HomeImporting WMV into FCPX?
I need to import a WMV file into FCPX. Not possible (Apple shortsightedness). Okay, I need to convert the WMV into a FCPX-friendly format. A Google search brings up a ton of pay-for converters, but nothing free. What's a good converter for this task. If I need to buy something, I'd prefer to buy only one application rather than strike gold on the 3rd or 4th purchase.
What's is WMV file format and Why can't import WMV into FCP X?
A file with the WMV file extension is a Windows Media Video file, compressed with one or more of Microsoft's video compression formats, the WMV file use Microsoft's Advanced Systems Format (ASF) container format. As WMV is a proprietary format owned and patanted by Microsoft, you have to purchase a license on non-Windows system to open, view or edit this file format.
Import WMV files to FCP X
To load WMV files into FCP X, you will need a special program to transcode WMV to FCP X supported file formats listed as below:
Video formats: Apple Animation Codec, Apple Intermediate Codec, Apple Prores, AVCHD (including AVCCAM, AVCHD Lite and NXCAM), AVC-ULTRA (including AVC-LongG and AVC-Intra Class 50/100/200/4:4:4), DV (including DVCAM, DVCPRO and DVCPRO50), DVCPRO HD, H.264, HDV, iFrame, Motion JPEG (only OpenDML), MPEG IMX (D-10), QuickTime,REDCODE RAW (R3D), XAVC (including XAVC-S), XDCAM HD/EX/HD4222, XF-AVC
Container formats: 3GP, AVI, MOV (QuickTime), MP4, MTS/M2TS, MXF
Audio formats: AAC, AIFF, BWF, CAF, MP3, MP4, WAV
Although you can easily find a program to transcode WMV to one of FCP X supported codec or formats listed above, however, you may find that when you try to load some of the codec or format into FCP X, the post production is not that smooth. Some codec or format offers high quality but increase your burden for high performance hardware configuration and fast bandwidth speed, others files are highly compressed in small file size, but will also limit the full quality when native editing with FCP X.
To get a high quality and high performance post production workflow, it is ideal for you to encode WMV to Apple Prores codec for FCP X editing, which helps to maintain the highest quality and performance while requiring much less expensive editing and storage hardware. Here, you can easily generate Apple Prores codec from WMV files with Pavtube HD Video Converter for Mac (review), it can beneficially output WMV to FCP X best favorable Apple Prorec codec in various different file types, you can choose one suitable type according to your computer hardware configuration condition:
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.
Also wish to import other imcompatible file formats such as AVI, MP4, MKV, MOV, FLV, etc into FCP X for post editing workflow, never mind, you can easily make that with Mac Pavtube HD Video Converter.
Step by step to Convert WMV Files to Apple Prores for FCP X Best Editing Workflow
Step 1: Load WMV files into the program.
After transferring the WMV footage from the camera/camcorder to your Mac local drive, launch the program on your Mac computer, from "File" drop-down option, select "add Video/Audio" to add WMV files to the program.
Step 2: Select output file format.
Click "Format"bar, from its drop-down list, select one of FCP X supported file formats such as MOV QuickTime format under "Common Video" drop-down list.
For smooth post editing workflow, please output "Final Cut Pro"> "Apple Prores 422(*.mov)"as your desired output file formats for working with high performance computer, for slow computer, just choose "Apple Prores Proxy)(*.mov)"or "Apple Prores (LT)(*.mov)"format.
Step 3: Edit MOV video. (optional).
Check an item to active the "Video Editor" function, then click the pencil like icon on the top tool bar to open the "Video Editor" window, you can flip or roate video, trim video length, crop video black bars, add watermark, apply sepcial rendering effect, remove/replace audio in video, etc.
Step 4: Carry out the conversion process.
Go back to the main interface and press the right-bottom "Convert" icon on the right-bottom to start MOV to Final Cut Pro X Apple Prores codec encoding process.
When the conversion is done, you can easily import converted video to FCP X for furthering professional editing.
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