How to Import and Edit DJI Phantom 4 4K with FCP X?

As the sexiest Drone that DJI ever designed, the Phantom 4 shoot sharp, clean video in up to 4K at 30fps and Full HD 1080p at 120fps for slow motion through a newly designed lens that dramatically increases sharpness.

DJI Phantom 4

For Mac users, before sharing the recorded video footage with friends or family members on computer, smartphone, tablet, TV or video sharing sites like YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Facebook, etc, you can do some professional video editing work with Apple's professional video editing app - Final Cut Pro X. However, one of the big issue you care about is whether FCP X has native editing support for DJI Phantom 4 4K video?

Work DJI Phantom 4 4K video in FCP X

Since the DJI Phantom 4 shoot DCI 4K (4096 X 2160) video and UHD 4K (3480 X 2160) videocompressed with MPEG-4 AVC/H.264. Final Cut Pro X has officially claimed its perfect support for 4K video. However, if you are desiring to edit H.264 codec directly with FCP X, the output video quality won't be good.

Although Final Cut Pro X can import H.264 codec with no problem, however, you will start to lose image quality as you do color correction or composite gradients to create greenscreen keys.The main reason is that H.264 is an outstanding distribution format, but it is not a good editing format.

Wrap DJI Phantom 4K H.264 to Prores for FCP X

To get a fast and fluid workflow of DJI Phantom 4K H.264 with FCP X, the best solution is transcoding H.264 to a high-bit rate format like Prores - which provides high performance and high quality editing workflow in FCP X, so that you can render faster and have more room and also create great looking effects without losing any quality.

To generate Prores Codec from H.264 codec, a workable and professional tool called Pavtube HD Video Converter for Mac(support Mac OS X El Capitan) is recommended to you. With the program, you can easily transcode DJI Phantom 4 4K H.264 to FCP X best editing formats - Apple Prores codec in different file types, you can choose proper Prores format by the following standards:
If you computer is old or slow, or you just want to do some rough editing, you can select to output "Apple Prores Proxy)(*.mov)"or "Apple Prores (LT)(*.mov)"format to save more space and bandwidth. However, if your computer are powerful enough to handle multicam and high-resolution video and you are going to do many effects editing work with FCP X, you'd better choose to output "Apple Prores 422(*.mov)"or "Apple Prores 422(HQ)(*.mov)"for better performance.

Arrange and merge separate video into one

Want to join all separate video into onewith correct order? Just click the up and down arrow under the file displaying list on the main interface to arrange all the separate video footage with the correct order, then check "Merge into one file"option to join them into one single file.

How to Import and Edit DJI Phantom 4 4K Video with FCP X on Mac El Capitan?

Step 1: Transfer DJI Phantom 4 4K video to Mac computer.
The DJI Phantom 4 records footage on an SD card, you can remove the SD card from the camera, insert the SD card to a card reader, then plug in the card reader into your Mac computer SD card Port for transferring the video footage to your Mac local hard drive.

Step 2: Import DJI Phantom 4 4K videos.
From "File"drop-down option, select "add Video/Audio"to add source DJI Phantom 4 4K video files to the program.

Import DJI Phantom 4 4K video

Step 2: Select output file format.
Click "Format"bar, from its drop-down list, select your desired Prores format such as "Final Cut Pro" > "Apple Prores 422(*.mov)", you can also choose other prores formats on your own needs.

Merge into one file

Step 3: Merge into one file.
On the main video displaying window, click the up and down arrow to rearrange the file order according to your own needs. Then check "Merge into one file"option to join all the separate videos into one.

Merge into one file

Step 4: Convert DJI Phantom 4 4K video to Apple Prores format.
Go back to the main interface and press the "Convert"icon on the right-bottom to start DJI Phantom 4 4K video to Final Cut Pro Apple Prores process.
When the conversion is done, feel free to import converted video to FCP X for furthering professional editing.

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