General Discussion - Transcode Canon XA10 MTS to ProRes format for FCP on Mac lydia622520 - Wed Aug 08, 2012 12:32 am Post subject: Transcode Canon XA10 MTS to ProRes format for FCP on Mac"I have a ton of footage a client brought in that was shot on a Canon XA10 HD camcorder. They are .MTS files. I don't see any timecode on them. I need to get them into FCP to edit with. Everything goes south when I try to import into FCP, however. The software does not recognize the camera. If I pull out the SD card and try importing from there, the card will be immediately recognized on the desktop, but FCP does not see it and will not import it."
From Google Searching, I found some Canon XA10 users wanted to know how to import and edit Canon XA10 recordings in FCP on Mac OS X as the above user. Let us learn the Canon XA10 first. It is Professional Camcorder and different from Canon XF100. The XA10 is capturing AVCHD video at bitrates up to 24Mbps. Besides, the camcorder's native 1920 x 1080 CMOS sensor also lets you choose 60i, 24p, PF30, and PF24 frame rates for customizing the look of your footage. All of these fantastic features makes it easy for you to record your memory into Canon XA10's memory card vividly. You should have been satisfied with the XA10 until you meet the ingesting problem while importing AVCHD footages to FCP.
Why would you meet the trouble? Because FCP, including FCP 6/7 and FCP X, cannot support the native AVCHD footages from Canon XA10. In order to transfer MTS files from the XA10 to FCP 7, you need to transcode the MTS files to ProRes 422, FCP compatible video format. Or you will find the .mts files greyed out in the STREAM folder. Actually, the Log & Transfer is such a kind of converting tool, thus you can sometimes get AVCHD footages into FCP via L&T window. But the L&T is not so powerful enough to recognize all the AVCHD clips. So if the L&T can not recognize the recordings from Canon XA10, you need to find a more versatile and professional AVCHD to FCP Converter to convert AVCHD to ProRes 422 for FCP 7.
Guide: How to transfer AVCHD footages from Canon XA10 to FCP 7
Step 1: Install the MTS Converter on your Mac and load your .mts/.m2ts files to it.
Step 2: Click on the Format box and select the FCP friendly format in dropdown-list. You are advised to choose “Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov)”or “Apple ProRes 422 HQ (*.mov)” format. Due to the difference in the compresstion standard of AVCHD and ProRes 422, the converted files are significantly larger than the original ones. If you prefer smaller file size, please choose “Apple ProRes 422 (LT) (*.mov)” instead. The “Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy) (*.mov)” format offers file size at SD levels and is recommended for 480i/p and 576i/p shootings.
Step 3: Adjust video and audio parameters in the Profile Settings if necessary. You can adjust codec, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate and audio channel in the interface according to your needs and optimize the output file quality.
Step 5: Click File --> Import --> Files to ingest Canon XA10 recordings to FCP.
Other features of the Mac MTS Converter:
1. Joining files: Tick the box "Merge into one" on the main interface.
2. Deinterlacing 1080i: Click Edit and select "deinterlacing" in the Effect. It has been chosen as default.
3. Preview: Double click on the file and you can get a preview on the converter.
4. Auto shutdown: Click Option and tick the box “Shut down the computer after conversion” before conversion starts.
5. 3D conversion. The Red-Blue/Red-Green 3D conversions are supported.
6. Crop: Edit --> Crop and you can get the imported videos cropped as you want.
