Can XDCAM files be imported w/o a device attached?

Sidecar wrote on 7/7/2010, 1:17 AM
Some off site associates originate in XDCAM. When they send us .mxf files, they cannot be imported in Vegas, Media 100 or Final Cut Pro. How come? They won't even read with the Sony XDCAM viewer software.

Vegas is supposed to handle .mxf files from XDCAM, right?

It appears we cannot import them without also attaching an XDCAM device. That, or the files are corrupted.

Comments

farss wrote on 7/7/2010, 4:47 AM
Which variant of XDCAM are these MXF files from???

Bob.
Sidecar wrote on 7/7/2010, 7:02 AM
That's the problem: I don't know what the MXF files are, except they were supposedly originated with a Sony XDCAM, then possibly output via an AVID, but I'm not sure.

We are forced to use a government-supplied production company. They have XDCAMs. We asked them for a sample file to make sure we could import them. Nothing can.

Is there some setting on an AVID that can output an MXF file that's friendly to other applications like Vegas or FCP?

I exported some test MXF files from my Vegas machine in hopes our Media 100s can import them. They are incompatible. I thought MXF was supposed to be a fairly standard cross-platform format.
farss wrote on 7/7/2010, 7:23 AM
MXF = Media eXchange Format. It is a SMPTE standard however the scope is pretty huge from what I know. It can include considerable metadata such as Take/NoTake, In/Out etc. The actual video inside the MXF file can be encoded using just about anything.

So firstly the app has to be able to read the MXF metadata and then have the codec available to decode the actual vision. The original Sony XDCAMs that record to those BD disks in a caddy record both full raster and proxies for fast edits and they record in a variety of codecs. Vegas was able to handle them via XDCAM Explorer which you have to enable and then restart Vegas. When I did try this though the DVD with the proxies also contained some code that was needed by Vegas and a Browser.

Thing is we're both flying blind. What I suggest you do is get hold of a program from IRT called MXF Analyser. Its free after you resister. You run that and point it to one of your MXF files and wait a while and produces quite a large log file of what's inside the MXF file. From that or at least the summary at the end you should get some clues as to what you're trying to deal with. It'll even give you the name of what created the file.

Bob.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 7/7/2010, 7:35 AM

Can they provide you the BPAV folder(s)? You could extract the MXF files from that without any problems.

farss wrote on 7/7/2010, 8:06 AM
You're assuming this was from a XDCAM EX.
Not ALL XDCAM camera record into BPAV folders, the original XDCAM cameras are completely different.

Bob.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 7/7/2010, 8:16 AM

Yes, Bob, that was a presumption on my part.

Yes, not all XDCAMS are the same flavor. But since the OP was so slow to provide specifics, I thought I'd press one option to see where it led.


Jay Gladwell wrote on 7/8/2010, 4:36 PM

So, Dan, what was the outcome?