XDCAM EX Codec for Editing

[Ed Przyzycki]

For the majority of your day-to-day 'basic' work, do you edit on an XDCAM EX timeline? Or do you always convert to an intermediate like ProRes or CineForm? Does the XDCAM EX codec hold up well to normal editing? (Transitions, lower 3rds, adding a few layers, PIP, etc?) I would imagine that unless I'm mixing in 4:2:2 8/10-bit (from a Nano or high end source, color grading, keying, etc) there isn't an advantage. Thoughts?

[Andrew Stone]

Ed,

There has been a lot of "ink" split on this topic. A lot. You should use the search engine here. Having said that, the short answer to your question is just use a standard XDCAM EX setup timeline but change the render codec to Pro Res.

The easy way to do this is to import your footage, drop a clip into your empty FCP timeline, the app should nag you about whether or not you want FCP to adjust the timeline to your clip's format, of course you say yes. At this point do a Command - 0 (zero), you will be presented with a Sequence Settings dialogue box, you want to select the 4th of the 5 folder tabs, the Render Control Settings. It is here you select in the Codec dropdown menu the Apple Pro Res codec (pick your flavor). This will render out any changes you have made to your source footage in a near non-lossy codec.

If you apply global changes to your timeline like color correction, broadcast safe and similar kinds of treatments, your timeline will be rendered entirely in Apple Pro Res, otherwise the source footage, save transitions, will stay unaltered until your final export render.

[Ed Kukla]

How does all this compare to other edit programs like Premiere? "This will render out any changes you have made to your source footage in a near non-lossy codec."

[Craig Seeman]

EX timeline with renders set to ProRes so there's no GOP conform on FX.

Going to ProRes isn't going to give any advantage to the original codec. It can help in compositing or if you have an underpowered system that can't handle the EX codec. IMHO unless you're doing a major composite job EX codec is fine.

[Tim Kolb]

I'd agree that I've done several EX-native edits and they seem to hold up pretty well.

(I'm on PPro-PC) I have CineForm and use it for projects where I'm certain I'll be doing lots of color correction or compositing, as has been noted, but on faster, less nuanced projects I've not found EXcam to be an issue for output quality.

As far as FCP vs PPro... FCP rewraps the EX media as QuickTime, but the file undergoes no change internally...no quality loss. PPro uses the media natively, in it's 'camera written' form.

Each app uses a timeline that is native to EXcam to be the most efficient.

Each app outputs to something else. The Mac/FCP crowd has ProRes, and the PC crowd needs to look to a third party like CineForm for a really high-quality intermediate codec.

In both cases, there are workflows that convert the media to the high quality intermediate codec BEFORE editing if that's appropriate, but it will result in bigger files in each case, even as runnability should improve on lower end systems in each case as well.

With HDV on FCP, the hot ticket used to be placing the HDV native media on an uncompressed timeline to avoid GOP shifting and recompression, but that was before ProRes came on the scene.

...hopefully there's some nugget that's helpful in there somewhere...

[Dean Sensui]

All my editing is done in XDCam EX. It is then moved into Color. After it's corrected and graded, Color exports to ProRes 422 HQ.

[Robert Young]

That's encouraging information.
I have always coded EX1 and AVCHD to Cineform prior to editing on PPro.
Maybe I'll give it a shot in the native codecs & see how it goes.