Down converting mxf HD to SD in a format usable in Pinnacle

[Josh J]

Hello Editors

I have been having all sorts of trouble trying to convert my 1080 25p 16:9.mxf (DVCPRO DH shot with Panasonic HVX200) files into standard def .avi files or something similar that can be used on Pinnacle Studio 9 and aso takes up a lot less hard drive space than the HD files.

I have thousands of clips to convert and so have been trying the method whereby you right click the clips in the bin and convert to a watch folder that Procoder then converts again into something usable but the outputted files are either too big or the aspect ratio goes all to pot with squashing and cropping and black bars where ther should be none.

It seems like this should be a pretty easy thing to do, can someone help please.

Many thanks
Josh

[THoff]

I just did that with V4.51c -- I right-clicked on an MXF file in the bin, and asked Edius to save the file as a "Canopus HQ High Quality SD downconvert" AVI file.

This created an anamorphic AVI file that plays just fine and in 16:9 format in Windows Media Player..

If you want to work with these files on a system that doesn't have Edius or Procoder installed, log into the Canopus tech support site and download the "Canopus Playback Codec Pack" from the "General Utilities" section, this includes a decode-only version of the Canopus HQ codec.

[Josh J]

Thanks THoff

I am downloading 4.51 at the moment and will give it a go when it's done.

Pinnacle is on this same machine but it doesn't like most files that Edius spits out. I know it is strange to use that program when i have Edius installed but it is the only program I have found that allows you to make stills and it numbers them sequentially based on the first number you give. It saves an awful lot of time when making 1000 or so stills that have the same clip name (a number) at the source clip. - is there a way to do that in Edius? Say call the first still 15899, then make it automatically name the next one 15900 and so on?

Thanks again for your help.

[THoff]

I don't know if that is possible, I've never seen any setting that lets you control the name that is generated for the still image.

You aren't trying to export ALL frames as separate images, are you? Because that's easily done.

[Josh J]

No, I am selecting a still that is indicative of the clip which I save in the the database I use to catalog my footage. My database program finds the still based on the name of the clip I am cataloging which is why it needs the same name.