divergent media

Using HDV with Final Cut Pro X

Final Cut Pro X has been making huge waves in the Mac non-linear editing space for the last six months – some positive, some negative. As with any massive, ground up rethink of an application, there are bound to be issues. Luckily, we’ve got solutions!

Update, 1/31/2012: With the release of Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3, it appears this issue has been resolved, and these utilities are no longer necessary. If you’re still having trouble, please let us know.

Recently, we’ve heard some reports of users experiencing “glitchy” video (odd blockiness, distortion) when using rewrapped HDV files in Final Cut Pro X. This happens with files rewrapped by ClipWrap, or with files ingested through other means. Apple improved the issue with the 10.0.1 release, but it’s still present. While we’re working with Apple to get the issue completely solved, in the meantime, we’ve got a workaround.

We’ve created two small applications, which will reflag HDV video so that it’s decoded by a different MPEG-2 decoder inside of Final Cut Pro X. This avoids the distortion. The downside is that the files will no longer work directly in Final Cut Pro 7. That’s why we haven’t rolled this workaround into ClipWrap – we don’t want to take away functionality! To use these programs, just drop your rewrapped video onto the “hdv2fcpx” application. It’ll rewrite your files with the new flag. To undo this process, just drop the files on the “fcpx2hdv” application – it reverses the process. Easy as that!

This process can be easily integrated into your ClipWrap workflow. Just visit the ClipWrap preferences, check the box for “Open Converted Files In” checkbox, and then use the dropdown to browse to “hdv2fcpx.” After converting, your files will automatically be retagged for Final Cut Pro X.

As always, let us know if you have questions.

ClipWrap