Merge several MXF files to one (1) MXF file?

[Roger Averdahl]

I have ordered the X70 and will use it instead of my Canon XF100 camera. With my Canon XF100 camera i could use Canon XF Utility and select all MXF files and merge them into one file. No transcoding required so it´s lightning fast.

Is there a similar software that can merge together MXF files created by the Sony PXW-X70 camera?

I have tested the latest versions of Sony Content Browser and Sony Catalyst Browse but none of them have the ability to merge MXF files together.

[Christopher Young]

Roger ~

Are you are referring to long recordings being broken into shorter file segments? If so there are some differences between the Canon MPEG-2 based MXFs and the X70 H-264 based XAVC MXFs in the way they are recorded.

The Canon runs on FAT32 formatted CF card where file sizes are limited due to that FAT32 format. In this respect the X70 is different. It doesn't run FAT32. To record HD XAVC MXF files on the X70 you must use SDXC cards which are formatted exFAT. These are not file size limited. Actually there is a file size limit to exFAT, it's 16 ExaBytes so hardly applies to our little X70:)

With X70 recordings done on SDXC cards if you roll for an hour you end up with one file of 60 minutes, or 90 or 120 minutes or whatever your record time was. In other words there is no requirement to stitch files together in the X70's HD 422 10-bit MXF recordings.

if you record AVCHD in the X70 then that is a different matter. It will create a series of separate files of about 10 minutes in length. Most NLE software will stitch these together correctly on import. There are also some freebie downloadable stand alone apps for stitching AVCHD files together if they have contiguous time code. Hope that helps.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Roger Averdahl]

Originally Posted by Christopher Young

Are you are referring to long recordings being broken into shorter file segments?

No, what i mean is:
If i for example have 100 hundred 10 second long clips on the memory card i want to merge them together to one (1) clip so it is easy to scrub through all the clips in the NLE. I used to capture the whole tape when i used tape cameras, so having one hour video in one clip was for me more convenient than having each clip as a separate clip.

I was aware of the great fact that long takes now ends up as one clip. :)

I used the "Provide Feedback" in Sony Catalyst Browse yesterday and gave them my wish and did send them screen dumps of Canon XF Utility.

[Jack Zhang]

Capture via SDI or HDMI from your camera by using your camera as a deck.

I get what you mean coming from a tape based workflow. You're still used to scrubbing through one massive clip of a single tape. But clip based file workflow allows you to get to a specific shot much faster. It's why shots are individual clips. You don't need to set the in and out on a single clip in a massive tape, you can just grab a single clip and in and out on that specific clip.

To each their own I guess.

[Ilya Spektor]

Originally Posted by Roger Averdahl

I have ordered the X70 and will use it instead of my Canon XF100 camera. With my Canon XF100 camera i could use Canon XF Utility and select all MXF files and merge them into one file. No transcoding required so it´s lightning fast.

Is there a similar software that can merge together MXF files created by the Sony PXW-X70 camera?

I have tested the latest versions of Sony Content Browser and Sony Catalyst Browse but none of them have the ability to merge MXF files together.

You can try TMPGEnc Mpeg Smart Renderer 5 (try it for free for 30 days):
TMPGEnc MPEG Smart Renderer 5 - The De Facto Standard in Video Cutting Tools

One of the output options of this program is to connect all clips into one. It is not re-encoding but using Smart Rendering and is very fast. It is re-wrapping either to MPEG (.mpg or .ts), or to MKV (.mkv), not MXF though but you can play the file with VLC player...

[Ron Evans]

Not sure I understand the issue fully because if you drag all the clips to the timeline you will get one long file on the timeline. It will just happen to have the clips individually indicated but will play as one long clip. You can still scrub fast along and delete those clips you do not want without having to make a cut as you would on tape version. I think actually making an integrated single clip is a step you do not need to make to still use your old way of working.

Use Catalyst Browse to transfer clips to PC then select all the clips and place on the timeline. They will go onto the timeline in chronological order just as if they were on a tape. It works that way in Vegas or EDIUS that I use.

Ron Evans

[John Mitchell]

Also on all the NLEs I've used you can load a sequence into the source monitor and use that as the source. So load all your clips into a sequence and you've stitched them all together.

[Roger Averdahl]

Originally Posted by John Mitchell

Also on all the NLEs I've used you can load a sequence into the source monitor and use that as the source. So load all your clips into a sequence and you've stitched them all together.

Yes, that´s how i have been doing it since i started with memory card based cameras many years ago. :)

[Noa Put]

I can understand if your camera cuts up one continuous recording into smaller parts because of a fat32 limitation that you would like to have that as one clip on your hardrive and on your timeline but what advantage does merging 100 clips that have no relation to eachother have for the convenience of easy scrubbing on the timeline??
Like Ron said, just drag all separate clips to your timeline and that's it, you have one continuous track you can scroll through.

[Roger Averdahl]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

...but what advantage does merging 100 clips that have no relation to eachother have for the convenience of easy scrubbing on the timeline??

Let´s say that i film four things during a day, four things that have no relation to each other. Let´s call them 1, 2, 3 and 4 for this example.

With my Canon camera i bring in all clips into XF Utility and sort the clips so all clips filmed at 1 becomes one clip. All clips filmed on 2 becomes one clip. All clips filmed on 3 becomes one clip. All clips filmed on 4 becomes one clip. This needs to be done one time only.

So now i have four clips and if i load the clip with all events from 1 i can easily scrub the footage and set markers to mark up good takes, good audio, etc.

I can do the same things if i sort the clips in the project but i prefer to do that before i bring the footage into the NLE since if i do it before i only need to sort it once. There are ways around this but i prefer to work with one large file than 100 smaller files with the same content. Somebody prefer Windows, somebody prefers Mac. Same same but different.