[ This article was first published in the January, 2011, issue of
Larry’s Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. ]
Sara Hoopes asks:
I’ve been shooting a lot with the GoPro camera and have yet to figure out a format that FCP likes from these cameras. They shoot 1080 Mpeg-4 but if I am lucky enough to get them to import the files, they quickly give me errors and red canvas windows, etc. I can’t get it to even import the clips shot at 60fps at all.
Can you tell me what I should be converting these to before importing them into FCP?
Larry replies: Sara, thanks for asking.
Convert them to ProRes 422 using either Compressor or MPEG Streamclip.
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3 Responses to Converting GoPro Video
Been a longtime fan/follower and fellow teacher (I teach audio production and Pro Tools at Art Institute, San Diego).
I recently added the GoPro Hero 2 to my bag of tricks and loving it. Trying to fine tune my workflow and minimize redundant hard disk usage. It seems that FCP X will import footage directly from the camera/card and as long as I choose “create proxy media”, the footage works fine. Am I right? Found an old inquiry on your site (January, 2011) that suggested converting the clips to ProRes 422 first. Any help?
Does this answer still stand since GoPro released CineForm Studio? It seems they have their own conversion to a specialized version of the codec as a built in part of the application.
ProRes is Final Cut Pro’s native format and is optimized for editing, especially with high frame rates like 60fps. You could convert your clips to ProRes 422, which will give you a high-quality, editable file.For conversion, you can use a tool like DumboFab Video Converter to adjust the codec and frame rate while conversion.