Importing footage from a 5D/7D to FCP

spinner

spinner

Hi, guys!

I have a couple of questions about importing footage from a 5D or 7D camera.

If the footage is on a disc, how do you go about importing to FCP? I understand using firewire, but since there is a disc, can I import directly from the camera? Can I use firewire or do I have to use USB cord?

I might have to be DP for this project, I didn't expect to have to, but we're in a pinch.

For those of you who use 5D and 7D cameras, what should I be thinking about considering I have never had to import from this camera before?


-- spinner :cool:
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Im confused by ur question. Where are discs involved? Do you mean CD's, DVD's or Hard disks?

Ofcourse you can import from the camera. You attach ur cable from the camera to the pc and take the footage off. Or you can use a cf card reader to remove the footage once uve taken the card out of the camera.

As for what you should be thinking about, just make sure u have back ups and fast. When you're cf card is full, make sure u not only offload the footage but dont delete it from the card yet. Have a copy on ur pc, back that copy up onto another HD and then format your card thru ur camera.

EDIT: Wait, i just realized u may not be talking abt getting the footage onto a computer but how to import into FCP. I use premiere, im sure its just as simple as it is in premiere but i dont know where all the stuff is in FCP. Sorry.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
I mean the hard discs that you record your footage onto.

Does the cf card reader have a firewire port? I guess I should look that up...

I figured once imported, all footage is handled normally.


-- spinner :cool:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ah, gotcha!

Well, i cant help you there bc i have not been recording onto hard discs. Ive been recording right onto the CF card which goes inside the camera.

As for the readers, you can get them in both USB and firewire. The firewire ones cost a tonne more.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It's typical to use a card reader, but you can connect the camera directly to the computer (with USB2, not firewire).

Getting it onto your computer is the easy part. Just drag and drop. Your main problem is the video format. I work in CS5, which handles DSLR natively, but if memory serves me correctly, FCP requires transcoding? Any FCP/DSLR users wanna confirm/correct that?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ok, id heard about some ppl trying to use the hdmi out in the 7D to record directly from that. I never looked much into it bc it seemed pretty convoluted. I thought perhaps they had a figured a way out and thats what u were going for.

So back to the normal world. You are recording onto the CF card which goes inside ur camera. You can do two things to get the footage into ur computer.

1. Attach the cable, which came with ur camera, into the body and the other end into the computer and simply copy the files off.

2. Remove the CF card from the body, insert it into a CF card reader and remove them thru there.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Okay...

I have USB cables. Must I now buy USB2 cables :huh:

So the footage doesn't have to be "converted or formatted"? I don't know if that is the right terminology. It would seem to me that once the files are copied to my iMac or external hard drive, I should be able to start editing.

Am I right about that?


-- spinner :cool:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
spinner said:
Okay...

I have USB cables. Must I now buy USB2 cables :huh:

So the footage doesn't have to be "converted or formatted"? I don't know if that is the right terminology. It would seem to me that once the files are copied to my iMac or external hard drive, I should be able to start editing.

Am I right about that?


-- spinner :cool:
Click to expand...

"converted or formatted" = transcoded

Again, I'm pretty sure (but would appreciate confirmation from a Mac-head) that you do need to transcode your DSLR footage, in order to edit in FCP. I believe the popular choice is cineform neoscene.

The camera comes with the cable that you need. Does your computer have a USB2 port? That's the more important question (it very likely does).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I am assuming it does considering the computer is only 5 months old, with 4 USB ports an' other stuff :D

I know I may have a friend who can walk me through "transcoding" the footage, but do you know a good place where I can read how to do it? Or is it brief enough for someone to tell me here?

(...by the way, as it stands now, I might be shooting on my DVX and not the 5D or 7D. It's a long story......)


-- spinner :cool:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It looks like ur good to go.

Like CF said, the camera comes with the cable u need. So no need to go and buy any cables. Just attach it to ur pc and copy the files from ur camera.

Im not a mac user so the following may be incorrect but i believe ppl convert it to prores 422 before editing it in the fcp timeline. im not sure but i think u can do that in fcp itself or in compressor or something. Sorry, i cant be more specific, pc and premiere user here.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I am still looking around.

Randy's link was helpful. Can I assume that the same is true for Final Cut Pro? Are the issues with converting to ProRes the same for FCP?

(I have to go to work, but I'll be back soon. This has to be resolved by Thursday night)

Any other tips, guys?

-- spinner :cool:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
...Uh, remember when I said:

spinner said:
(...by the way, as it stands now, I might be shooting on my DVX and not the 5D or 7D. It's a long story......)
Click to expand...

Well, that's what happened. The 7D was not secured and we are using my DVX, which is fine. We're shooting in 24p
and shot the first scene today (Friday).

However, I just realized something:

Since I had been editing with my PowerBook, I had been using a I/EEEE card so that I could put all the footage on my external hard drive. Now that I have a iMac I am wondering the best way to do that. There is no I/EEEE card slot. So I figured I should connect my external to my iMac, connect my camera (a secondary, not the DVX) to the iMac and import the footage to my external in that way.

Does that sound about right? This will be the first project edited on my iMac so I would like to make sure I am doing what I want to do in the best possible way without loading up my internal hard drive.

Is there a better way of doing this or am I heading in the right direction? We are no where near ready to edit, but I want to get started importing.

-- spinner :cool:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I edit with an iMac. I import all my footage from my HDV camera via FireWire to an external hard drive that is also attached to the iMac via FireWire. Just plug the camera in, turn it on in playback mode, open your capture software, and capture the footage. You just tell your capture software what drive to use to store the captured footage. I capture with Final Cut Pro 6. Very simple.

Note that newer iMacs use FW800 instead of the older FW400 (which is what most video cameras use). So, you'll need a FW800-to-FW400 adapter cable. You can get these from many places, like Monoprice.com.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks, Voodoogmr :)

I was hoping I was going in the right direction And I would've thanked you earlier, but I was on the shoot I was asking info for.

I am tired and we have 4 more days to go, but we had two good days of shoots (fri-sat) and the productions are going quite well, knock on wood.


-- spinner :cool:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top