Couldn’t figure out a quick and smooth way to work with Nikon D5500 H.264 MOV files in Avid, Premiere and Sony Vegas? This post will give you some hints on this. It introduces an alternative way to transcode D5500 H.264 MOV for Avid/Premiere/Vegas editing with pristine quality.
Trouble editing Nikon D5500 MOV files in Avid MC
”Hi, fellows, I have troubles editing Nikon D5500 MOV (H.264) files in Avid MC. I Add 4 or 5 clips at a time on the timeline and things start to crawl. How can I solve this issue? Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.”
Reasons that may cause the above issue:
1. H.264 is a heavily compressed codec that requires a fair amount processing power to decode. This is processing power you are taking away from your NLE. That’s why when you add several clips at a time on your timeline and things start to crawl.
2. Some wrappers like MOV (QuickTime) or MXF are supported by Avid, Premiere and Sony Vegas, but not all codecs are supported. To be clear, H.264 is a codec suitable for capture and delivery, but not quite proper for editing. That’s why you may get troubles importing/editing Nikon D5500 H.264 MOV files in Avid, Premiere and Vegas.
For a fast and fluid Nikon D5500 workflow with Avid, Premiere and Vegas, we would recommend transcoding Nikon D5500 H.264 MOV to a format that is full compatible with your NLEs. This requires third party software like HD Video Converter.
You can download a demo version (for both, PC and Mac) to have a try. They are not free but it totally worth it.
How to convert Nikon D5500 H.264 MOV files for Avid, Premiere and Vegas?
Follow these steps:
Step 1: Start up HD Video Converter as a professional Nikon D5500 Converter for Avid/Premiere/Vegas. When its main interface pops up, click ‘Add File’ to input your source media.
Step 2: Select output format for your NLEs
1) Create editable file from Nikon D5500 H.264 MOV for Avid MC
From ‘Format’ bar, select ‘Avid DNxHD (*.mov)’ as output format under ‘Avid Media Composer’ column.
Important: If you’ve loaded a number of video clips to do batch conversion, please do remember ticking off ‘Apply to All’ option before you start.
2) Convert Nikon D5500 H.264 MOV files for Premiere
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.
3) Transcode Nikon D5500 H.264 MOV video for Sony Vegas
Click the drop-down list besides ‘Profile’, choose ‘Adobe Premiere/Sony Vegas > MOV (AVC) (*.mov)’ as the most compatible format for Vegas with best quality. You can choose ‘MPEG-2 (*.mpg)’, or ‘WMV (VC-1) (*.wmv)’ as well.
This method is also available when you want to edit Nikon D5500 H.264 MOV 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 Nikon D5500 H.264 MOV 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 Avid apps, Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas with optimum performance.
Related posts
Transfer Nikon D5500 H.264 MOV to Mac for iMovie, FCE, FCPX
Nikon D750 FCP 7 workflow – import Nikon D750 MOV to FCP 7
Open and edit Sony PMW-F55/F5 XAVC HD and 4K XAVC in Avid
Working with Sony EX1/EX3 XDCAM EX footage in Premiere Pro
How can I edit Nikon 1 J1/J4/S2/V3 MOV files in Premiere Pro?