Archiving non XDCAM media on to XDCAM HD professional disc

The most satisfying element to writing a blog is receiving questions and feedback.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to contribute.

I received a question from Chris Sinclair here’s what he was asking:

I’ve shot HDV 1080i60i footage, as well as 5D Mark II h264 30p footage. I want to transcode my clips to archive as XDCAM HD footage. But there’s one problem: XDCAM Transfer only allows write-back of dual mono, not stereo, for my clips. Yes, I can output sequences as dual mono from FCP, but not individual clips, and I haven’t found a way in Compressor or FCP to export each of my clips with an audio setting that converts my stereo signal to dual mono signal. Any thoughts or solutions for a simple transcoding/archiving workflow…Thanks for these great tutorials!?

(especially thank you for the kind words)

So in simple terms, yes there are limitations to what you can currently backup on to XDCAM disc.

At the moment the best way - and quickest - would be to put all of the clips on an XDCAM
1080/60i 25Mbps (1440×1080) sequence with the audio set to Dual-Mono in FCP.

If you need to transcode your Canon 5DmkII footage then I’ve had great success with MPEG Streamclip which is available free from www.squared5.com

As for writing back individual clips to Professional Disc, I haven’t found a way to do it yet. (other than the FCP way which is long-winded)

I’m told that by August Sony will be releasing the write back on the PDW-U1 (for PC) in data mode which would mean you could store your clips as data files using the U1 as a low cost writer. In data mode you can use the professional disc as rugged 50GB data storage.

Mac as always takes a little longer and will hopefully be with us mac’ers by October.

-Den