Will Final Cut be able to read my DV's imported from Pinnacle Studio (XP)?

[macabouttobe]

I'm planning on getting an Imac after the pending refresh... I have tons of home DV's that I've imported via Pinnacle Studio (xp). The format I believe is .AVI and can be read by windows media player also.

Should I anticipate any issues when I start loading those AVI's into final cut for editing? Besides the fact that I may need to get them onto Mac formated external hard drive?

Thanks, been mulling over a MAC purchase for quite a long time and I want to eliminate any gotchas.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Cromulent]

You'd be much better off just reimporting them from your DV or HDV camcorder into Final Cut Pro, at least then they will be in DV or HDV format.

FCP does not support AVI as a codec for editing in. If reimporting them is not an option then use ffmpegX to convert them to DV format.

 

[macabouttobe]

Thanks. Ouch, I was afraid of that. How good does that converter do, and where would I go to get it? Also are there any others?

Thanks,

 

[Cromulent]

Wirelessly posted (SonyEricssonK800i/R1EJ Browser/NetFront/3.3 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

ffmpegX is free and comes up after a quick Google. It works fine, although obviously it won't be anywhere near as good as importing from scratch.

 

[macabouttobe]

Thanks bud.

I guess the only other angle would be to import into Pinnacle and resave as a different format prior to my Mac purchase.

Are there any formats in particular I should attempt to save them as that are final cut friendly? You don't need to speak to Pinnacle's ability but I can figure out if they can save in the formats athat are FC friendly.

Thanks

 

[steveedwards]

Hi,
I'm in EXACTLY the same boat as yourself. I'm almost about to jump ship to an imac (once the new model is annouced tomorrow - hopefully) and have quite a lot of video I've pulled in through Pinnacle Studio on XP (various versions of studio).

From memory, when you do the import into Pinnacle, you have various options on how you want to store it. The main two were DV or MPEG2 but it stored the video as an AVI.

I believe that the AVI extenstion is just a 'container' for the video that you store in it. That's how divx/xvid works - they're also .AVI's but the video contained within is formatted in a special way. From what I've read, the apple equivalent is a .DV file which is basically DV video in a .MOV 'container'.

I suspect the DV video contained in the .AVI will be the same as that within the .DV the only difference is the container. However, I've got no evidence of this. I really need an answer to this one so I'll keep digging. If you get anywhere, can you please post the info.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[Cromulent]

Thanks bud.

I guess the only other angle would be to import into Pinnacle and resave as a different format prior to my Mac purchase.

Are there any formats in particular I should attempt to save them as that are final cut friendly? You don't need to speak to Pinnacle's ability but I can figure out if they can save in the formats athat are FC friendly.

Thanks

The only formats that I would recommend would be DV or HDV (or DVCPro / DVCProHD depending on camera model). Do not re-encode your video.

You want to keep your video in an editing format which AVI (with DivX / Xvid codec) / H.264 / MPEG2 whatever are not. Stick to raw video files and you will be fine.

Edit : If I were doing this, I would bite the bullet and reimport myself. I do not have enough knowledge of Pinnacle to recommend a solution really.

Edit 2 :

I suspect the DV video contained in the .AVI will be the same as that within the .DV the only difference is the container. However, I've got no evidence of this. I really need an answer to this one so I'll keep digging. If you get anywhere, can you please post the info.

That is correct. You would need to get the video out of the AVI container and into a MOV container (Quicktime). I did this using ffmpegX when I had to get some Fraps video I took on a PC into FCP.

The problem is it takes a while.

 

[shemp9999]

i can read AVIs on my mac in FCp - perhaps it's flip4mac doing the work. as steveedwards says, AVI is a container, like .mov - so open one of the files in QT player and get info. the codec, bitrate and frame size are the important parts. i'd imagine if you have the codec you could read them into FCp, cut and export as needed - if you see a picture in QT player, you have the codec (otherwise the picture is blank white). if whatever you have in your avis is over 3500kbps and is TV res, you might have all the bits that a re-digged dv file would get you.

worth a shot if you have a lot of video.

 

[bearnar]

Damn! This is exactly what I´m wondering about!

I have about 60 tapes imported through Pinnacle Studio on my old PC, but now I recently bought a top spec 24" iMac, and was planning to edit all my videos in Final Cut Pro!

I also get the same error message while trying to import them..

Importing all tapes again is NOT an option. So, what can I do?
ffmpegx?
I see one guy mentioning he can edit his avi files? I have Qtime Pro and flip4mac, can open the files in qtime, but cant open them in FCP..

This is supposed to be a suprise xmas gift for my family, but now I seem to have hit an edge..

Help?

 

[dhd]

If they are real DV clips inside an AVI container, just open them with MPEG Streamclip and click "Save As" and select MOV. If you have many vids to work on, you have also a Batch List Option (command+B). FCP should accept those MOV without complaining or loosing quality over conversions.

Best of luck,

 

[bearnar]

Looks like Mpeg Streamclip is doing the jobb Great

 

[bearnar]

Unfortunately, Mpeg Streamclip doesnt seem to correctly open all files. On about half of my imported avi´s only the sound is being reckognized by mpegstreamer, and therefore only sound is being saved.. The same files opens correctly in all media players.. Is there an alternative to Mpeg Streamclip?

Edit: Also, it resizes my videos from 768x576 to 720x576, and I can´t find any options to prevent that.. That sucks.

Any other software which does the trick without any loose of quality?

 

[dhd]

Hi there,

720x576 is the DV standard size (I think). When you open the clips on MPEG St. and press command+I, then you'll see what kind of file you are dealing (maybe that helps to find a solution). Did you try the "Save as mov" tip?

 

[bearnar]

Hi there,

720x576 is the DV standard size (I think). When you open the clips on MPEG St. and press command+I, then you'll see what kind of file you are dealing (maybe that helps to find a solution). Did you try the "Save as mov" tip?

Hi! I don't really see your point? The thing is, Mpeg st. only reads the video on half of my files (though they are all the same). AND, those video can be read on, gets cropped to 720x576. The DV standard is 756x576, atleast here in Europe.

I figured out I can "save as" in Quicktime Pro aswell, and it does the job properly, but Quicktime doesn't have a batch function, which was very useful on Mpeg St.

 

[macabouttobe]

Thanks for all of your input, I'll take it all in and chart my direction. You folks are great!

 

[RonsMac]

I've done a bunch of capturing with Pinnacle. Captured as DV with PCM audio. I just opened from finder in FCE and it worked fine. It wasn't a recommended application and when I selected there was a caution symbol with "It's not known if if this application can open AVI container files."

Is FCP different that FCE? I have thought about getting FCPX but it has to be able to open .avi with DV inside.

 

[cgbier]

Everything that plays in Quicktime can be opened by FCP X (info from Apple)
If not, use MPEG Streamclip to transcode it to DV/PreRes.