Summary: Came upon issues while opening Sony PMW-1000 XAVC video in Premiere? If so, you may have interest in this post. It explains a workaround to convert Sony PMW-1000 XAVC to MOV for editing in Premiere with good quality.
“Hi, there, I’m wondering if you can help. One of my important clients delivered me a bundle of XAVC (.mxf) files capture with a Sony PMW-1000. The thing is that I can not get Premiere Pro CS6 to recognize the XAVC MXF files from the PMW-1000. I get the “generic error” message all the time. Does anyone know if there is a way to get it to work? I would really appreciate any help.”
In the most recent Premiere Pro CC, you have full XAVC support. For PPro CS6, only the last couple of release updates of CS6 supported XAVC and not all frame rates and modes. In this situation, you are suggested to transcode XAVC files to an intermediate format before editing. In our older posts, we have talked about how to work with Sony PMW-1000 XAVC in FCP and how to import PMW-1000 XAVC footage to Avid for post-production. In this post, we would like to continue discussing the workflow for using Sony PMW-1000 XAVC in Adobe Premiere. If you are having issues with Sony PMW-1000 XAVC files in Premiere, you can follow this post to find a remedy for your issue.
What you need?
HD Video Converter – by using this Video Converter program, you are able to convert Sony PMW-1000 XAVC MXF files to whatever format you need for editing and playing. It comes with very easy to use menus and produces very good quality DNxHD/ProRes conversions as well as bulk processing so you could load it with files and leave it alone to do the job.
You can download a demo version (for both, PC and Mac) to have a try. They are not free but it is totally worth it.
Sony PMW-1000 and Premiere workflow – how to encode Sony PMW-1000 XAVC files to DNxHD/ProRes MOV for Adobe Premiere Pro CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC?
Follow these steps:
Step 1: Start up HD Video Converter as a professional Sony PMW-1000 XAVC to Premiere Converter. When its main interface pops up, click ‘Add File’ to input your source media.
Step 2: Select output format for Premiere Pro
If you are running Premiere Pro on a Windows PC, you can from ‘Format’ bar, select ‘Avid DNxHD (*.mov)’ as output format under ‘Avid Media Composer’ column.
If you are using Premiere Pro on a Mac, you can select ‘Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov)’ as output format under ‘Final Cut Pro’ column.
In addition to DNxHD and ProRes, you can also select ‘MOV (AVC) (*.mov)’ as output format under ‘Adobe Premiere/Sony Vegas’ option.
This method is also useful when you want to edit XAVC-S MP4 files in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.
Step 3: Custom video and audio settings
If necessary, you can click ‘Settings’ button and go to ‘Profiles Settings’ panel to modify video and audio settings like video encoder, resolution, video bit rate, frame rate, aspect ratio, audio encoder, sample rate, audio bit rate, and audio channels. 3D settings are also available.
Step 4: Start Sony PMW-1000 XAVC MXF files to MOV Conversion
When ready, click ‘Convert’ to start format conversion. As soon as the conversion is complete, you can click ‘Open Folder’ button to get the exported MOV files for use in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC with optimum performance. Nothing could be simpler or more immediate.
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