directly in FCP. This is going to speed up the workflow quite a bit I think.

They . . . ? I'm one of the beta testers.
EX .MOV on Windows required Calibrated EX decoder for Windows. Also version for Macs without FCP.

Alternately you can give people the MP4 and you can export FCP EX timeline back to FCP.

There is a free open-source solution for viewing XDCAM EX files on a non-FCP Mac that are already wrapped in Quicktime .MOV.

Just download the open-source XDCAM EX codec for Mac and install in the Library/Quicktime folder.
Discrete Cosine: Perian for Pro Codecs - Free HDV/DVCProHD/XDcam decoders (http://blog.lib.umn.edu/mcfa0086/discretecosine/164630.html)

That's it.

I have Perian on all my Macs . . . which also have FCP.

Thanks for that. I had no idea it could play EX .mov on non FCP Macs.
Of course this doesn't help Windows users.